Just a wee reminder – the last time a great military power elected (yes, Hitler was elected) a racist authoritarian we got the mass killing of religious minorities, gays, the infirm, and “inferior” races as well as World War II. Over 80 million people died from Nazi murder, soldiers and civilians killed in the war, and famine as a result of the war and authoritarian policies. I don’t have a crystal ball in which to tell if Trump is truly going to take the world down that fascist road again but I can tell you we have never come as close as we are these days. I have truly never felt so scared in my life and I lived through the latter half of the Cold War when Soviet nukes could’ve come raining down at any moment. What chills me is that I read recently how a holocaust survivor said something to the effect of “once you realize you live in a fascist state, it’s too late”. It hasn’t happened yet and it doesn’t have to happen. But all I’ve seen so far, for the most part, from those opposed to Trump and his cronies is righteous indignation, dismissal by pundits because he doesn’t fit “conventional wisdom paradigms”, and people thinking that by pressing “like” on a Facebook post or signing a useless petition is actually going to have any effect whatsoever. Trump/his cronies/his supporters are now threatening the press and trying to prevent any demonstrations in the next 6 months. This is how it begins.
MATTHEW'S ISLAND
MATTHEW'S ISLAND 
Hmmm…. Hitler was appointed chancellor by German president Hindenburg. When Hindenburg died later Hitler combined the chancellor and president positions into Fuehrer. The National Socialists were the elected majority in the Reichstag in 1933, but the German public didn’t elect Hitler into office.
He lost the public election, the Nazi as a party was very successful in gaining official seats in the government they perpetrated events blaming Jews and Communists for the downfall of the German economy and strong armed other non Nazi officials until the President had to appoint Hitler to appease them.
Thank you both for your corrections and additional information. I do realize that Hitler rose to power through the parliamentary system and that he was never directly elected by the people as the German leader. I guess my point was to shake up my North American readers as we have been grown up and educated to believe that authoritarianism could never happen in Canada or the US because of all the checks and balances in our political system. If one party controls all parts of the government, as is about to the the case in the US, and you have a lying demagogue as leader it certainly can happen. You don’t need to have a military takeover or a coup to suddenly find yourself living in a dictatorship or under extreme one-party rule. I don’t think Trump is going to be a full-blown 21st century Hitler but there will be a distinct air of fascism mixed with incompetence and bigotry that will bring the US the closest it’s ever been to being the exact opposite of what it supposedly has always stood for.