The most cursory glance at Donald Trump’s life would alert a truly dispassionate critic that he could not be trusted to be president. That said, I join mainstream critics who have been reluctant to compare him to Adolph Hitler and the NAZIs. Many of us thought doing so would not be good history, that there are too many variables and differences. The U.S. is not Germany in the 1930s, there is not the specter of World War I and so on. And, more recently, we have foolishly compared recent wars to Vietnam.
BUT NO MORE. Donald Trump is our own American Führer without a doubt. The question, of course, is whether our constitutional government and the American people are strong enough and shrewd enough to throw him into the dust bin of history. Like good Germans in the 1930s, many in the MAGA crowd and Congress know Trump is dangerous but have been in denial because he speaks to their personal prejudices and worst traits. And many believe that he’s the person to deliver the conservative mantra for small government, border security, low taxes, more measured foreign aid, racial and ethnic justice for white Americans – in short, a prosperous, strong nation that is dominant in the world. Ditto for many Germans over eighty years ago.
The Trump-Hitler comparison becomes increasingly apparent with each passing day.
Trump is planning a gigantic military parade in Washington to coincide with his birthday and the 250 year history of the American army. That such displays have usually been used by dictators and authoritarian governments has no merit for him; after all, it is about power and, above all, about him.
From the git-go of his first presidency, Trump has been obsessed with crowd size, that of his inauguration, his political rallies, all festooned with the pomp of “Americanism.” Pure jingoism that would have made Leni Reifenstahl proud.
These examples may be seen as the icing on the cake of Trump’s real agenda – the remaking of the United States into an imperial, authoritarian state where all the major institutions genuflect to the demand of the central government headed by an American Führer with absolute power.
Most recently, Trump when asked if he agreed that everyone in the U.S. is entitled to due process of the law, astonishingly answered that he did not know, he was not a lawyer. As president he took an oath of office to uphold the Constitution which protects “due process” in its 5th and 14th amendments. Trump’s words are those of a demagogue intent on having his way.
Trump, like Hitler, has never been accepted by the establishment. Like Hitler he is seen as a boor, an outsider with a big mouth, poor taste and an unhinged character. Like Hitler he revels in taking revenge on those he considers his oppressors.
Trump, like Hitler and other authoritarians, has attacked the nation’s major institutions to make them beholden to him. Even the private sector long heralded for its unconditional wisdom by Republicans has been called to heel to Trump’s vision, much like that of fascism where the state called the shots for the big German companies like Siemens, I.G. Farben, Krupp and Daimler-Benz.
Almost daily, front page news describes the government’s latest attacks or demands on the media, universities, corporations, the courts and those who dare to speak up or question current policies and plans coming out of Washington.
Just recently we have hosted visitors from Canada, Germany and France here at the cabin. The discussions quickly turned to politics and the threat posed by our president. Our guests, all of an age only one generation from World War II, spoke for their family experiences to what is happening in the United States.
I am a fourth generation German-American who does not want to see the German experience replicated here where I and so many families have lived the American dream.