Among circles opposed to Donald Trump’s candidacy and scorched earth style of populist politics, it has become somewhat fashionable to compare him to Adolf Hitler, whose cataclysmic ideas were deeply rooted in the anarchy and nihilism of raw nature. Nazism, in its essence, was the “law of the jungle” applied to human civilization, with the concepts of struggle, racial superiority, and survival of the strongest its driving forces.
I don’t think calling Trump a Hitler is quite fair. So far as I know, he’s not planning a world war or plotting to exterminate entire races, as Hitler was when writing “Mein Kampf” (“My Struggle”) while in Landsburg Prison for his failed coup against Germany’s government. Hitler didn’t gradually evolve into an all-consuming monster; he already was one upon his entry into politics. Trump is an opportunistic demagogue who’s exploiting the worst instincts and suppressed rages of disaffected American voters.
But he’s still dangerous, and not least because of his nihilistic attitude toward important American institutions of government, much like Hitler who was a destroyer of established governments and social orders. (According to Yale historian Timothy Snyder, author of “Bloodlands,” in his new book “Black Earth” about the origins of the Holocaust, it was necessary for Hitler to destroy Europe’s states in order to turn Jews into stateless persons so he could annihilate them.)
So how is Trump undermining the established American order, with tinges of Nazi-like racism? Here’s an example:
“Donald Trump implied Saturday that a lawsuit over the now-defunct Trump University filed against him by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman may have been a conspiracy involving President Barack Obama. CBS New York reported the Republican front-runner railed against the California judge presiding over the civil suit, calling him hostile and noting his Hispanic ethnicity. … ‘There is no place in this process for racial demagoguery directed at respected members of the judiciary,’ Schneiderman said in a statement.”
(Read story here.) So there you have it: Undermining the judicial system with conspiracy theory and racism. It may not be Nazism, but it resembles Nazism, and if you add a world war and Holocaust, you’ve got Nazism. The questions are, who might Trump evolve into? And when a politician demonstrates some of the attributes of a Nazi, how can we be sure he won’t go the whole distance if he achieves power? That’s what makes educated people who have an awareness of history feel nervous about Donald Trump’s phenomenal rise in Republican politics.
Photos below: Examples of imagery comparing Trump to Hitler
