1/ Quick historical thread on “using violence to demand increased law and order and dictatorial power”.

In 1804, when Napoleon was the most powerful consul in France, and consul (like our president) for life, there was an assassination attempt on his life. https://twitter.com/mollyhc/status/1298614353424515075

2/ Napoleon falsely accused the Duke of Enghien (a member of the overthrown Bourbon family) as the head of the conspiracy. The Duke had nothing to do with it. BUT, Napoleon used it as an argument to say...

3/... “the Bourbon family is trying to kill me so they can come back! The only way to stop this is to make me emperor, start a new lineage or there will be a bourbon restoration and the revolution will be lost.”

4/ Napoleon had the innocent man executed, and then held a vote, which made him emperor, with full dictatorial power.

5/ In “War & Peace” Tolstoy describes the affair as such:

“After the murder of the Duke, even the most partial ceased to regard Napoleon as a hero. If to some people he ever was a hero, after the murder of the Duke there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on earth."

6/ In 1933, four weeks after Hitler was made Chamcellor, the most important building in Germany, the Reichstag (similar time our Capitol building in which Congress meets) was set on fire.

7/ Hitler used it as an excuse to increase “law and order”. He also blamed the communist party, his greatest rivals, and used the event to arrest all communist party members of the Reichstag. (Like our Congress)

8/ Hitler used this event to destroy the rival party and make Germany a one party state.

We later learned the Nazis set the fire in order to blame their opponents.

9/ “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”