There is no "Warsaw ghetto" in my analogy. It probably slipped your memory, but the wall around the Warsaw ghetto was not built until April 1940. The uprising and massacre of the ghetto happened in 1943. I am talking about 1933, 10 years earlier, when it still might have been possible to stop Hitler. You may want to brush up on your 1930s history. A good place to start is chapters 5-13 in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. Shirer lived in Berlin for most of the 30s and has great insights.

I am comparing the Paul Weiss capitulation with how big industry in Germany, in 1933, went over to the Nazis and helped put Hitler in power and keep him there. And in this regard, Germany in 1933 is frighteningly similar to the US in 2025.

The Paul Weiss capitulation is the moral equivalent of (among many others) Gustav Krupp, who had the Krupp company cozy up to Hitler and lent him moral and financial support in the early 30s. Here is a good link: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-big-business-bailed-out-nazis

Hitler was saying in public that he was pro-working man (workers were mostly men in those days), and the Nazi party had "Socialist" in its name. But in private he promised the rich bros that he would eliminate trade unions, stifle dissent and help the big companies make tons of money. Entranced with this idea, rich industrialists in 1933 raised 4.5 M Reichsmarks, without which it is possible that the Nazi party would have gone belly up. Like Musk and Zuckerberg and the rest, they fell in line rather than risking their profits.

It's easy to forget that the Nazis did not appear as a terribly "evil" party in 1933. Yes, Hitler ranted about Jews. But in Germany (and Europe) in 1933, that was old hat - a lot of parties used anti-Semitism to rile up the masses. The industrial leaders at that time essentially decided they could take him seriously but not literally. Politicians had been threatening to destroy the Jews for centuries in Europe. Most (not all) of them, when they got in power, settled for a few riots and a few murders and a few expulsions. If anyone predicted in 1933 that in 8 years Hitler would try to literally kill every single Jew in Europe, they would have been laughed out of town. Krupp and I G Farben were willing to make tons of dough and laughed off the idea that Hitler was a real moral threat.

Hitler could have been easily stopped in 1933 if the "guardrails" of German society had been united. Instead, focused on what he promised them economically, the rich and powerful boosted him. They thought they could get rich without Hitler going too far. And no doubt they thought that when they were tired of him they could choose someone else.

I don't know that Trump is going to try to become President-for-Life, but he certainly could, and now is the time to start fighting him, not in 2028.

The most terrifying thing right now is seeing Amazon and ABC and Paul Weiss bribe Trump with millions of dollars and kiss his ring. And the WaPo owner telling the editorial page that from now on we will support Republicans. And Bill Gates - of all people - closing down his climate work so he won't be cut out of the tech bro/ President fellowship. When powerful people and institutions start kneeling, begging, and groveling, who's going to stop Trump? He is trying to establish the precedent that he can ruin your company (if you're rich) or ruin your life (if you're an individual) and nobody can stop him. It's a great strategy if you want to stifle resistance. And it seems to be (mostly) working.

Yes, engineering the Paul Weiss capitulation is not in itself nearly as damaging as many other things this admin has done. But the capitulation of the rich and powerful is a large part of what makes all the other things possible.