Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

PBS Star Ken Burns: Trump Playbook from 'National Socialist Party in Germany'
Newsbusters ^ | October 22, 2016 | 1:23 PM EDT | Tim Graham

Posted on 10/22/2016 4:09:10 PM PDT by drewh

Josh Feldman at Mediaite pointed out that star PBS filmmaker Ken Burns is out on cable television ranting the liberal line again. The program was Amanpour on CNN International after the debate on Thursday. Christiane Amanpour, his fellow Obama enthusiast, was interviewing him about his latest PBS documentary on saving Jews from the Nazis, which they both naturally thought offered Republican parallels.

First, they freaked out about Trump refusing to concede defeat 20 days before the voting ends and before anyone knows who won:

AMANPOUR: What do you make first and foremost of the major Republican candidate refusing to accept the legitimacy of the process even before the vote is cast?

BURNS: It's unprecedented. I don't recognize my country anymore. This is so terrifying. I think this is an existential moment for the United States of America. I think this is the greatest threat since the Cuban missile crisis and the Second World War for how we're going to be. And what kind of people we want to be and what kind of constitution we want to adhere to. We've been unprecedented in the world in that we've had 216 years of the smooth transition of power. And he is implying that no matter what happens, it's not going to be that way. And that's -- that's just unprecedented.

Then Amanpour turned to a column by Max Boot -- who has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president -- in the Los Angeles Times on the "Nazi echoes in Trump's tweets":

AMANPOUR: We want to talk obviously about your film, Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War, which is about World War II. But I want to ask you about something that a conservative, a Republican has written in the L.A. Times, about this myth of rigging, the myth of losing that Donald Trump has been putting around. He said "it's very dangerous and reprehensible. He's creating his own version of the stabbed in the back myth. Propagated by German rightists after World War I, who claim that the German army had not really lost that war. It had been betrayed by Jews and Marxists." Is history sort of repeating itself in this victimhood myth?

BURNS: It is. It's a very effective political tool in the short run. And they are playing -- the Trump campaign is taking a play, their playbook is out of the National Socialist party in Germany. In every regard, the dog whistles of race and immigration. Hitler said let's make Germany great again. I mean, you have all of the simplistic messaging without anything to back it up and certainly no qualifications. That makes it so dangerous.

And the fact that he's been able to promote himself so well. Manipulated media so that he's had three-plus billion dollars of free media over the course of the last year plus is a kind of terrifying thing that there might be something mechanically endemic to all of us that permits this to rise.

And our real work begins on November 9th. The only way you can save the country in the long-term, and not keep this sort of large dissatisfied group of people who have been manipulated, is to take the air out of their tires. To say -- look, we can get things done here. And just let's settle down because the democratic way is the only way to do it, as messy and as complicated as it is.

Ad Feedback AMANPOUR: You mean democratic with a small D?

BURNS: With a small D. That is compromise. And all of the things that we have not been doing lately. That will take the wind out of the sails of this terrifying movement, which Trump has, has decided to lead and plans to go beyond it. Rigging the election is the biggest canard I have ever heard.

This is always rich coming from PBS, the network that refuses to compromise and put real conservatives on their airwaves. We're left with non-debates with deferential pseudo-conservatives like David Brooks, Michael Gerson, and maybe soon Max Boot. Then Burns turned to the film, and how "the United States" or the "State Department" -- not "Franklin Roosevelt and the Democrats" -- were anti-Semites:

AMANPOUR: Describe for us, remind us the terrible way the United States and the West behaved to Jews trying to escape Hitler before the concentration camps.

BURNS: We had essentially a State Department that was rife with anti- Semites. We had quotas that permitted small numbers of refugees on the eve of the Second World War and during it, that made it impossible for us to be a mitigating factor in relieving a refugee crisis, that's only slightly greater than the refugee crisis we're having now.

And what we've added to the mix here is a very public and overt racism that says, look, we don't want these kinds of people. And German immigrants in the United States should understand that happened to them. Irish immigrants should understand that had happened to them. Chinese and Japanese immigrants that happened to them at a different time. And now we're sort of saying because there is a Muslim terrorist somewhere, that we have to completely block the door to all the Muslims. That would be like white people having to take responsibility for the actions of Dylann Roof, who is the young man who assassinated, murdered the churchgoers in Charleston a year and a half ago. That would be, let's be careful about white people now. That has the same logic.


TOPICS: Cheese, Moose, Sister
KEYWORDS: amanpour; bordersecurity; burns; christianeamanpour; cnn; cnninternational; fearmongering; godwinslaw; historians; kenburns; nazi; nazis; pbs; trump; trump2016
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-84 next last
To: drewh

I think he has it reversed it is Hillary that is using the national socialist handbook


21 posted on 10/22/2016 4:18:27 PM PDT by PCPOET7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: drewh

Ken has drunk too much Clinton kool aid


22 posted on 10/22/2016 4:18:47 PM PDT by Nifster (Ignore all polls. Get Out The Vote)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: drewh
the Trump campaign is taking a play, their playbook is out of the National Socialist party in Germany.

The foundational principles of the nazis are just the same as the libtard's: emotionalism, altruism, collectivism, statism, and socialism.

23 posted on 10/22/2016 4:19:14 PM PDT by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: drewh

If he is, why is Hillary paying for it?


24 posted on 10/22/2016 4:19:59 PM PDT by Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: drewh

Stick to baseball.


25 posted on 10/22/2016 4:20:01 PM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SaveFerris

” I mean, you have all of the simplistic messaging without anything to back it up and certainly no qualifications. That makes it so dangerous.”

I thought he was talking about Obama here.


26 posted on 10/22/2016 4:20:49 PM PDT by nhbob1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: sagar; drewh
A children's book for Ken Burns


27 posted on 10/22/2016 4:21:51 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Be a blessing to a stranger today for some have entertained angels unaware)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: nhbob1

[” I mean, you have all of the simplistic messaging without anything to back it up and certainly no qualifications. That makes it so dangerous.”]

Yes, that’s EXACTLY Obama.

Obama isn’t qualified to scoop ice cream.

And was fired for it.


28 posted on 10/22/2016 4:22:55 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Be a blessing to a stranger today for some have entertained angels unaware)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: headstamp 2

ken burns is dangerous because he knows what he is doing and the difference between Trump and Hillary. he is not one of the deluded he is one of the activist doing propaganda for a political machine that has the potential of destroying Add to dictionary democracy.


29 posted on 10/22/2016 4:23:05 PM PDT by PCPOET7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: drewh

That would be like white people having to take responsibility for the actions of Dylann Roof, who is the young man who assassinated, murdered the churchgoers in Charleston a year and a half ago. That would be, let’s be careful about white people now. That has the same logic.

So people in S.Carolina have to do without the Battle flag.
But that’s not the same logic.....riiiight.

That would be like blacks taking responsibility for
the shooting of blacks in Chicago...never happen.


30 posted on 10/22/2016 4:23:21 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: drewh

Ken Burns is a moonbat who looks like a lesbian.

If Trump supporters were brown shirts, someone would have kicked his little girlie a$$ a long time ago.

But no one has, because Trump supporters are well-behaved, unlike Hitlery and her henchmen.


31 posted on 10/22/2016 4:26:33 PM PDT by july4thfreedomfoundation (You can't spell TRIUMPH without TRUMP)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: drewh
I agree with the previous comment about projection. The candidate with real NSDAP and Communist Party antecedents is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Burns has to know this, therefore he is merely being a willful partisan shill.

(A natural enough move by someone who makes a living via taxpayer dollars dispensed by politicians.)

Before I went gray, got paunchy and began cutting my hair short, people now and then would tell me that I looked like Ken Burns. I have never cared for his work, considering him a propagandist rather than a historian, so it wasn't something I particularly cared to hear. I watched his WWII "documentary" all the way through and lament that I will never get that time back.

Mr. niteowl77

32 posted on 10/22/2016 4:27:07 PM PDT by niteowl77 (Don't need no Bushes. Don't need no Clintons. Don't need no fooling around.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: proud American in Canada

You can get it free over at YouTube.


33 posted on 10/22/2016 4:28:47 PM PDT by W. (Blue eyed murder in a size five dress...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: drewh
"We had essentially a State Department that was rife with anti- Semites."

And who was controlling the White House, Congress and the State Department then Kenny boy?

34 posted on 10/22/2016 4:29:02 PM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: drewh
Because we ALL know that Adolph in his autobiography Mein Kampf laid out in detail his plan to gather first all the Jews in Germany, then to invade all the other countries in Europe, gather all the Jews in those countries as well, and then...

send them back to Israel until they could get their Green Card.

I wonder if Ken Burns has got his very special reward from Madonna yet?

35 posted on 10/22/2016 4:30:58 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: drewh

“And now we’re sort of saying because there is a Muslim terrorist somewhere, that we have to completely block the door to all the Muslims.”

If they sold used cars, they’d be in prison for lying this much.

“That would be like white people having to take responsibility for the actions of Dylann Roof, who is the young man who assassinated, murdered the churchgoers in Charleston a year and a half ago.”

Does anyone remember the comments these two made after the murders in Charleston? I won’t be surprised if they specifically blamed white people for Dylann Roof.


36 posted on 10/22/2016 4:32:35 PM PDT by sig226
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: drewh
feh...
37 posted on 10/22/2016 4:33:05 PM PDT by Chode (You Owe Them Nothing - Not Respect, Not Loyalty, Not Obedience, NOTHING! ich bin ein Deplorable...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SaveFerris

Watched the first Burn’s documentary, didn’t care for it. Never watched another. I like history and I love a good documentary. Didn’t find it with his.


38 posted on 10/22/2016 4:33:13 PM PDT by LauraJean (sometimes I win sometimes I donate to the equine benevolent society)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: W.

Thanks for the tip! :)


39 posted on 10/22/2016 4:33:42 PM PDT by proud American in Canada (May God Bless the U.S.A. (Trump: I will bear the slings and arrows for you, the American people))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: drewh

Ken Burns is an overrated hack. The Civil War series on PBS glossed over a LOT of pertinent history and went straight to slavery as the reason for the conflict. But that seems to have been his zenith. He’s probably working now on a 27-part series about the history of bailing wire.


40 posted on 10/22/2016 4:35:11 PM PDT by Ciaphas Cain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-84 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson