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“THE HAPPY TIME” ENDS FOR HITLER’S GERMANY AND TRUMP’S AMERICA–AGAIN

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 28, 2026 at 12:12 am

On August 23, 2018, President Donald Trump appearing on “Fox and Friends,” said: “I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”   

President Donald Trump 2025 Official Inauguration Silver Halide Photo | eBay

Donald Trump

Thus, he appealed to the greed and fear of his voting base—and no doubt hoped to reach beyond it: “Keep me in power or you’ll all suffer for it.” 

Then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders bragged, on June 4, 2018:

“Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday’s jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming.”

Many Congressional Republicans echoed this: The American people care only about the economy—and how well-off they are.

And in 2024, a major reason why 77 million Americans re-elected a 34-times convicted felon and the inciter of the January 6 coup attempt was to get cheap eggs.

For eight years, Nazi Germany underwent such an epoch. Germans called it “The Happy Time.”

It began on January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor—and lasted until June 22, 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.

Germans knew about the Nazis’ cruelty to the Jews, the conquests of Austria and Czechoslovakia, the mass arrests and concentration camps.

They didn’t care.

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 Frenzied Germans greet Adolf Hitler

The Gestapo didn’t have to watch everyone: German “patriots” gladly reported their fellow citizens—especially Jews—to the secret police.

As far as everyday Germans were concerned:

  • The streets were clean and peaceful.
  • Employment was high.
  • The trouble-making unions were gone.
  • Germany was once again “taking its rightful place” among ruling nations, after its catastrophic defeat in World War 1.

The height of “The Happy Time” came in June, 1940. In just six weeks, the Wehrmacht  accomplished what the German army hadn’t in four years during World War 1: The total defeat of its longtime enemy, France.

Suddenly, French clothes, perfumes, delicacies, paintings and other “fortunes of war” came pouring into the Fatherland.  

Most Germans believed der Krieg—“the war”—was over, and only good times lay ahead.

Then, on June 22, 1941, three million Wehrmacht soldiers slashed their way into the Soviet Union. The Third Reich was now locked in a death-struggle with a nation even more powerful than itself. 

World War II Pictures In Details ...

German soldiers in the Soviet Union

And then, on December 11, 1941—four days after Germany’s ally, Japan, attacked Pearl Harbor—Hitler declared war on the United States. 

“The Happy Time” for Germans was over. Only prolonged disaster lay ahead. 

Resuming the Presidency on January 20, 2025, Trump has threatened military invasions of Canada and Greenland and attacked Venezuela to snatch its dictator/president Nicolás Maduro. He has ordered military strikes on suspected drug smuggling and cartel operations in the Caribbean, the Pacific and Ecuador.

Domestically he has attacked such major universities as Columbia, Brown and Cornell for their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) polices and/or alleged antisemitism. To restore their frozen federal funding, Columbia agreed to pay $200 million; Brown paid $50 million and Cornell paid $30 million.

But on February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran. Suddenly he faced an enemy he could neither bribe nor intimidate.

Destruction is not the same as ...

Bombing of Terhan

To Trump’s surprise and dismay, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz—through which which about 20%-25% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.

Overnight, gas prices surged. By late May, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.56, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.

On April 5—Easter Sunday, no less—Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

This was followed on April 7 by another post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

But then Trump backed down after experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.

On March 11, Trump had told a reporter: “You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the, in the first hour, it was over.”

By late May, it was not over; the Strait of Hormuz remained closed and crude oil prices continued to rise throughout the world. And so did the prices of all goods transported to market.

Like Adolf Hitler, Trump had believed his war would end successfully in four to six weeks at most. And, like Hitler, Trump had no plan for a prolonged struggle. 

Short of using nuclear weapons or ordering an all-out invasion of Iran—both hugely unpopular among Americans—Trump could only threaten or deliver more impotent airstrikes.

The Germans made a devil’s-bargain with Adolf Hitler—and paid dearly for it. 

Millions of greedy and hate-filled Americans have embraced Donald Trump—another would-be tyrant—as America’s economic savior.

By supporting Trump—or at least not opposing him—they also made a devil’s-bargain. And such bargains always end with the devil winning. 

STEPHEN COLBERT: TRIUMPHANT IN DEFEAT: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 27, 2026 at 12:10 am

On July 14, 2025, after returning from a multi-week break, Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’ Late Night With Stephen Colbert, said: “While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit.    

“I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles—it’s big fat bribe.” 

Meanwhile, Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS Network, wanted to merge with Skydance Media.

For this, it needed the regulatory permission of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the Trump administration.

On July 17, CBS cancelled the highest-rated late-night show on television with 2.4 million nightly viewers. It had also been nominated for 33 Emmys.

Addressing his in-house and television audience on July 17, Colbert announced: “I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May.

“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.” 

In a statement, Paramount/CBS called the cancellation a purely financial decision: “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.” 

Colbert did not directly accuse his bosses of bowing to pressure from the FCC. But he did offer this insightful comment: “Less than two years before they called to say it’s over, they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed.”

What “changed” was that after CBS cancelled one of Trump’s biggest critics, the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media was quickly approved by the FCC.

Federal Communications Commission - Wikipedia

David Letterman had hosted The Late Show with David Letterman from August 30, 1993, until his retirement on May 20, 2015.

Ed Sullivan Theater - Wikipedia

On his last night as host of The Late Show Colbert did exactly that, turning what could have been a mournful event into a celebration of joy and defiance.

Stephen Colbert Signs off “Late Show” with Emotional Goodbye https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znec-DIff8o 

Hello, Goodbye: Paul McCartney turns off the lights on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ' | MyCentralOregon.com - Horizon Broadcasting Group, LLC

STEPHEN COLBERT: TRIUMPHANT IN DEFEAT: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 26, 2026 at 12:05 am

 …A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him.                                                                                              Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses       

Watching the last episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was like watching a slow-motion execution—where the victim turns his demise into a rousing revival meeting.  

That episode, shown on Thursday, May 21, capped a hugely successful run of 10 years and eight months (September 8, 2015 to May 21, 2026). Broadcast on CBS against ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night ranked as the highest-rated American late-night talk show.

And it held that ranking for nine consecutive seasons, marking the longest such streak in franchise history.

Stephen Colbert | WikiLists | Fandom

Stephen Colbert

But for all the adoring fans Colbert attracted during those years, he acquired one enemy who never forgot or forgave the slightest insult. And from 2015 onward, Colbert showered him with humorous, deadly accurate insults calculated to get under his paper-thin skin and stay there.

That enemy was Donald J. Trump.

Colbert started throwing thousands of barbs at Trump immediately after the real estate mogul launched his first campaign for President on June 16, 2015. These focused on Trump’s appearance, intelligence, family, policy shifts, criminality, legal troubles and commercial ventures.

Among the barbs:

  • “It’s true, this [Iran] war reached all of its objectives. It’s been weeks since anyone mentioned the Epstein files.”
  • After Trump threatened to destroy Iran but then agreed to a brief pause, Colbert paraphrased John Lennon’s famous peace anthem, singing: “All we are saying, is peace for two weeks.” 
  • “For my  MAGA viewers. The Trump golden cell phone has FINALLY arrived after a nine month delay. And it SUCKS. The only Trump item more disappointing after a nine-month wait was Eric!” 
  • Colbert often joked about Trump’s short attention span, comparing his mind to “nature’s most cunning opponent, the goldfish.”
  • Following Trump’s 34 felony convictions on May 30, 2024, for falsifying business records, Colbert joked that Trump had “more felonies than Baskin-Robbins has flavors.”

Head-and-shoulders shot of Trump with a serious facial expression, his right eye partly closed. He is wearing a dark blue suit, a pale blue dress shirt, a red necktie, and an American flag lapel pin. Parts of the image are slightly out of focus. The background is black.

Donald Trump

Colbert had a biting wit that never flinched at speaking truth to—and about—power. But Trump had a weapon that Colbert couldn’t match: Command of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). 

And in its chair, Brendan Carr, he had a crony willing to destroy any network that dared to offend his thin-skinned boss, Donald Trump. 

Knowing Trump’s animosity toward nonwhites, Carr has brutally attacked any network-related company promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). He ordered investigations into Comcast and the Walt Disney Company and threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast license over the practices. 

On September 10, 2025, Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

In September 2025, Carr pressured Disney, which owns ABC, to suspend comedian Jimmy Kimmel over comments he had made about the assassination. On September 17, Disney caved and suspended Kimmel.

Brendan Carr

Kimmel had actually called the murder “senseless.” What enraged Right-wing Americans was Kimmel’s noting that “the MAGA gang is desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” 

This was actually true—and all the more embarrassing to Republicans because of it. The Trump administration and its MAGA cult have tried to portray Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting Kirk, as a radical liberal.

He is not.

Debbie Robinson, his grandmother, said most of the family are Republicans—and that Tyler’s father, Matt, is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump.  

Disney/ABC reinstated The Jimmy Kimmel Show on September 23  after a massive public backlash, a steep drop in Disney’s stock value, and a widespread Hollywood boycott.

Photo of Kimmel smiling at his late-show desk

Jimmy Kimmel

Paramount had recently paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit he had brought against the CBS news show, 60 Minutes. He claimed that it had misleadingly edited a pre-election interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris to boost her election chances in 2024. CBS’ attorneys and a number of legal experts had said that the lawsuit was “completely without merit.”

On July 14, 2025, after returning from a multi-week break, Colbert said: “While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit.

“As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company, but just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help.

“I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles—it’s big fat bribe.

Colbert didn’t know it, but the axe was about to fall.