There is an interesting article in the New York Times, Is this the West's Weimer moment? written by Jochen Bittner:

Some people today imagine that Hitler sneaked up on Germany, that too few people understood the threat. In fact, many mainstream politicians recognized the danger but they failed to stop him. Some didn’t want to: The conservative parties and the nobility believed the little hothead could serve as their useful idiot, that as chancellor he would be contained by a squad of reasonable ministers. Franz von Papen, a nobleman who was Hitler’s first vice chancellor, said of the new leader, “We’ve hired him.”

At the same time, even the imminent threat of a fascist dictatorship couldn’t persuade the left-wing parties to join forces. Instead of being conciliatory for the sake of the national interest, Ernst Thälmann, the head of the German Communist Party, branded the center-left Social Democrats the “moderate wing of fascism.” No wonder Hitler had an easy time uniting broad sections of the German public.

He goes on to say that while the differences between the 1930s and today are many, there are similarities, hitting the same emotional hot points and distrust of the failures of the liberal mainstream (his term - with which I do not agree). America has not had a liberal mainstream since LBJ and FDR. Every president since those times has edged ever further to the right, as economic and social changes inflict damage on some, while rewarding an ever smaller group of elites.

As one example of just one the causes of today's unrest, Bush's tax cuts were initially a symptom of right wing over-reach, but Obama's huge mistake in continuing those gifts to the elites, made things far worse. It entrenched those in power, it emboldened the Tea Buggered types to demand even more, and it made an unsteady economic fiasco that much harder to fix.

Programs that were once easy to support, roads, bridges, science, school, reproductive rights, - each one of these has been and remains under attack. Tax cuts are far more important.

Bittner does make a good argument in pointing out what a danger Trump represents. People repeatedly took little notice of him, other than to categorize him as a joke, a self-promoting die hard, and a jerk. While all those are true, he is also a very dangerous man, and if he wins the White House, the whole world would suffer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/opinion/is-this-the-wests-weimar-momen...

Unfortunately, the other side of the political aisle offers little or no relief.

Hillary is a liar, pure and simple. While such talents sometimes offer high ranking politicians some room to maneuver, it is how and when that she lies that is so unsettling. She has no need to do so, and still she does.

Even worse, the company she keeps is scary. Mother Jones just reported about a speech that Bill gave in 2015 to one of the worst vulture capitalist barons in the country.

On May 12, 2015, the private equity firm Apollo Global Management announced that it was unloading the remainder of its stake in Noranda Aluminum. Apollo had gained control of the Tennessee-based company in a 2007 leveraged buyout and had subsequently followed a familiar playbook in the cutthroat world of corporate takeovers: It saddled Noranda with the debt it had used to buy the company and then extracted large dividends. As Noranda struggled to stay solvent, Apollo eventually cashed out of the firm. In early 2016, the debt-riddled aluminum company declared bankruptcy, shut down its largest smelting plant in Missouri, and laid off hundreds of employees.

That same day in 2015 that Apollo disposed of its stake in Noranda, Bill Clinton pocketed $250,000 for a speech to one of its subsidiaries, Apollo Management Holdings.

The company declined to answer questions about Clinton's speech. It would not discuss the subject of his talk or any details about the event. A Clinton spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

The Apollo speech came a month after Hillary Clinton—who recently said her husband would be "in charge of revitalizing the economy" in her administration—formally declared her candidacy. Prior to launching her White House bid, Clinton had ditched the profitable speaking circuit. (She earned almost $22 million between April 2013 and March 2015, according to an analysis by CNN.) But the former president continued to deliver lucrative paid speeches until late 2015, banking about $3 million in payments just in the months that his wife had been running for president.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/bill-clinton-gave-six-figure...

Hillary's problems are just starting. They are actually getting worse. From India to London, from New York to LA, from Miami to Seattle, papers from all sides of the political scale have finally realized the impact of the IG's report. Everyone has realized that she not only lied to protect her fun and games with the Clinton Foundation as it profited from her moves as SexState, they also realize that she put the entire nation into unnecessary risk by sharing secrets with a snake named Sydney Blumenthal, taking his horrible advice on Libya and Syria, and allowing hacker boys and girls and children of all ages to hack her private mail server.

This doesn't just look bad, it stinks to high heaven.

Hillary and her team keep touting her long experience as a reason to elect her. Sadly for her, those experiences begin to seem tarnished and even ugly when you take a closer look at them.

Simply put, Trump poses a danger to the world. Hillary is incapable and unworthy to hold any political office.

This shituation sucks. Perhaps the only possible out is the FBI. Even the Chicago Tribune (which endorsed her) had something to say about that. Its headline today reads: Emailing it in: Team Clinton struggles to recover as the FBI primary looms

Now, Democrats are waking up to the possibility that they are the ones flirting madly with disaster. Hillary Clinton's flaws, once considered politically inconsequential, have been steadily magnified by campaign scrutiny and official investigations. Those flaws now loom bigger than Mount Rushmore. Last week's report by the inspector general of the State Department made clear that in relying exclusively on a private email server as secretary of state, she violated department policy, put security in danger and lied about what she had done.

It is a thoroughly damning document — all the more so because the inspector general who submitted it, Steve Linick, was appointed by President Barack Obama. Anyone groping to excuse Clinton's conduct eventually has to face the stark, infuriating fact: What she did served no purpose beyond letting her selfishly evade the rules and accountability demanded of everyone else. Her failure to cooperate with the inspector general's inquiry, at the department she led, iced the cupcake.

The gravity of Clinton's predicament, and its political implications, prompted campaign manager John Podesta to send a letter that attempts to placate her top supporters. While acknowledging that using a private server was a "mistake," he downplayed its significance. "We are confident that voters will look at the full picture of everything she has done throughout her career," Podesta wrote. What he didn't mention is that this episode only reinforces her reputation for evading transparency

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-president-...

Heh, when the political world seems to be falling apart, when both major candidates are fatally flawed? The answer is the FBI move for the indictment of Hillary? Yeah, it does make sense.