Trump vs Hitler

[billvon 2,435]

Comparing political figures to Hitler has a long and ignominious history in the US, and has been overused so much that there's actually an Internet law about it; Godwin's Law states that if an online discussion goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will make a comparison to Hitler.  Earlier, the philospher Leo Strauss had spoken of a very similar logical fallacy: reductio ad Hitlerum.

The problem, of course, is that that means that if there IS a politician that proposes (for example) to exterminate a race of people, and people compare them validly to Hitler, no one takes any note of that.  Just another Godwin attack.

Comparisons of Trump to Hitler initially fell afoul of Godwin's law, because there really wasn't much similarity between a mealy-mouthed reality TV star and Hitler.  Just another Godwin violation!  Trump was something of a joke anyway.  But lately the parallels have been getting scarier, and none other than Mike Godwin has written editorials stating "this time the comparison is valid."

I just listened to an interview with Timothy Ryback, author of "Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power."  Ryback is an historian, and he wrote this book not by going through historical records, but by reading contemporary accounts of the time (newspapers, meeting minutes, pamphlets) so he could get a better sense of how this happened from the perspective of the people living through that time.

He never mentions Trump in the book.  But the parallels are astounding.

While Hitler was building his power, he regularly used Polish immigrants (who were pouring across the border due to unrest in Poland) as a scare tactic.  During this time, two Germans brutally tortured and murdered a few Polish immigrants; the Germans were sentenced to death for their crimes.  Hitler decried that, and stated that if he were elected "never would a foreign life be put above a German" again.

He made up bizarre stories to enrage and infuriate his party.  He claimed that German children were being sold as sex slaves to foreign countries, and claimed that this was required by the Treaty of Versailles.  (Pizza had not been invented yet, so no pizza places were involved.)  His stated goal with this sort of disinformation was to "hollow out the middle" - remove the moderates and drive them to one of the two camps, so that he could frame his quest for power as a choice between only two options.

Hitler regularly vowed to destroy democracy through democracy; he promised to use the mechanisms of democracy to destroy the right of the people to govern.  He planned to give himself more power if he was appointed chancellor.  He was very open about this, but the German people assumed he was just making speeches.  "The soup is hotter during the cooking than during the eating" was a popular German phrase, indicating they thought that Hitler would calm down once he was in power.

It is noteworthy that he almost didn't make it to the Chancellorship.  Due to his profligate spending and his lack of respect for the law, he was often in court in the years leading up to his chancellorship.  He didn't mind this; he used the courtroom as a pulpit, and one of his fellow Nazis once said that every time Hitler went to court he got another 1000 votes.  The justice system was closing in on him, for his crimes, his unpaid debts and for his refusal to pay taxes.  His only chance to avoid jail was to do what he did - become chancellor and suspend civil rights and the justice system.

His campaign was based largely on vengeance - against the Treaty of Versailles, against the Communists, against Hindenberg and his other perceived enemies.  Even his own people became enemies once they crossed him, or told him that maybe perhaps he was being a little racist.  "Once I'm in power, heads will roll," he told several of his supporters.

And roll they did.  Hitler could not get any support with just the Nationalist party behind him, so he allied with the Socialists (and specifically with socialist leader Gregor Strasser) to get a larger percentage of the electorate.  Even with that, the best he ever did was 37% of the vote.  He publicly supported the Socialists but privately detested them.  Strasser was a big socialist - an anti-capitalist polemic of his caused Hitler to repudiate him at the 1926 Bamberg Conference.  He was briefly elected to the vice-chancellor position while Hitler was rising to power, but retired when he could no longer stomach the changing Nazi goals.  Then, in 1934, Hitler had Strasser arrested and executed for being a socialist.

He could not do this alone, of course.  Maintaining his bizarre claims of sex slavery and victimhood required a media apparatus.  And that came in the form of Alfred Hugenberg, a media mogul who had his sights on world domination as well.  At first Hugenberg and Hitler couldn't stand each other, but once Hugenberg realized that Hitler was rising in power, he allied himself with him.  At that point Hugenberg owned the Scherl publishing house, the news agency Telegraphen-Union, several newspapers and the Universum-Film-AG (Ufa), a major film producer.  This let him churn out not only news about the evil Polish immigrants and the child sex slavery thing, but also publish glowing articles about "Hitler at home" "Hitler with children" and most importantly "Hitler as a victim of the evil Europeans." This went a long way towards steering public perception about Hitler.

Hitler took every opportunity to "gum up the works" of government when he could through his position as one of the leaders of the Nazi party.  The worst provisions of the Versailles Treaty were due to end in two years, and there was a movement to delay the passage of new laws until that time, so that they would be passed in a less reactionary environment.  Hitler did everything he could to push as many new laws through as possible, often with conflicting goals that he could then use them to show how dysfunctional government was. The Nazi party, according to Ryback, thrived on political chaos and economic despair, and worked hard to provide that environment.

The president at the time - Otto Hindenberg - was elderly, and Hitler's media apparatus spent quite a bit of time attacking him for being senile, doddering, and sleepy.   Hitler could not attack him directly since he still needed his support.

A month after he was appointed Chancellor, there was a fire at the Reichstag, the seat of government for Germany at the time.  When police arrived, they found Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, leaving the building.  The fire chief, however, saw Nazis fleeing the fire, and found evidence that they had in fact started the fire.  The fire chief was then arrested and assassinated by the Gestapo.  Hitler used this "attack by the Communists" to issue the Fire Decree which suspended civil liberties in Germany and allowed Hitler to start eliminating his political opposition.

And of course there are the growing similarities in their speeches.  Trump speaks of "poisoning the blood" of America with immigrants; Hitler spoke of "The rats that poison our body-politic gnaw from the hearts and memories of the broad masses" and that "this poison was allowed to enter the national bloodstream and infect public life without the Government taking any effectual measures to master the course of the disease."

Trump talks about how "we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country" - and Hitler said he "the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin."

Trump: "The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.  Our threat is from within."  Hitler: "Never in our history have we been conquered by the strength of our outside enemies but only through our own failings and the enemy in our own camp."

Finally, in a speech in 1940, Hitler said that the various German political factions could be "blended into one strong new idea to carry new strength which would make Germany great again."

It's not funny any more.

[BIGUN 1,073]

Compete bullshit, Bill.

Pizza was invented long before the Treaty of Versailles. The troops loved going to Italy to experience pizza. One of the reasons it became so popular in the US after WWII

 

[billvon 2,435]

41 minutes ago, BIGUN said:

Pizza was invented long before the Treaty of Versailles. 

My bad.  My pizza chronology was off.

[gowlerk 1,929]

1 minute ago, billvon said:

My bad.  My pizza chronology was off.

Not only were there pizzas, but basements were also in existence. So Hitler's opponents could have been doing those nasty things after all. 

[JerryBaumchen 1,066]

3 hours ago, billvon said:

It's not funny any more.

Hi Bill,

I think that it was about 2015 when I first posted on here about the Third Reich & Trump.

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  For some reason I cannot Reply to your OP.  Hmmmmm?????

[billvon 2,435]

3 hours ago, JerryBaumchen said:

I think that it was about 2015 when I first posted on here about the Third Reich & Trump.

Yep.  So many similarities.

It's also worth noting that Hugenberg, Hitler's Rupert Murdoch, favored a form of media warfare he called Katastrophenpolitik - "catastrophe politics."  He welcomed the inflation caused by the sanctions in the Versailles agreement, believing that an economic disaster would awaken the "Teutonic furor" that would let Hitler become their savior.

This became their goal, rather than an undesired outcome.  A plan that had some international support at the time, the Dawes plan, would have significantly lowered the reparations that Germany had to pay to the rest of Europe, and solved much of their inflation problem.  But Hugenberg realized that that would calm the waters, and would run contrary to the goals of Katastrophenpolitik.  So Hugenberg worked to torpedo the Dawes plan, in the hopes that a return to the economic chaos of 1923 would end the Weimar Republic and allow a new leader to step into the vacuum.  It worked and the plan was rejected.  This also worked to make the current president (Hindenburg) look ineffective.

Troy Nielhs on the border plan that would have beefed up border security: "Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating."

Their enemy was, of course, the rest of the media, who insisted on reporting (for example) that the Dawes plan was a good deal for Germans.  Hugenberg's response was to start launching attacks on the "mainstream" German media, calling them traitors, making accusations about editors having sex with Jews and Poles, calling them biased, and generally filling the media with attacks that the mainstream media was forced to respond to, instead of (for example) reporting on the Dawes plan.

Steve Bannon, 2018: "“The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

 

 

[JoeWeber 2,329]

9 hours ago, BIGUN said:

Compete bullshit, Bill.

Pizza was invented long before the Treaty of Versailles. The troops loved going to Italy to experience pizza. One of the reasons it became so popular in the US after WWII

 

Good job of jumping on a superb opportunity to MINOize an important and poignant treatment of a serious problem in America. 

[BIGUN 1,073]

3 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

Good job of jumping on a superb opportunity to MINOize an important and poignant treatment of a serious problem in America. 

"Wow, Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me." Think you can use MINO in a few more posts?

[Phil1111 915]

8 hours ago, billvon said:

Yep.  So many similarities......Steve Bannon, 2018: "“The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”

Media, i.e. the facts, have always been a thorn in the sides of dictators. ANYBODY who uses the term or statement: "I don't follow main stream media" . Has already bought into the circus of disinformation.

Hitler wasn't the first and won't be the last mass murder-genocidal dictator. But his willingness to slaughter millions of lower "class" Jews, Gypsies, etc.set a new standard.

IMO Putin is a better comparison for trump because both seek to be klepto-dictators.

[JoeWeber 2,329]

4 hours ago, BIGUN said:

"Wow, Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me." Think you can use MINO in a few more posts?

What, you sign off with it once and now are sensitive about it? Well, no offense, but it seems true to me although you can change my mind by answering post #468 in the Abortion Commentary thread.

[Phil1111 915]

On 4/25/2024 at 5:46 PM, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Bill,

I think that it was about 2015 when I first posted on here about the Third Reich & Trump.

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  For some reason I cannot Reply to your OP.  Hmmmmm?????

How Hitler Used Democracy to Take Power Just published in Time magazine. Its amazing how many people draw parallels between trump and Hitler.

I guess his actions and language speaks for itself. trump I mean.

[SkyDekker 1,147]

On 4/25/2024 at 11:08 AM, billvon said:

Hitler regularly vowed to destroy democracy through democracy; he promised to use the mechanisms of democracy to destroy the right of the people to govern.  He planned to give himself more power if he was appointed chancellor.  He was very open about this, but the German people assumed he was just making speeches.  "The soup is hotter during the cooking than during the eating" was a popular German phrase, indicating they thought that Hitler would calm down once he was in power.

You see the current equivalent of this in Bill Barr's recent commentary:

After verifying that Trump would indeed threaten to execute political rivals he adds:

“I don’t think the threat is there. The thing that I worry about president Trump is not that he’s going to become an autocrat and do those kinds of things,” he said.

“Having worked for him and seen him in action, I don’t think he would actually go and kill political rivals and things like that.”

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/bill-barr-says-trump-often-suggested-executing-his-rivals-during-heated-white-house-outbursts/ar-AA1nSeWz?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=3fcf59148b4b4b2d94f87474f447cc66&ei=12

 

[billvon 2,435]

6 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

You see the current equivalent of this in Bill Barr's recent commentary:

After verifying that Trump would indeed threaten to execute political rivals he adds:

“I don’t think the threat is there. The thing that I worry about president Trump is not that he’s going to become an autocrat and do those kinds of things,” he said.

 

Yep.  After Barr said that "the president’s conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office" and that his claim of election fraud "was all bullshit" he now does not want to be in Trump's crosshairs any more, and is saying that he'll vote for him now.

Other comments from Barr:

"  .. . The absurd lengths to which he took his ‘stolen election’ claim led to the rioting on Capitol Hill."

"Donald Trump has shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed [for the presidency.]"

 The Burisma attempted scandal was "another mess — this one self-inflicted and the result of abject stupidity . . . a harebrained gambit . . . idiotic beyond belief.”

After Hitler was appointed chancellor, and after he seized power, he started systematically executing his political enemies - and even several close allies who no longer supported him.  Most, of course, "accidentally" died in prison.  Perhaps Trump's former allies are trying to avoid that fate.

[tkhayes 140]

On 4/30/2024 at 12:11 PM, billvon said:

Yep.  After Barr said that "the president’s conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office" and that his claim of election fraud "was all bullshit" he now does not want to be in Trump's crosshairs any more, and is saying that he'll vote for him now.

Other comments from Barr:

"  .. . The absurd lengths to which he took his ‘stolen election’ claim led to the rioting on Capitol Hill."

"Donald Trump has shown he has neither the temperament nor persuasive powers to provide the kind of positive leadership that is needed [for the presidency.]"

 The Burisma attempted scandal was "another mess — this one self-inflicted and the result of abject stupidity . . . a harebrained gambit . . . idiotic beyond belief.”

After Hitler was appointed chancellor, and after he seized power, he started systematically executing his political enemies - and even several close allies who no longer supported him.  Most, of course, "accidentally" died in prison.  Perhaps Trump's former allies are trying to avoid that fate.

I am pretty tired of the Hilter comparisons on both sides.  Spend some time on Truth Social and fairly intelligent people there will explain to you with specific examples about how Joe Biden is like Hitler. 

They are wrong of course, and comparing Trump to Hitler is a tiring exercise (and unnecessary).  Trumps acts and his crimes are plenty of ammunition WITHOUT the need for other comparisons.  He is truly a piece of shit, a crook and a conman, we now have the receipts to support those claims and I have yet to find anyone who supports him that can articulate an argument or reason to support him.... just "MAGA!!" or some such bullshit.  

The Nazi comparison is exhausting and I find it somewhat insulting to the people who ACTUALLY suffered under the Nazis.

[SkyDekker 1,147]

1 hour ago, tkhayes said:

The Nazi comparison is exhausting and I find it somewhat insulting to the people who ACTUALLY suffered under the Nazis.

I don't think Trump is a Nazi. I do think he is using fairly similar tactics in getting control over a large group of people and using that to try and put himself into a position of power. That is the comparison being made.

[tkhayes 140]

2 minutes ago, SkyDekker said:

I don't think Trump is a Nazi. I do think he is using fairly similar tactics in getting control over a large group of people and using that to try and put himself into a position of power. That is the comparison being made.

I get that, but Trump could also be compared to many other authoritarian types in history that took power with similar controls moves, even getting elected..... but we only seem to use the Hitler comparison on a regular basis. 

[billvon 2,435]

1 hour ago, tkhayes said:

I am pretty tired of the Hilter comparisons on both sides. 

They are wrong of course, and comparing Trump to Hitler is a tiring exercise (and unnecessary). 

I'm a believer that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.

Quote

The Nazi comparison is exhausting and I find it somewhat insulting to the people who ACTUALLY suffered under the Nazis.

Yep.  Wouldn't it have been great if Germans could have stopped that _before_ Hitler seized power?

And to the last point, sure, you can be insulted by that.  But I am going to tend to go with what such people are insulted by, rather than your feelings on the subject.  And here's what Zeev Hod, a Holocaust survivor, had to say on the issue in 2016:

“One of the things people used to say about Hitler when he rose to power in the early 1930’s was that he was saying it like it is.  They thought he was a bit of a clown, with his big speeches and over-the-top showmanship, but they also admired his ability to say what everyone thought, but didn’t dare say out loud.”  His son asked him if he was worried.  "Not yet - but there is definitely room for concern.”

A few months later, after Trump was elected, Hod added this - “Not only has my concern not dissipated, it’s grown much stronger.  I don’t believe another Holocaust is imminent. But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Hitler.”

https://www.thewrap.com/holocaust-survivor-father-feels-president-trump/

[tkhayes 140]

7 minutes ago, billvon said:

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Hitler.

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Orban.

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Mussolini

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Ceaușescu.

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Khadafi.

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and U Ne Win

 

Which is my point.  there are so many other examples, but we default to Nazi.  We can leave all that out and just talk about Trump and what he actually is, what he actually says, and what he actually does..... and has done....

but yeah, I get the comparison, I am just tired of the monolithic nature of it.

[billvon 2,435]

22 minutes ago, tkhayes said:

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Orban.

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Mussolini

Sure.  What are they?  What can you learn from (for example) Orban's rise to power compared to Trump's?

[tkhayes 140]

3 minutes ago, billvon said:

Sure.  What are they?  What can you learn from (for example) Orban's rise to power compared to Trump's?

get elected.  change the rules to accumulate power and to stay in power.  your supporters assist you and do not stand in the way, even actively help make that happen.  (Project 2025 is that plan).  The fence-sitters complain but fail to act or wait until it is too late.  Many people assume the checks and balances will work, but the people that run those checks balances are replaced by loyalists.  Each step is an erosion of the democracy and eventually there is nothing to stop the authoritarian from ruling.

Nothing specifically 'Nazi' about it.

[jakee 1,259]

29 minutes ago, tkhayes said:

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Orban.

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Mussolini

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Ceaușescu.

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and Khadafi.

But it’s hard to ignore the similarities between Trump and U Ne Win

 

Which is my point. 

Then I think you miss the point.

Orban is a decent parallel - but the American right has already been fooled into liking Orban, so there's no value in pursuing it.

Mussolini took power after being appointed by the King. Not much parallel there - the USA does not have a King.

Ceausescu was appointed by the Politburo when Romania was already a vassal state of the USSR under totalitarian Soviet rule. No parallel there.

Gaddafi was a military officer who took power in a coup having never previously been involved in politics. No parallel there.

U Ne Win siezed power in a military coup. No parallel there.

 

Now, I get what you're thinking about - just a few days ago archeologists found the skeletons of an entire family that had been executed and buried under one of Hermann Goering's residences and it makes you think that however bad Trump is there's no comparison to Nazi atrocities. But it's the career trajectory, political statements, and way of coming into power that has such striking similarities in a way that your other examples do not.

[billvon 2,435]

17 minutes ago, tkhayes said:

get elected.  change the rules to accumulate power and to stay in power.  your supporters assist you and do not stand in the way, even actively help make that happen.  (Project 2025 is that plan). 

 

OK.  Project 2025 is Trump's plan.  Are you talking about Trump or Orban here?

One interesting difference between Orban and Trump is that Trump had the "Access Hollywood" tape that would seem to destroy his chances for the presidency, but instead either did nothing or improved his popularity (depending on which author you listen to.)  Orban benefited from a similar speech - the Oszod speech, where the speaker ranted against the MSZP party in Hungary in a profanity-laced tirade.  However, this speech was given by Prime Minister Gyurcsany, the prime ministead and leader of the MSZP.  When the (confidential) speech was leaked, the public outcry gave Orban his chance against Gyurcsany.

Quote

Nothing specifically 'Nazi' about it.

And there is nothing specifically Nazi about Trump.  His platform does not contain the word "socialist" in the title, for example.  But there are a great many parallels in how Trump and Hitler came to power.

[ryoder 1,400]

1 hour ago, jakee said:

Mussolini took power after being appointed by the King. Not much parallel there -

And in the end, he was sacked by the king.

Unfortunately, the US does not have a king to sack POTUS if he goes out of control.

[JoeWeber 2,329]

1 hour ago, tkhayes said:

get elected.  change the rules to accumulate power and to stay in power.  your supporters assist you and do not stand in the way, even actively help make that happen.  (Project 2025 is that plan).  The fence-sitters complain but fail to act or wait until it is too late.  Many people assume the checks and balances will work, but the people that run those checks balances are replaced by loyalists.  Each step is an erosion of the democracy and eventually there is nothing to stop the authoritarian from ruling.

Nothing specifically 'Nazi' about it.

Word meanings morph over time, like awful for example. Nazi, now, apparently has a broader definition, like asshole for example.

[tkhayes 140]

13 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

Word meanings morph over time, like awful for example. Nazi, now, apparently has a broader definition, like asshole for example.

yeah that at least is a good way to explain part of my point... overused and dilutes the atrocities that took place.  Trump is still a piece of shit capable of doing many evil things if he is given the opportunity. 

There is a significant portion of the population that has no problem with a dictatorship, because the country would at least 'look like them and their daily life', and they have delusions about 'some better time' that they have be robbed of, despite the fact that most things are just fine. 

Hate and fear still drives much of the movement towards authoritarianism.  I do not undertsnad the human psyche that allows that to take over ones feelings about any given issue, but it certainly is a thing.

You cannot do it if you simply point at any one individual person - you have to identify an entire group of people as your enemy and then everyone within that group becomes the enemy.