From my reading of 1920s and early 1930s' German political history, Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party's rise to electoral eminence was imbued with more probity and legal integrity than Donald Trump and his party's struggle to regain government control.
The Nazis never gained a Reichstag majority until after Hitler's 1933 appointment as chancellor, and even then only through a coalition government did the Nazis rule. In the previous year, Hitler lost the presidential election to Hindenburg.
Neither the Nazi party nor its leader ever claimed election fraud was the cause of their defeats.
In the United States, however, local, state and federal elections will soon be won and lost because of counterfeit claims of election fraud, both past and present. The Trumpists' mendacity about "fake votes," "phantom votes" and thus urgent, remedial audits will soar beyond the Nazis' ethnocentric lies as the singular instrument of election manipulation and triumphalism. Elections will be stolen right out from under us.
Because Americans now live in opposite world, the recently concluded Arizona audit, which explicitly confirmed Joe Biden as the state's presidential victor, is being touted by Trumpists as proof of Democratic fraud and the need for doubled-down efforts at election "reviews."
Black-and-white evidence of this lie has not only not slowed Trumpists' demands for recalculating legitimate election tallies, it has sharpened and accelerated the demands.
The Times has summary of the nationwide Trumpian madness which came barking on the heels of Arizona's Biden confirmation:
Trump himself, in an early Friday statement: "The leaked report conclusively shows there were enough fraudulent votes, mystery votes, and fake votes to change the outcome of the election 4 or 5 times over. There is fraud and cheating in Arizona and it must be criminally investigated!"
Liz Harrington, a Trump spokeswoman: Arizona's audit revealed "23,000+ Phantom Voters."
Peter Navarro, former Trump adviser: "Falsely claimed on Twitter that the report had shown that 50,000 potentially illegal votes were cast in Maricopa County."
Mark Finchem, Trumpist candidate for Arizona's secretary of state: "Now that the audit of Maricopa is wrapping up, we need to Audit Pima County — the 2nd largest county in AZ. There are 35k votes in question from multiple sources & I want answers."
Wendy Rogers, Arizona Trumpist state senator: "Canvass Maricopa." No one knows what this "canvassing" entails, but overnight it became a new buzzphrase.
State Senator Ed McBroom, who once exposed Trumpian lies about election fraud in Michigan, now endorses, because of Arizona's "findings," fresh obstacles to voting: "Just like we found in Michigan, it’s good that we found that these vulnerabilities weren’t exploited to any important extent in this election. It doesn’t mean that somebody might not use them in the future."
Eric Greitens, former governor of Missouri, now U.S. Senate candidate: "Arizona must decertify! “We MUST have forensic audits across the country!”
Josh Mandel, Ohio U.S. Senate candidate: "Not only should we audit the vote in AZ, WI, MI, PA, GA — we must audit the vote in all 50 states. Even in states like OHIO where Trump won by massive margins, he probably actually won by even larger margins were it not for the Democrat cheating."
Again, these Trumpist reactions erupted because of the total evidentiary absence of election fraud in Arizona.
What, I hear you ask, has been Democrats and "good-government groups'" reaction to all this Trumpian bullshit designed to steal future elections? They're "alarmed," reports the Times.
No national movement has organized to battle Trumpian lies about election fraud. The lies embed themselves more believably each day among the half-attentive, bullshit-susceptible electorate. In short, the Trumpists have the run of the field.
Not even the Nazis had this much freedom to corrupt discussions of election processes and then alter election outcomes.
Political historians will someday look back on early 21st-century U.S. history and marvel at how Democrats, good-government groups and the majority electorate sat back and watched American Nazis seize local, state and federal control.
Unless …
Unless anti-Trumpists of all ideological stripes get mad — goddamn mad — and take to the streets, thereby recapturing the nation's attention and shutting down the Hitlerian buffoons. Howling progressive cable hosts, liberal newspaper columnists and a few bands of goo-goo activists won't do the job. The formation of a massive, national movement for authentic election integrity is an inescapable prerequisite for safeguarding American democracy.