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I nominate the Jesuit substitute teacher from Chapter 22 of The Pale King.As evidence,I submit this amazing monologue spoken by him in an Advanced Tax class, which is really the central thesis of the book:“I wish to inform you that the accounting profession to which you aspire is, in fact, heroic. Please note that I have said “inform” and not “opine” or “allege” or “posit.” The truth is that what you soon go home to your carols and toddies and books and CPA examination preparation guides to stand on the cusp of is- heroism.Exacting? Prosaic? Banausic to the point of drudgery? Sometimes. Often tedious? Perhaps. But brave? Worthy? Fitting, sweet? Romantic? Chivalric? Heroic?Gentlemen- by which I mean, of course, latter adolescents who aspire to manhood- gentlemen, here is a truth: Enduring tedium over real time in a confined space is what real courage is. Such endurance is, as it happens, the distillate of what is, today, in this world neither I nor you have made, heroism. Heroism.By which I mean true heroism, not heroism as you might know it from films or tales of childhood. You are now nearly at childhood’s end; you are ready for the truth’s weight, to bear it. The truth is that the heroism of your childhood entertainments was not true valor. It was theater. The grand gesture, the moment of choice, the moral danger, the external foe, the climactic battle whose outcome resolves all- all design to appear heroic, to execute and gratify an audience. An audience. Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality- there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand? Here is the truth- actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested.True heroism is you, alone, in a designated work space. True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care- with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world. Just you and the job, at your desk. You and the return, you and the cash-flow data, you and the inventory protocol, you and the depreciation schedules, you and the numbers.True heroism is a priori incompatible with audience or applause or even the bare notice of the common run of man. In fact, the less conventionally heroic or exciting or adverting or even interesting or engaging a labor appears to be, the greater its potential as an arena for actual heroism, and therefor as a denomination of joy unequaled by any you men can yet imagine.To retain care and scrupulosity about each detail from within the teeming wormball of data and rule and exception and contingency which constitutes real-world accounting- this is heroism. To attend fully to the interests of the client and to balance those interests against the high ethical standards of the FASB and extant law- yea, to serve those who care not for service but only for results- this is heroism. This may be the first time you’ve heard the truth put plainly, starkly. Effacement. Sacrifice. Service. To give oneself to the care of others’ money- this is effacement, perdurance, sacrifice, honor, doughtiness, valor. Here this or not, as you will. Learn it now, or later- the world has time. Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui- these are the true hero’s enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real.Too much, you say? Cowboy, paladin, hero? Gentlemen, read your history. Yesterday’s hero pushed back at bounds and frontiers- he penetrated, tamed, hewed, shaped, made, brought things into being. Yesterday’s society’s heroes generated facts. For this is what society is-an agglomeration of facts. But it is now today’s era, the modern era. In today’s world, boundaries are fixed and most significant facts have been generated. Gentlemen, the heroic frontier now lies in the ordering and deployment of those facts. Classification, organization, presentation.To put it another way, the pie has been made- the contest is now in the slicing. Gentlemen, you aspire to hold the knife. Wield it. To admeasure. To shape each given slice, the knife’s angle and depth of cut. A baker wears a hat, but it is not our hat. Gentlemen, prepare to wear the hat. You have wondered, perhaps, why all real accountants wear hats? They are today’s cowboys. As will you be. Riding the American range. Riding herd on the unending torrent of financial data. The eddies, cataracts, arranged variations, fractious minutiae. You order the data, shepherd it, direct its flow, lead it where it’s needed, in the codified form in which it’s apposite. You deal in facts gentlemen, for which there has been a market since man first crept from the primeval slurry. It is you- tell them that. Who ride, man the walls, define the pie. Gentlemen, you are called to account.”

Fredericksburg is a candidate, as others have pointed out, although I would not vote for it. Burnside managed to do something in that campaign that few were able to do; steal a march on Robert E. Lee. Had the army provided him with the pontoon boats he requested promptly, it's likely Burnside would have been over the Rappahannock before Lee could have contested such a move.Burnside's great flaw was his inability to adapt to changing circumstances. Once Lee had arrived in force opposite Fredericksburg, Burnside should have made the conclusion that a crossing there was out of the question. Obviously, he did not do that, and his army paid the price.Franklin, too, could easily win this dubious distinction. It, too, does not get my vote, however. Hood's plan in that campaign was exorbitantly stupid to begin with. By leaving Georgia and invading Tennessee (a state that was irrevocably lost to the Confederacy by that point), he opened the way for Sherman to march through Georgia. His conduct in Tennessee was the same as it had been in Georgia; too much aggression, too little logic. The end result was Hood's throwing the Army of Tennessee against fortified positions and bleeding it white.Franklin and Fredericksburg are candidates, but my vote pretty easily goes to...The Battle of the Crater.There is precisely one part of that entire fiasco that deserves applause, and that is the novel idea presented by the intrepid Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and the diligent and ingenious work done by his men in pursuance of that idea. Literally no one else comes out of the debacle looking even remotely competent, and I include Ulysses S. Grant and George Meade in that conclusion.The backstory, for those interested. The Battle of the Crater was fought on July 30, 1864 along the trench lines outside of Petersburg, Virginia. Nearly six weeks had transpired since the Army of the Potomac had become bogged down in a grand siege outside that strategically vital town, located some miles south of Richmond and containing the last uncut rail line into the Confederate capital.Ulysses S. Grant, in command of all Federal armies but traveling with the Army of the Potomac, was looking for ways to break the stalemate. His primary objective was to sever the rail lines coming through Petersburg, which were the chief supply lines for Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. To that effect, most of his efforts were made on the left end of the Federal lines, working to extend them to the west to completely encircle the city. Through the last six weeks, those efforts had met with mixed results.In late June, Lt. Col. Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania approached his corps commander, Major General Ambrose Burnside, about the possibility that his men, mostly anthracite coal miners from western Pennsylvania, could dig a mine under the Rebel lines and detonate it will gunpowder, thus creating a gap that the army could exploit. Burnside eagerly supported this idea, and took it to his superiors, Meade and Grant. Both of the latter were lukewarm on the idea, thinking it not likely to work as intended. But, given the fact that they needed to do something to break this siege and that operations on the left were not going as well as they hoped, they gave a tepid thumbs up to the plan.And that was about all the gave to the effort. Burnside supervised the operation eagerly, but he was given virtually zero resources by the Army to dig the mine. Everything that Pleasants and his men needed to build it, from shovels, to bags for the dirt, to wooden props, and everything else, needed to be either scrounged from the rear areas of the army or purchased with their own money. Despite this total lack of support, the men of the 48th pressed on against the elements, the lack of needed supplies, and the ground, which proved to be difficult. After almost a month of grueling labor, the mine had been dug, Pleasants had calculated its position underneath the Rebel works, and barrels of gunpowder were backed into galleries at the far end.While the mine was being dug by the 48th, Burnside had been training a division of troops for the assault that would go in immediately following detonation. This was a new division in his Corps, and was entirely composed of black troops, known then as United States Colored Troops. As these men had not been subjected to the bloodletting of the Overland Campaign, they were selected to lead the assault. Much of their instruction was related to attacking around the edges of the hole that would be blown into the earth by the mine.By late July, things were ready to begin the operation. When Burnside reported his final version of the plan to Meade, including who he had selected for the assault, Meade made probably the most fateful decision of the whole ordeal. He ordered Burnside to sideline the division of U.S. Colored Troops tasked with leading the assault, and to replace them with one of his three white divisions. No reasons were offered as to why Meade ordered this. It could have been base racism in the form of Meade's doubt that the black men of that division could do the job, but in the wake of the tragedy, Meade claimed it was because he did not want there to be accusations of throwing away the lives of black men in a futile assault, in the event things went badly. At that time, there were also fears that Confederates might not take black soldiers prisoner, but would either kill them or press them back into slavery. At this late date, we can't really know Meade's reasoning on the matter. But what we do know is that it had an enormous affect on the course of the operation.For one thing, it took the wind out of Burnside's sails. Heretofore he had been an eager supporter of the plan, but when Meade changed that plan at the last minute, he was deflated. The second great error of the operation was Burnside's inability to collect himself after the disappointment, and make the best of a less than ideal situation. Instead of that, Burnside sulked and lapsed into indecision. He had three divisions of white troops in his Corps to choose from; the obvious choice was the one with the best troops and the most competent commander. Instead of doing that, Burnside left the critical choice of who would lead the attack to chance. He assembled the three commanders of his white divisions, Brigadier Generals Orlando H. Willcox, Robert B. Potter, and James H. Ledlie, and had them pull straws to determine whose division would lead the assault.Chance, as it happened, chose the worst of the lot. James Ledlie was a relatively new division commander within the Army of the Potomac, and already at this point he suffered from a poor reputation. He was known for being a heavy drinker, and accusations of drunkenness in combat were swirling around him. Burnside could obviously have overruled the selection he had left to chance, but he did not. He was content in letting chance make that decision for him, to disastrous consequences.Several hours later, at dawn on the 30th of July, 1864, the men of the 48th Pennsylvania unspooled a long fuse from the gallery at the back of the mine to its entrance, some hundreds of yards away. The fuse was lit, and a period of tense waiting began. Minutes passed, and nothing. Pleasants ordered a Sergeant down the tunnel to investigate. Given that unenviable task, the Sergeant entered the mine and discovered that the fuse, which had had to be tied together from multiple fuses, had come untied in one or two places. He retied the fuses, and relit them, and made a hasty exit.This time, it worked. The men present recalled a deep roar coming from the earth, followed by an enormous eruption of dark clouds of gunpowder smoke, dirt, and debris. Pleasants had sighted the mine impeccably; it detonated right underneath a small salient in the Confederate line and achieved complete surprise. Several hundred Rebels were killed in the explosion, and the survivors stupefied and sent fleeing for the rear. The gap had been made.And that's when things started to go wrong. So very, very wrong. First, Ledlie's men got off to a late start, allowing precious minutes to go by after the detonation. Once they finally got moving, Ledlie's men made the same mistake that the men of Burnside's USCT division had been trained specifically not to. They attacked right into the crater made by the mine's detonation. Even though initial resistance was light, the men of Ledlie's division packed into the Crater and soon became inextricably tangled up. The far lip of the Crater was too steep and slick for the men to climb, so the men who went in first realized too late that they could not ascend it. When they tried to turn about and exit the Crater, they found that the dense formation the assault wave had gone in with prevented this. They were packed in like sardines, and would need time and a guiding hand to get themselves out.They had neither. Ledlie gave truth to the rumors about himself. He remained behind in Union lines, leaving his Brigade commanders to coordinate and conduct the assault. Meanwhile, he essentially hid in a bombproof shelter helping himself to whatever whiskey and hard liquor he could find. When orderlies were sent back to try and find him, they either could not, or found him to be too inebriated to be of any help. And as for time, Confederate Major General William Mahone was not providing the Yankees with much of that.Mahone was the division commander in the sector where the mine detonated. He was as shocked by the explosion as any of his men, but he very swiftly regained his composure and immediately began marshalling reinforcements to shore up the area. Within 30 minutes of the mine exploding, he was sending every man he could scrounge to the area around the Crater.His efforts paid off. Confederates soon ringed three sides of the Crater and unleashed a torrent of fire into the dense mass of Federals trapped inside it. Burnside sent in reinforcements to support Ledlie's troops, including the USCT division that had originally been tapped to lead the attack, but the situation was irreversible and all those men served to do was pad the already considerable casualty roll.By mid-morning, it was clear to everyone that the operation had failed. Meade called off the assault and cancelled further planned supporting attacks elsewhere. The butcher's bill, when it was finally calculated, amounted to nearly 4,000 men of the 8,500 who were sent in. It was a debacle by anyone's definition. Ulysses S. Grant, in his memoirs, referred to the Battle of the Crater as "the saddest affair I witnessed during the War."The Crater began with great promise. Pleasants had a low-risk, high-reward idea that he followed up on energetically. His men expended great effort and displayed commendable expertise in making his idea a reality. Burnside, initially at least, was a supportive commander and did his part in selecting and training a force for the assault.But in spite of all of that, the end result was catastrophe. Meade and Grant gave the green light to the operation in spite of their misgivings, and then went on to completely ignore and fail to support the mine digging operations. Once the day of the assault arrived, Meade made the stupendously bad decision to change the order of battle for completely non-military reasons. Burnside, to his eternal discredit, at that point checked out of the operation. He left a critical decision to chance, and when chance selected the worst of his division commanders, he allowed it to stand. Ledlie utterly failed to direct his men in the assault, his men went into battle leaderless and without direction, and energetic Confederate leadership controlled the breakthrough and sealed it off effectively. Finally, thousands of men paid the ultimate price for this catalogue of mistakes, and absolutely no strategic benefit was gained by it.The dumbest loss of the Civil War, without a doubt in my mind.

The prospect of a Trump presidency scares the living crap out of me.Here’s why.First, I have to say that I don’t believe that Trump would intentionally, or willingly attempt to damage the country.And the argument has been made that it would be very difficult for him to unilaterally make the changes he talks about. Congress, the rule of law, and maybe even public opinion would keep him reined in. After all, running a country isn’t like running a business where you have 100% control.As Truman was leaving office to make way for the Eisenhower presidency, he was asked what he thought of the new president. Truman’s reply was that he felt sorry for him. When asked why, Truman said something like ‘well, he’ll try to give orders and nothing will happen, and he won’t know why’.Maybe it would be similar for Trump. But then again, maybe not.Consider this. What Trump is trying to do, and the tactics he’s using, have been tried successfully before, in the 1930’s, also a time of financial distress and political instability.The first part of the following material is my edited (for brevity and to add comparisons to Trump) version of a NYTs book review by Michiko Kakutani of the recently released book ‘Hitler’ by Volker Ullrich.Here’s a link to the orginal book review: In ‘Hitler,’ an Ascent From ‘Dunderhead’ to DemagogueIn 1930, a prominent magazine editor described a new actor on the political scene as a "half-insane rascal," a "pathetic dunderhead," a "nowhere fool," and a "big mouth". That person, Adolf Hitler, using strategies very much like Trump’s, eventually rose to power and the world was changed forever. Here’s how he did it.Hitler, very much like Trump, was often described as an egomaniac who "only loved himself' — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and a 'characteristic fondness for superlatives." His manic speeches raised questions about his capacity for self-control. But he was shrewd as a politician and had a keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of others and an ability to exploit situations.Hitler, like Trump, was known, among colleagues, to have little regard for the truth. He would later use slick propaganda employing the latest technology (radio, gramophone records, film) to spread his message. Trump’s propaganda weapons of choice are Twitter, Fox News and Breitbart.A former finance minister wrote that Hitler "was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth" and editors of one edition of ‘Mein Kampf’ described it as a "swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts" – which pretty much sums up Trump’s campaign.Hitler was an effective orator and actor, adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences. He concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a "mask of moderation" when trying to win the support of the socially liberal middle classes (similar to what Trump is trying to do now with Blacks and Hispanics). Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist- conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic (or in Trump’s case racist) audience. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds' fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order. Sound familiar?Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms (or in Trump’s case “Only I can save America”, and “I have the right temperament, I know how to win”), promising "to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness," though he was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country and painted a dark picture of the present day saying that everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay. Once again, sound familiar?There are many similarities between 1930’s Germany and America over the past 15 years. In 1930’s Germany, in addition to economic woes and unemployment, there was an erosion of the political center and a growing resentment of the elites. The unwillingness of Germany's political parties to compromise had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction and the belief by Hitler supporters that the country needed "a man of iron" who could shake things up. "Why not give the National Socialists a chance?" a prominent banker said of the Nazis. "They seem pretty gutsy to me." Eerily reminiscent of what’s happening right now.And finally, even after it became obvious that Hitler was consolidating power, his allies and supporters didn’t take his more outrageous statements seriously. Some critics underestimated the man and his popularity, while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating "evening's entertainment." Politicians, for their part, suffered from the delusion that the dominance of traditional conservatives in the cabinet would neutralize the threat of Nazi abuse of power and "fence Hitler in." His conservative coalition partners believed either that he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence on him. In any case, they were severely mistaken.Hitler, it turned out, could not be tamed — he needed only five months to consolidate absolute power after becoming chancellor. Non-National Socialist German states were brought into line with pressure from the party grass roots combined effectively with pseudo-legal measures ordered by the Reich government. Many Germans jumped on the Nazi bandwagon not out of political conviction but in hopes of improving their career opportunities, while fear kept others from speaking out against the persecution of the Jews. The independent press was banned or suppressed and books deemed "un-German" were burned. By March 1933, Hitler had made it clear that his government was going to do away with all norms of separation of powers and the rule of law.Trump police state anyone? If it comes to that it will certainly be the most Trumpian of police states - ‘the hugest, the best, the most effective’ - police state the world has ever seen.If Trump wins, he will almost certainly sweep in a Republican house and senate as well, both of which would be heavily salted with Tea Party conservatives, his far right political base, who will want to hold Trump to his promises, and with no effective political opposition to keep them in check.Trump has a thin skin and proven deep seated psychological need to hold grudges and seek revenge, against anyone, including foreigners and foreign governments. He’s the type of man that believes it’s OK to violate international law by blowing one or two Iranian boats out of the water to send a message. He’s convinced that this provocation wouldn’t start a war. He’s clearly stated his position on using torture against enemies of the state. He wonders why, if we have nuclear weapons, we don’t use them. He thinks it’s OK for more countries to have nuclear weapons, and if the middle east, or the Korean peninsula were to disappear under a mushroom cloud well, just maybe, in Trump’s eyes, the world would be a better place.Trump, who admits he’s not a reader (he pays other people to do that for him), and who gets his information from popular TV shows, and who Hillary aptly described by saying “I know you live in your own reality”, has what can only be kindly described as a casual relationship with the truth, saying whatever the audience in front of him wants to hear. Whatever will get him praise and adulation. He claims to have won the first presidential debate because viewership numbers were the highest for any presidential debate in history.As the ghost writer of his book “The Art of the Deal” has said, Trump has a remarkable capacity to absolutely believe that whatever he’s saying at the time is the truth, or is mostly the truth, or really should be the truth.Honestly, I think his ‘truth’ is whatever it needs to be at that point in time. And technically he's not really lying. Lying implies you know you're telling a falsehood. In Trump's case I think he actually believes the ‘pseudo-fact du jour’ that he's peddling at the time, no matter that it’s fantasy, or 180 degrees from earlier Trump pronouncements.And his policy positions are unsupportable.He rails against the country’s debt, yet would further increase it by massively cutting taxes while at the same time massively increasing spending on the military (the world’s largest by far) and police.He wants to stiff America’s allies and abrogate our treaties.Trump claims that Hillary is unfit to be president because of Bill’s infidelities (BTW, Bill isn’t running for president), while Trump himself is the poster child of failed marriages and marital infidelity.And then there’s the wall.I don’t think Trump is quite as delusional as Hitler was, or would go to the horrific extremes that Hitler eventually did.And the 1930’s fascists had territorial ambitions and grudges that Trump doesn’t have. Trump’s motivations appear to be more racist and xenophobic.But, still… global war because of a Trump presidency is a very real possibility, and it’s not too far fetched to see Trump building concentration camps, suspending civil liberties, forcing Muslims to register and wear crescent moon armbands, and polluting the populace with deep paranoia.I’m a naturalized American citizen. I immigrated to the U.S. partly for economic reasons (better career prospects) and partly because I admired U.S. rule of law, separation of church and State, equality of everyone under the law, regardless of race, religion, age or gender, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, a welcoming attitude to immigrants and the moral high ground of rejecting torture and corruption. To me, these are the things that make America great.But Donald Trump doesn’t have much respect for moral high ground, he supports using torture.He doesn’t seem to have much respect for the rule of law. He wants to get rid of judges who he thinks might be biased because of their ethnicity. Heck, he even wants to get rid of any judges whose rulings he disagrees with. And he appears to want to twist the judiciary into persecuting his political enemies.His stance on religious freedom isn’t much better. He wants to apply religious tests to immigrants and it’s now become clear that he has no respect for women either.Freedom of the press? He wants to censure news organizations that are critical of him.Welcoming immigrants? Let’s not forget that wall.In my mind, Donald Trump stands for all those things that make America not so great.In his final days, when it was clear that the war was lost, Hitler retreated into his bunker surrounded by loyal supporters, and as the ship went down he blamed everyone but himself. One of the final things that he wrote was that he had been betrayed by his generals.As I write this, there are only three more weeks to election day and Trump’s campaign is imploding. He descends deeper down a personal rabbit hole that takes him further into a Trumpian Wonderland of rigged elections; allegations that Hillary uses some sort of stimulant drugs (amphetamines?) to boost her debate performance (after all, how else could he possibly lose to a weak woman); and many other bizarre and delusional conspiracy theories, many of them revolving around what he believes is a corrupt press out to get him.His advisers are imploring him to stick to the issues, stay on script, stop denigrating women. But he just can’t do it. He must lash out at his detractors like a wounded animal, no matter how self-destructive that is.I just don’t believe that if he became president others would be able to control him.The prospect of a war started by Trump is all too real. Maybe not intentionally, but because, through a combination of bravado and ignorance, he puts himself into a position he can’t back down from. And instead of impeaching him for pushing the country onto the brink of WWIII, I fear that the presumably Republican dominated congress will feel the need to ‘protect America’s honor’ by standing up to perceived foreign sleights and he’ll be further pushed into war by his far right constituency.This is why the possibility of ‘The Donald’ getting elected, implying that in that case more than half the country would support him, scares the living crap out of me.“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” - George SantayanaUPDATEIt’s been pointed out in one comment that although what I say about Trump may have been well thought out, I neglect to address Hillary’s short comings, and wonders if Hillary isn’t just as deceitful as Trump.I agree that Hillary isn’t perfect, but when it comes to spreading falsehoods Clinton isn’t even in the same league as Trump.Please take a look at this link: Comparing Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump on the Truth-O-MeterHillary’s statements are rated True, Mostly True, or Half True, 73% of the time. Trump scores 29% in this same category.Conversely, Trump, who is often in error but never in doubt, scores 71% on statements that are rated Mostly False, False, or Pants on Fire. Hillary rates 27% in the same false category.Here’s another fact check from a different source, which comes up with a similar conclusion:Fact-checking the ‘final arguments’ of Trump and ClintonBut like I said in my original post, technically, Trump probably isn’t lying. He actually believes what he’s saying. It’s just that what he’s saying is, according to independent, non-partisan, fact checkers, just flat out wrong.However, as many other answers to this question have pointed out, the real tragedy here is that so many others believe these false ‘facts’ as well, and the Trump campaign, backed by Hannity and his ilk, serves as a powerful engine to perpetuate these myths.Someone I respect once coached me in my business career by pointing out that ‘perception is reality’. In other words, peoples perceptions are their reality. Understanding this basic psychological truth is important to understanding the social world around us.Trump’s great genius is that he has been able to tap into the perceptions of a great many Americans that result in fear and paranoia. He’s able to feed off of their view of ‘reality’.UPDATE #2 - to address some commentsSome people feel that the comparison to Hitler is unwarranted and demeans the many honest, intelligent and hard working Trump supporters.Please understand that my intent was not to associate Trump supporters with Hitler. I believe that a great many honest, intelligent and hard working Germans in the early 30’s truly believed that Hitler could get Germany out of the mess that they were in at the time.Note that fascism was not the dirty word in the 30s that it became later. The fascists promised to make the trains run on time, to get everyone back to work, to fight against the scourge of communism (and eliminate labor unions BTW), and many other popular policies at the time.(In fact the first people that Hitler went after once he had achieved absolute power were the communists, not the Jews.)And many prominent non-Germans of the time admired what the National Socialists were doing, including King Edward VIII (who abdicated his throne to marry Wallace Simpson), Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and Joseph P. Kennedy, who was ambassador to Great Britain at the time.And for a while, it worked! They had no reason to believe that Hitler would eventually turn out to be the monster he became.What I tried to do was an exercise in critical thinking based on objective facts, by comparing the social, economic and political conditions in early 1930s Germany to those in the U.S. (much of Europe as well) over the past 10 years, and to point out the similarities between Hitler’s personality and political tactics to Trump’s.I also pointed out key differences between Hitler and Trump, one of the main ones being that Hitler had territorial grudges and ambitions and was secretly planning war from the beginning. I don’t believe that’s the case with Trump.Also, please see Joe Beckmann’s excellent comment on this point.Others say that any comparison to Hitler is so far beyond the pale that it trivializes the eventual genocide perpetrated by Hitler; that nothing compares to Hitler and it’s shameful to compare anyone, much less an American politician to Hitler.I have respect for this point of view, but I also strongly disagree with it.To me, ignoring history by burying our collective heads in the sand is a mistake, and is akin to the so-called sins of political correctness that Trump supporters claim apologists for Islam and immigrants are making.And further, I restrict my comparison to pre-war Germany, and to a time when no one knew what Hitler would eventually become.What’s important here is the prevailing views of the times and how such thinking can lead to horrible consequences.I don’t know what Trump would do if elected, and I don’t believe he would become the genocidal monster Hitler became.But I do believe there’s enough evidence in his past behavior and in his current rhetoric to believe that he shares the same authoritarian leanings that Hitler did, and if he were to be stymied in his attempts to achieve his policy goals, he would then attempt extra judicial means to achieve them.And with the support of a presumably strong right wing congress (I don’t even want to call them Republican, because for Trump supporters, the meaning of that word no longer applies), and a SCOTUS where Trump appointees hold the balance, who would be able to stop him?(Think George W Bush and the Patriot Act, phone tapping, etc. etc., but on steroids.)IMHO, we ignore the comparison to 1930s fascism at our peril.To those of you who believe Hillary lied about Benghazi, please support your allegations with verified facts, from credible non-partisan sources, because I can’t find credible evidence to back this up, and neither can a great many other Quorans.Did Hillary Clinton lie about Benghazi?Some have said that Trump’s untruthfulness is forgivable because he’s a private citizen, while Hillary’s alleged untruth’s are more egregious because they were made while she was a public servant.Please note that the PolitiFact Truth-O-Meter referenced in my first update refers to statements made by both Trump and Hillary during the course of the their campaigns, as they both try to convince the American people they are the best choice for the job.Is it really OK to misrepresent the truth to manipulate the populace into voting you into office? Isn’t that exactly what the right wing is accusing Hillary of regarding her Statements about Benghazi? That she tried to alter the facts to help out the Obama administration in the upcoming election?As Hillary said in defense of her statements in the days following the Benghazi incident, the situation was very chaotic; the video was a factor all around the Middle East, as well as in North Africa and parts of Asia; intelligence agencies were confused, and the full truth didn’t come out till weeks later.But never mind that. Let’s give her detractors the benefit of the doubt and assume that she was intentionally less than forthcoming publicly about what she knew privately. In that case, what do you believe was the ultimate harm to America? After all, even her fiercest partisan attackers admit that the actual attack and resulting deaths were not her fault.So, is that one instance of Hillary’s alleged sin of omission (still not proven beyond reasonable doubt) really worse than the torrent of misleading or flat out false statements coming out of Trump’s mouth, as he attempts to manipulate the American electorate into believing that Hillary is the dishonest one, not him.I will admit that many of his falsehoods are due to ignorance. He appears to be unable to distinguish between fact and fiction. But not all. He knows exactly how he’s treated women (now 11 ‘she saids’, to his one ‘he said’).And his ignorance of the facts isn’t forgivable. Do you really want a president making policy decisions based on a grossly distorted view of reality? IMO, such a president would do irreparable harm to America if he were to be elected and then based his policies on these false assumptions.Be honest.And finally, some have stated that my observations on Trump’s personality is pure opinion based conjecture, not supported by the facts.I beg to differ.I will be the first to agree that I am not qualified to make a clinical diagnosis of a personality disorder, and even if I was, it would be unethical to make a diagnosis without having done a clinical examination of the subject.However, that doesn’t preclude someone from stating that someone else’s personality exhibits certain traits based on observed behavior. We do this all the time, in our personal lives and in the workplace.So, I will state now that Trump’s personality exhibits narcissist and authoritarian traits based on observed behavior. Here are the factual observations supporting my claims:Regarding authoritarian behavior, Trump has publicly stated many times his admiration for authoritarian leaders, such as Putin, Sadam Hussein, Gadhafi, Kin Jong Un, Mussolini, and others, usually to contrast what he believes is weak, political leadership.Donald Trump's History of Praising DictatorsI will also add that pollsters and political science researchers have found that the single most accurate predictor of whether or not someone is a Trump supporter, is not whether or not they’re Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, secular or religious, age or gender, but where they stand on a scale of authoritarianism. People who believe the world needs authoritarian political leaders are much more likely to be Trump supporters.And Trump further reinforces his authoritarian leanings by his stance on stronger police presence for greater law and order, and a more powerful military.Regarding narcissism, here are the markers that clinicians use to diagnose Narcissistic Personality Disorder:• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance.- Only I can save America; I’m really smart; I can do (whatever) better than anyone else; and dozens of similar statements. Using his charity to (illegally) commission a 6 ft portrait of himself to install in one of his clubs.• Expecting to be recognized as superior.- Please see this article that explores a series of interviews with Trump:What Drives Donald Trump? Fear of Losing Status, Tapes ShowIn it he elaborates on why he has no heroes and believes that most people don’t deserve to be looked up to.• Exaggerating your achievements and talents.See the first bullet point. Also, numerous claims regarding his wealth, and his business achievements that aren’t supported by the facts. In fact, as a businessman his record is much less than stellar.Trump, the Bad, Bad BusinessmanDonald Trump Is A Mediocre Businessman, And His Record Proves It.Donald Trump's business failures: a comprehensive guide• Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.- Third trophy wife, lots of comments about dating beautiful people half his age, lots of comments on women’s looks, private 757. Using his charity to (illegally) commission a 6 ft portrait of himself to install in one of his clubs.• Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people.• Requiring constant admiration.- See the “What Drives Donald Trump” article referenced above. In it he talks about the need for attention, how he craves the limelight, how he employs someone to find and collect everything that’s written about him. Using his charity to (illegally) commission a 6 ft portrait of himself to install in one of his clubs.• Having a sense of entitlement.• Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations.• Taking advantage of others to get what you want.- Don’t pay people because you can get away with it.• Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others.- Don’t pay people and don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.• Being envious of others and believing others envy you.• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner.I could elaborate further, but I think anyone who’s been paying attention can come up with their own list.If you disagree with my observations please provide counterfactual evidence, and not opinion.And to those who say we can’t know what a Trump presidency would be like because he’s never been a politician, I offer one last point. First, some brief background to set up my point.Roy Cohn was chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy during his witch hunt for communists. Many people who are familiar with the history of the relationship between McCarthy and Cohn believe that the malicious and vindictive tenor of McCarthy’s hearings are largely due to the influence of Mr. Cohn.So what does this have to do with Trump?Turns out that Trump employed Mr. Cohn as his business lawyer, and it seems that he he took a liking to the young Trump because he took him under his wing as a protege (as at least one comment pointed out) and taught him how to deal with the world.What Donald Trump Learned From Joseph McCarthy’s Right-Hand ManWhat Donald Trump learned from Roy Cohn - CNN VideoRoy Cohn and Donald Trump: Mentor and ProtégéRoy Cohn: Joe McCarthy's henchman and Donald Trump's mentorThe man who showed Donald Trump how to exploit power and instill fearWhat Trump learned from Mr. Cohn, and what he espoused in his ghost written book “The Art of the Deal”, was to always attack, never admit you’re wrong, never apologize.Think about it. This man was Trump’s intellectual mentor.This approach of always attacking your enemies and detractors without ever admitting you’re in the wrong (even if you know you are) are dubious qualities for a business leader, but fatal if you’re entrusted with the office of POTUS.Some of the more authoritarian leaning types out there might be wondering why fatal? After all, isn’t the whole point of leadership to be strong willed and to rule with an iron fist?And the answer is no, this type of leadership will eventually fail. It will fail because this type of leader will make more enemies than allies, (both within their domain of influence and externally). It will fail because fear or greed or both doesn’t inspire loyalty and opportunistic followers will scurry away when times get tough and the grass looks greener elsewhere.Hitler failed as a leader for these reasons, plus because, like Trump, he had a distorted view of reality and a narcissistic belief in his own superiority.He failed because he believed that the German people were superior to everyone else. He failed because he believed that Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, Ukrainians) were inferior. He failed because he thought he knew better than his generals and he ignored their advice.Trump also believes he’s superior to everyone else and refuses to listen to advice. Trump also believes that white people are superior to people of all other colors. And, if by some miracle, Trump were to become POTUS, for these same reasons he would fail as leader of the free world.