If you haven’t seen Michael Moore‘s Fahrenheit 11/9 and thereby contemplated the analogy between our present situation and 1930s Germany, please listen to a portion of this discussion between Moore and Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy. It starts at 2:45.

Moore mentions the cultural similarities between the U.S. and Germany of 85 years ago (educated citizenry, similar values, same Democratic traditions) and how reasonable people in 1933 Germany assured each other that the barely-elected National Socialists wouldn’t go crazy and that everyone should dial it down and not worry so much. He explains that our modern civilized brains naturally downplay or rationalize threats and that “we don’t go to the place where we did in the caveman days,” meaning that in the Pleistocene era when our ancestors heard a growl or a roar they immediately said “danger!” Not so much now.