“The few among writers who had taken the trouble to read Hitler’s book, ridiculed the bombast of his stilted prose instead of occupying themselves with his program,” he wrote. They took him neither seriously nor literally. Even into the nineteen-thirties, “the big democratic newspapers, instead of warning their readers, reassured them day by day, that the movement . . . would inevitably collapse in no time.” Prideful of their own higher learning and cultivation, the intellectual classes could not absorb the idea that, thanks to “invisible wire-pullers”—the self-interested groups and individuals who believed they could manipulate the charismatic maverick for their own gain—this uneducated “beer-hall agitator” had already amassed vast support. After all, Germany was a state where the law rested on a firm foundation, where a majority in parliament was opposed to Hitler, and where every citizen believed that “his liberty and equal rights were secured by the solemnly affirmed constitution.”

... people refused to believe that the new reality could persist. “This could only be an eruption of an initial, senseless rage, one told oneself. That sort of thing could not last in the twentieth century.”

Not too reassuring. Those of us who oppose the Trump/Bannon juggernaut have to do more than continue to point out how Trump is stupid and wrong, how his policies are ill-considered, how he can't talk properly, can't read, is racist, abuses women, doesn't know shit about anything. These complaints only reiterate that we share values these people don't share. Yes, they're boorish, aggressive bullies. But no boorish, aggressive bully was ever stopped by pointing this out.

The real question is: how do you stop him concentrating power towards his own inner circle? A determined autocrat can undermine any and all institutions given time. What can people do now to turn the tide before it is too late? What actions will be effective?