Salon's Steven Rosenfeld references notable civil rights lawyer Burt Neuborn's comparsison of Trump to the 1930s Adolf Hitler. The parallels are too real to ignore. Remember, Hitler, unlike Trump, didn't come to power over the largest empire in the world of his time, and he did not have an arsenal of nuclear weapons to terrorize the world with. So it is wise to pay attention, it seems to me, to the parallels.
"A younger Trump, according to his first wife's divorce filings, kept and studied a book translating and annotating Adolf Hitler's pre-World War II speeches in a locked bedside cabinet, Neuborne noted. The English edition of My New Order, published in 1941, also had analyses of the speeches' impact on his era's press and politics. "Ugly and appalling as they are, those speeches are masterpieces of demagogic manipulation,"
Trump is not a smart man but he has a lifetime of successful propagandizing his "brand" and has a lifelong addiction of authoritarian forcing of underlings to submit to his lies and whims. And he is good at it. It doesn't take brains, just cruelty.
Here is my summary of Nueborn's list of tactics successfully used by Hitler, and by Trump:
- Endless attacks on truth
- attacks on reporters of the truth - the media
- attacks on finders of truth - science
- attacks on arbiters of truth - courts and the judiciary
- Endless spewing of lies, small or large or huge
- Use of a direct to his followers media that bypass professional media (Nazis passed out single channel radios to people, Trump uses social media)
- Mass rallies to create worship of the cult leader
- Extreme nationalism
- Close the borders
- Racist attacks on all who are not "superior" white men
- Protectionist policies for chosen industries, and their wealthy backers and donors
- Government money to the uber wealthy and their industries
- Despise and disparage diplomacy
- Believe in force rather than cooperative diplomacy
- Overt attack on democracy itself
- Restrict voting of opponents
- Reduce voting of non-whites
- Used violence to try to overturn 2020 election
- Attack the rule of law
- Attack judges in charge of his court cases
- Stack the judiciary with right wing extremists to empower authoritarian ruler
- Glorify the military
- Misogynistic attack on women
- Bigoted attack on gays
Hitler was elected to office and once in power he destroyed German democracy and became dictator. Trump wants and plans to do the same.
Come, you say, isn't comparing Trump to Hitler just an intellectual failing? Nobody is as bad as Hiter, right? Oops - do we remember Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, Putin, etc etc etc?
Come on, you say, sure Trump is a domineering bully, but Hitler slaughtered six millions jews, and started a world war that killed about sixty million people. You can't say Trump would do that, right? Oops - do you remember that Trump's main message in this campaign is that he is in it for retribution? to punish all who have been trying to bring him to justice?
Do you remember that Trump fully supports Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and will withdraw all aid to Ukraine if president, and will withdraw all help to NATO and destroy NATO in order to please his puppet master, Putin?
Do you remember that Trump has wondered aloud when he was president what was the point of having nukes if you don't use them?
Trump is stupid; Trump is ignorant and refuses to learn; Trump is practiced and expert at propaganda and lies; Trump has tried and will try again to end democracy in America; Trump has called for his Cult to use violence to install him in the White House; Trump will call for violence to keep him out of prison; Trump will call for violence to put him back in the White House; Trump will threaten the world with Nukes: Trump may indeed launch nuclear war - just in order to be remembered in history as the "most important" person who ever lived.
Trump is batshit crazy, but he has studied Hitler, admires autocrats everywhere, and is a danger to democracy in America and is a danger to the world.
This is not a joke. Trump is ridiculous but is not a joke.
