Why Did People Vote For Hitler?

[Daniel Balan]

I've watched TIK History's video and I can say that I am very worried! He states that Hitler and the Nazis were leftist socialists! Which is quite disturbing since I just thoroughly studied @Leo Gura blog article: https://www.actualized.org/insights/hitler-was-a-conservative. The second video accurately explains why Germany started World War II, driven by Hitler’s autarky policies. He pursued autarky to prevent exporting industrial goods to agrarian Eastern countries, fearing their industrialization would reduce demand for German products, triggering mass unemployment and a Marxist revolution. Hitler believed capitalism, which he saw as a Jewish creation, encouraged exports to destabilize Germany’s economy, as seen in the Weimar Republic’s liberal capitalist system. He feared this would lead to chaos, enabling a communist revolution that would promote globalism, dilute German racial purity, and collapse civilization, as he believed only ethnocentric, “pure” nations without immigrants could sustain it. To ensure Germany’s self-sufficiency and avoid reliance on foreign goods, he launched the war in the East. Autarky depleted Germany’s resources, necessitating the invasion of the Soviet Union for food and oil. However, the video’s claim that Hitler was a leftist socialist is incorrect, as his policies aligned with fascist state-controlled capitalism, not socialism.

But he did mention something which depicts the real kind of socialism that Hitler was into : 

Quote

National Socialism - Racial Group in common control of the means of production

 This is exactly what Leo said in his blog post 

Quote

To him socialist meant a national, traditional, collective. A collective in the way that the US military is a collective. Hitler would have said that the US military is a “socialist” organization which should be adopted as the model for the entire nation. “Socialism” here means a mono-cultural community, like a traditional Christian parish. Hitler would call a Christian community socialist, as opposed to individualist or libertarian

It baffles me how someone who has read hundreds of books on history tells with such conviction that Hitler was a leftist socialist. What worries me more is that without Leo, I would have continued to believe TIK's nonsense. 

But I do agree with TIK that people voted for Hitler precisely for this socialist appeal: eliminating unemployment, helping families with children, reducing inflation, etc. But in practice Hitler used those workers as literal slaves with him as king in order to use them for their labor and money to create his Aryan empire. What TIK fundamentally misunderstands is what he calls socialism was in fact old school fascism! Real Socialism seeks equality, welfare, and equal opportunities for all, reducing class hierarchies through collective or state ownership of production, often with unions, to advance universal progress. Fascism shares some methods with socialism, like state economic control and welfare programs, but uses them to enforce a hierarchical, nationalist society, often defined by race (e.g., Nazi “Aryan” supremacy). It preserves private ownership under state direction, confiscates property from “outsiders” (e.g., “Aryanization”), and suppresses unions to dominate others, not to achieve equality.

[Daniel Balan]

I am assuming that TIK got his nazis are leftists worldview from the hundreds of books he had read until now! 

What pitfalls has TIK fallen into to adopt such a perspective on National Socialism and Hitler? What was wrong in his epistemology and philosophy that lead him to have such a perspective? I've followed him for quite a while and I know for sure that he is motivated by truth! How can a search for truth end up in such self deception?  It really worries me! My biggest fear is to ending up having similar perspectives regarding politics, philosophy, spirituality, and other endeavors that concern reality! But what if the one who is stuck in self deception is me for dismissing his take on national self deception as garbage? I am really confused. I no longer can distinguish what is true, what is false, what is deception and what is clarity! The only thing I have going for me is that I have a strong intuition, and my intuition was mostly right until now, but I fear that even my intuition could be poisoned with self deception.

[Leo Gura]

Don't take TIK seriously. He is self-deceived by libertarianism.

His understanding of socialism and capitalism is very flawed.

Libertarianism is a foolish ideology. That's where he screwed up.

As I said, avoid all ideology.

People voted for Hitler for the same reason hardcore MAGA voted for Trump. People are very fond of nationalism. Nationalism is very powerful force in politics. Socialism has nothing to do with it.

Edited June 6 by Leo Gura

[Majed]

@Daniel Balan Identity constitutes love. When your love is not universal, when your experience of life isn't very broad, your love is narrow hence you only love your country or your race and hate others who do not fit into it. Takes life experience to love beyond your race, and life experience takes time to develop, that's why people are racist, a lack of love that stems from a lack of experience.

[Daniel Balan]

@Leo GuraAgreed! I personally try to avoid to get into ideology! But I want to understand social phenomena based on ideology! You are totally right when it comes to your blog post https://www.actualized.org/insights/hitler-was-a-conservative . Nationalism is what led people to vote for both Trump, Putin and Hitler. But National Socialism is really tricky! TIK is totally wrong calling it leftist, but National Socialism did have some socialist flavors! I think TIK is trying to point at something, something that is missing from modern understanding of National Socialism. Nazis did tax the hell out of people, that is a socialist policy, they did nationalize private property that didn't align with the Nazi agenda, like Jewish property and of those who disagreed with Nazi ideology. They did create many projects that gave employment for the unemployed, they did offer some welfare subsidies only to the "Aryans". The bottom line of my comment is that National Socialism in my eyes is more related to socialism that with today's US Capitalist Neo Liberalism. Economics wise! Of course National Socialism has nothing to do with equality and DEI like programs of today, but its authoritarian control of the economy resembles much more Soviet socialism than American capitalism of 21th century!

[Husseinisdoingfine]

They voted for him because they were desperate due to the inflation and weak government which had destroyed their economy.

[Daniel Balan]

Just now, Husseinisdoingfine said:

They voted for him because they were desperate due to the inflation and weak government which had destroyed their economy.

Agreed, but in november 1932 the citizens of the Weimar republic had to choose between 35 different parties! The situation by 1932 reached almost 30% unemployment, the people were in dire straits, but why vote the nazis specifically? In 1917 Russia people didn't vote, but rallied behind the communists, why didn't the people of the Weimar Republic follow suit? I think they did! They didn't vote based on policy, but rather they voted pro authoritarian, for a strong man that could save them! A daddy figure! A leader!

[Leo Gura]

@Daniel Balan If you want to avoid delusion, instead of watching some rando on YT making political videos, read 5 books by serious historians about Hitler.

There's your solution.

I told you yesterday: high quality sources, and multiple sources. Not this TIK guy.

The surest way to get deluded is to watch random political videos on the internet. That's like swimming naked at night in a swamp full of crocodiles. Truly great political analysis online is like 1 in 100. Which is one of the reasons why I cover politics, to at least provide some Tier 2 sanity.

Edited June 6 by Leo Gura

[Husseinisdoingfine]

Amen. I'm sick of people getting the bulk of their political and historical understanding from talk radio, television, live streamers, and YouTube, instead of reading high quality political and historical books.

Whilst I have never read any historical accounts about Hitler from reading, I have out of curiosity read Mein Kampf.    

 

[PurpleTree]

Because he was intense and he was good with words Germany was poor and longing for change.

He would say things like

Matsch dotten hotten gotten kazapatapen ubermensch motten gotten  

and people would say gosh he’s so suave

[PurpleTree]

Carl Gustav Jung once said he looked into Hitlers eyes and it was too intense for him. So he left Germany. He starred into the abyss and the abyss starred back unto him.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Daniel Balan said:

but its authoritarian control of the economy resembles much more Soviet socialism than American capitalism of 21th century!

That's simply because a totalitarian military state needs to control industry.

If the USA's plan was to go to war with half the world, to conquer half of Europe, it too would need heavy top-down control of industry.

Also, what TIK fails to comprehend because he's a libertarian, is that hardcore conservatives are also collectivist. That's Stage Blue. But he doesn't understand such nuances. Left vs right cannot be understood as collectivist vs individualist. That's really wrong analysis. But a libertarian cannot see this.

Is the Taliban conservative? Yes. Is it individualist? No!

Nationalism is a collectivist stage for obvious reasons.

Edited June 6 by Leo Gura

[Daniel Balan]

42 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Daniel Balan If you want to avoid delusion, instead of watching some rando on YT making political videos, read 5 books by serious historians about Hitler.

There's your solution.

I told you yesterday: high quality sources, and multiple sources. Not this TIK guy.

The surest way to get deluded is to watch random political videos on the internet. That's like swimming naked at night in a swamp full of crocodiles. Truly great political analysis online is like 1 in 100. Which is one of the reasons why I cover politics, to at least provide some Tier 2 sanity.

My mistake is that I tended to take TIK seriously because he has read a ton of books on ww2! He always seemed to know backwards and forwards the history of ww2 and Nazi Germany! I believe that if I follow someone that has dedicated decades of their life studying a narrow niche like ww2 history, I have a lot to learn from that person! What I failed to take in account is self bias and self deception! I will keep this in mind going forward! I will do my own reading going forward! Thank you for taking your time explaining this to me!

Edited June 6 by Daniel Balan

[Leo Gura]

@Daniel Balan Everyone you learn from, every teacher, will have deep biases. This is why you must consume many diverse sources, so the biases become apparent and cancel each other out.

Actualized.org too has biases. So Actualized.org should not be your only source of philosophy and metaphysics.

Edited June 6 by Leo Gura

[Deziree]

Hitler had an impact the way Trump has on his people. Also Hitler was a much better orator than Trump. 

Edited June 6 by Deziree