There's growing willingness to acknowledge the ways in which Trump's work of building and clinging to power resemble Hitler's. Good.

But this week the history that keeps flashing in my mind isn't Nazi Germany, it's pre-WWII Japan's May 15 Incident.

A thread. 1/

Japan after WWI was a two-party parliamentary constitutional democracy. The government functioned reasonably well into the 30s, weathering the depression better than its peers in the US and Europe. 2/

But a right-wing anti-democratic cancer took root in the lower ranks of the Japanese military. This cancer led to Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the assassination of a former cabinet minister in 1932. 3/

Then came the May 15 Incident in 1932. A group of young, low-ranking military officers and cadets launched a coup attempt and assassinated the prime minister. But the coup failed, and they turned themselves in and were tried for treason. 4/

The trial of the May 15 Incident perpetrators has come to be recognized as a key event in the disintegration of Japan's constitutional government and its descent into totalitarianism. 5/