History repeats itself, and while you may find that statement to be so hackneyed and banal that one has to wonder if it even means anything at this point, one can’t help but notice the eerie parallels between Donald Trump and a certain regime that plagued the world in the 20th century, going down as the most destructive manifestation of fascism in human history.
You might think that the urge to compare modern-day politicians to Adolf Hitler and by extension forebode Nazi Germany has turned into something of a self-defeating argument. A straw man that is utterly predictable, wonderfully reductive, and still quite effective at derailing a conversation or scapegoating. I say all of this because I know the practice has to stop. I know that at some point, being compared to Hitler will cease to carry any tangible weight, if it hasn’t already. And yet, to ignore the obvious signs is to fall into the same trap that gave rise to fascism in the first place.
Donald Trump is now the 47th president, and his first few weeks in office have been a study in establishing a theocratic authoritarian regime that is only interested in promoting the beliefs and prerogatives of the far-right. His executive orders have unraveled years of progress in human rights, his bravado is isolating the United States from its closest allies — chiefly Canada and the EU — and his ties to the tyrannical, borderline absurd Project 2025 are rattling the nerves of every American.
Despite knowing exactly what this constantly growing schism of left and right is doing to the country, Trump seems hell-bent on mouthing off the same isolationist, ultranationalist rhetoric he used in 2016. And as if closing up the borders, deporting the immigrants, refusing to acknowledge scientific findings (especially on climate change), and instigating trade wars weren’t enough, Trump finally unveiled the true extent of his expansionist ambitions by going after Greenland again, and joking about Canada becoming the 51st state.
So, after years of escalating tensions between the two political parties, of drawing made-up lines in the sand and pointing fingers at the other guy, other politician, other party, after years of becoming increasingly more hostile towards the “otherness” that defines our multi-cultural, diverse society, we find ourselves at a turning point, where our fundamental democratic processes are being threatened by the greed of self-centered, self-serving men, hiding behind a veneer of self-righteous and religious posturing.
None of this is precisely new. You would think that exhibiting fascistic tendencies in the 21st century would be more than enough to disgrace you in the world of politics, but what people fail to realize is that the narratives we spin into existence about history are not exactly how things played out in real life. Communism was not the result of a single man’s manifesto, but the disillusionment of tens of millions over decades. Nazism didn’t come into existence overnight. It wasn’t the Übermensch that dismantled the Weimar Republic from within, but the slow corrosion of a people’s sense of self, the poisoning and weaponizing of ideologies over an extended period.
Hitler didn’t begin his crusade by rounding up the Jews and homosexuals and transgenders and gassing them in front of the public’s eye. He first made sure the people understood that there were sides to this conflict, and that theirs was morally superior and righteous. And this is exactly what Trump is doing to America right now, even if it’s not readily apparent in the face of all of this contradictory, confounding rhetoric.
People aren’t comparing Trump to Hitler because the legacy media wants to vilify him. It’s not because his biggest supporter, Elon Musk, did the Nazi salute. And no, Trump is not a Nazi because a lot of neo-Nazi leaders endorsed him in the 2024 election, and many people with sympathetic views toward neo-Nazism find themselves in the huge camp of his aides and advisors. Donald Trump is authoritarian because that’s simply the path he walks on and the similarities between how he rose to power and how a certain German chancellor consolidated power are almost impossible to ignore.
The rise of Nazism can be traced back to the Reichstag Fire, an arson attack on the German parliament that the Nazis used as a pretext to suspend many civil liberties of the people. Only a month after that, the Nazi Party, directed by Hitler, took control through the Enabling Act of 1933, granting the chancellor emergency powers that allowed him to dismantle the Weimar Republic. By spurring an insurrection and constantly claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, Trump is doing the same thing, in essence, if not in practical terms.
One of Hitler’s first decrees was to pardon hundreds of his supporters, jailed for their extremist and violent behavior towards the opposition. Hitler even pardoned members of the Nazi cult who had murdered minorities like Communists and Jews, going so far as to dub their acts as brave and loyal to the German empire. Trump also signed blanket pardons for his supporters when he took the oath, even though some of them had been charged with serious crimes.
In the way of civil liberties, the Nazis promoted a strictly binary view of gender, referring to homosexuals and transgender people as “degenerates” and systematically exterminating thousands of the former in concentration camps. One of Trump’s first acts as the 47th president was to invalidate non-binary people, declaring that it would be the policy of the U.S. government to recognize only “two genders” from now on.
Magnus Hirschfeld was one of the most influential and pioneering sexologists in the 20th century, and he founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, an institute aimed at promoting LGBT rights at a time when their voices could hardly be heard. After taking power, the Nazis stormed the building, smashed it up, beat the staff, and destroyed Hirschfeld’s work. This is similar to how the MAGA movement, through bullying and lobbying and other manipulative tactics, tries to undermine progressive institutes and hinder their work.
Hitler and his Third Reich were against abortion, especially for Aryan women whom they considered to be racially pure. The Nazis outlawed abortion in 1933 and made it so that no pure-bred Aryan woman, as they referred to it, could get their pregnancy terminated. The regime took this policy to such an extreme that even performing an abortion surgery was punishable by death in the decade that followed. The overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, and all of Trump’s subsequent rhetoric against women’s anatomical freedom mirrors that we have yet to escape the bigotry that once haunted our species for much of its history.
The Nazis considered many groups to be “undesirable,” and their xenophobic and anti-Semitic policies in that regard resulted in the persecution and expulsion of thousands of illegal immigrants, Jews, and Romani people. Hitler implemented the forced deportation of many foreign workers and refugees who didn’t have “proper documentation” and later forcefully brought many of those undesirables in his conquered territories to work in labor camps. Trump’s promises and sweeping executive orders, already in place and terrorizing many people, are almost a one-on-one reflection of the Nazis’ immigration policy.
A key component of Hitler’s rise to power was the Nazi propaganda machine, overseen by media moguls like Alfred Hugenberg and Joseph Goebbels. The former glorified Hitler in the national newspapers almost non-stop, and the latter cultivated the Führer’s cult-like image as the “savior” of Germany and their only chance at salvation. This is practically what Elon Musk’s X, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, and even Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post did for Trump in the 2024 election.
Before Hitler was appointed chancellor, it was Fritz Thyssen, a wealthy industrialist, who urged President Paul von Hindenburg to give the power over to the Nazi party. He even lobbied through many industrialist circles to put their weight behind Hitler’s ascension to power, later justifying these actions by saying that he wanted tax cuts for his company and industry as a whole, which was suffering under the economic turmoil of the Great Depression. That sounds awfully similar to a billionaire man-child we all know, who is effectively sidelining Trump himself from time to time due to the sheer reach of his wealth and power.
Last but not least, Hitler’s rule was defined by his expansionist policies, what he referred to as “Lebensraum” or living space for the German people, starting with his unsanctioned attack on Poland. For Hitler, the rule of international law or the sovereignty of another country was of little consequence, especially if it meant that he could get what he wanted by bullying his way to it. Pretty similar to how Trump treats the country’s old allies, if the last few weeks have been any indication.
The Nazis continuously made a scapegoat of other people like Jews and minorities, blaming all the world’s wrongs on anyone who wasn’t a pure Aryan. They banned books, burned libraries, and outlawed many progressive institutes. And when all of that didn’t work, they started exterminating that “otherness” with maximum prejudice. Over the past few weeks, many books have been banned from school and public libraries in the United States. This coming from the party always banging on freedom of speech is rather peculiar.
Now, if all of this sounds familiar to you, whether it be a certain convicted president’s racist rhetoric, his cruel anti-immigration policies, his populist claims about putting America first, his inclination to bully other countries and even threaten to take over their land, lobbying through his MAGA and GOP channels to repress minority groups, terminating government support for LGBTQ, giving tax cuts to his rich friends, and undermining democratic processes through the weight of his influence and wealth, it’s because we’ve all seen this film before, whether we want to admit it or not.
It’s easy to leaf through the pages of history and wonder why so many people remained quiet when they should’ve said something. It’s easy to judge the fact that they did nothing when they should’ve been out on the streets fighting injustice and prejudice every step of the way. Not so much when you’re actually living it.
Because even the greatest of human tragedies are only tragic in hindsight. When you’re living it, even the most cruel, malignant, deplorable acts of human barbarity can be justified with a few simple words. Or a lie that is repeated often enough.
But hey, don’t just take my word for it. Read what the man himself says about the subject in his book, Mein Kampf.
Published: Feb 7, 2025 12:37 pm