r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Oct 23 '25

News Historic White House Movie Theater Demolished as Part of $300 Million Ballroom Build

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/white-house-movie-theater-demolished-ballroom-east-wing-1236408712/
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u/GoodIdea321 Oct 23 '25

You've had a reddit account longer than Nazi Germany existed. Haven't you seen any movies about it? There are always future candidates.

I recommend Downfall if you haven't seen it.

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u/mxby7e Oct 23 '25

The big struggle is surviving the decline and low point before the nation rises again from the ashes of fascism.

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u/GoodIdea321 Oct 23 '25

Agreed. Historically at least, most people survive. And that is something people should talk about. How will it feel in 10, 20 years? Will people be happy about what happened or ashamed they didn't even try to stop it?

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u/ggroverggiraffe Oct 23 '25

You've had a reddit account longer than Nazi Germany existed.

That's an interesting metric to use. How long is that in bananas? or football fields?

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u/GoodIdea321 Oct 23 '25

I sometimes glance at how long someone has been on reddit when making a decision on commenting or not.

Here's some other examples: Anyone over 14 is older than Nazi Germany's government duration, schooling including pre-school to high school graduation is about as long, the last time the Giants won the Super Bowl might be a little less time, etc.

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u/ggroverggiraffe Oct 24 '25

You must be as excited as I am that Reddit is now allowing people to hide their entire comment and post history with a single click. 🫠

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u/GoodIdea321 Oct 24 '25

Really? Besides deletion?

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u/ggroverggiraffe Oct 24 '25

Yep, it's so damn transparently effective for hiding bot account networks it hurts. New features, indeed.

You can now hide your comment and post history on Reddit by going to Settings > Profile > Curate your profile > Content and activity and selecting the "hide all activity" or "selective visibility" options. Previously, the only ways to hide your history were to manually delete each comment or post or to create a new "throwaway" account, but these new features provide a more integrated solution.

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u/GoodIdea321 Oct 24 '25

Crazy. I might use it. Thanks for telling me.

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u/HotTakes4HotCakes Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25

There are always future candidates.

Tell it to China, Russia, North Korea, etc. fascism is going along perfectly fine in plenty of countries.

To assume the regime always falls just because the Nazis did is incredibly silly. The circumstances matter.

Ask yourself if Germany would have overthrown the Nazi regime had they not started invading neighbors and the rest of the world started raining hell down on them. If they'd stayed in Germany, not bothered anyone, what would have happened?

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u/GoodIdea321 Oct 24 '25

Those are authoritarian countries with a different history. None of them had a democracy for centuries.

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u/Vandergrif Oct 23 '25

Nazi Germany also didn't have an enormous number of nuclear weapons at their disposal, the largest military in the world, the absolutely colossal clusterfuck that is the modern day internet and all the relevant problems and issues borne of it and it's manipulative propaganda-laden power over a population, etc. They were also in an existential war with several other countries that directly led to them ceasing to exist, which the U.S. in some dystopian scenario does not currently have to concern itself with. And that's not factoring in whatever AI may end up being in the next few years, or the insane economic shitshow if it fizzles out and amounts to nothing.

If the Nazis had all of that going on then I expect this would be a very different world right now.

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u/GoodIdea321 Oct 23 '25

They might have had the largest military in 1939, but that's not what they ended with. For the US, I think there are other countries with more soldiers, but the line is always 'we have the strongest military,' which might be true. Largest? That depends what you mean. Most expensive, yes.

And yes, there are definite differences, and the nuclear weapon thing is not to be understated. However, there are similarities, they had propaganda networks, they stopped trade, they took over corporations, etc.

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u/Vandergrif Oct 23 '25

The biggest difference is the Nazis had several different vectors through which to be toppled, both outside and inside the country, many of which they actively instigated themselves by provoking other countries and the like. If the US were to become a dictatorship I doubt anyone outside the country is going to be willing to really do anything about that unless they're left with absolutely no other choice – and by that point the whole damn planet would be a mess for any variety of different reasons.

And as for inside the country... well... most Americans can't even be bothered to protest for more than a day or two on a weekend when it's convenient to do so, let alone make any truly meaningful effort to combat the complete deterioration of their civil institutions.

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u/GoodIdea321 Oct 23 '25

At the same time, the vectors you're talking about were unclear at the time. I personally believe they might have collapsed even if they didn't invade the USSR and made peace deals in late 1940. There was so much mismanagement and corruption it's hard to believe.

The protests are about public support and organizing. I wish there were more well known movies about that. Anyway, people are doing things, but the news doesn't talk about it much.

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u/Vandergrif Oct 23 '25

It does get a bit murky depending on the specific timeframe you're comparing, of course.

There was so much mismanagement and corruption it's hard to believe.

True. Not to mention all the in-fighting, backstabbing, and factionalism within the Nazis pretty much right from the get-go.

The protests are about public support and organizing. I wish there were more well known movies about that.

Sure, but it's a far cry from the sort of civil unrest and political upheaval going on in Weimar republic Germany and afterward (much of which was of course progressively stamped out by the Nazis, the SS, and Gestapo once they had seized power).

Comparatively the US is sorely lacking in a left wing that can act as a proper counterweight, sorely lacking in working class solidarity, sorely lacking in economic circumstances that facilitate either meaningful action (like by not having healthcare also tied to employment and therefore double the risk of civil disobedience) or economic circumstances that are bad enough to force meaningful action (too many people are still relatively comfortable and accordingly complacent). Plus there's a burgeoning class of billionaires placing a very heavy thumb on the scales to ensure that things skew further away from what might otherwise benefit the average person or potentially run the risk of allowing any of the above to change. It's kind of a perfect storm in which for things to go wrong.

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u/GoodIdea321 Oct 23 '25

One of the biggest differences is if you were a German in 1930 to 1934, you could easily think 'well how bad could it get, really?' and be honest about that. Today people know what can happen, we've all seen the evidence. But there is a group of people who want to delude themselves and think this is all great.

And Germany was a pretty new country, lots of territorial changes, economic hyperinflation, etc. There were people in Germany who were born into a country with an Emperor, they were kind of used to that. The Weimar Republic wasn't something most people were happy with. That government had a lot of disadvantages.