21st Century Hitler

Currently I am working my way through a documentary called The U.S. and the Holocaust, a look back at all the shit that Adolph Hitler and his regime was doing to the Jews starting in the 1930's and how the United States was doing fuck all about it.  

I'll delve into some of the details of this documentary in a future post (which will be awhile, this documentary is over 9 hours long). 

But what struck me was how much of the rhetoric and actions of depraved men from nearly half a century ago seems heartbreakingly relevant today.   

You would have Hitler at this rallies, ranting and rambling about how he has suffered and that means the people of Germany have suffered and targeting Jews as the outside force, the other who is the cause of such suffering.  

And the crowds gathered in joyous supports of these rants and ramblings with dutiful salutes of fealty and loyalty. 

If all of this sounds like a newsreel from Germany in 1938, it is also distressingly similar to events that took place on September 17, 2022 in Youngstown, Ohio.

There's Donald Trump ranting and rambling about how he has suffered at the hands of others who hate him and thus hate America and thus hate his supporters.  

As the crowd cheered and applauded, members of the crowd raised a stiff-armed salute to Trump reminiscent of the "Heil Hitler" salute of Nazi Germany. 

The one-finger salute reportedly stands for “Where We Go One We Go All” — a saying in the far-right QAnon conspiracy movement.   

During an interview on Friday, September 23rd, Hillary Clinton could not help but draw the comparison of Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.   

Hillary Clinton had this to say: "I remember as a young student, you know, trying to figure out how did people get basically drawn in by Hitler. How did that happen?” 

“I’d watch newsreels and I’d see this guy standing up there ranting and raving, and people shouting and raising their arms. I thought, ‘What’s happened to these people?’” 

“You saw the rally in Ohio the other night: Trump is there ranting and raving for more than an hour, and you have these rows of young men with their arms raised. I thought, ‘What is going on?’”

Clinton was hardly the only one to see similarities between the rallies of Trump and Hitler.

Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey made a similar observation about the Ohio rally:  "The crowd is similar to a Nuremberg rally in 1936."   

“A lawless Trump in office in the 2024 election would slide us into autocracy and deny our Constitutional safeguards. This is our greatest danger as a nation since 1860.”

Trump brought his hate and anger show to Wilmington NC last weekend where event staffers were apparently worried about the whole Nazi similarity thing. Staffers were urging people in the crowd to please not do the one-finger salute.  

Well, that might've quelled the Nazism in the crowd but Trump was still up at the podium with his usual litany of grievances and trying to make his struggle also the crowds. A blow against Donald Trump is a blow against America and the crowd is America. Everyone else is not.

There are risks to comparing Donald Trump to Adolph Hitler. Hitler does have history on his side what with starting a war that consumed the entire world and committing genocide against the Jewish community.  Whereas Trump never did anything quite that bad, right? 

But there was a time when Hitler had not done anything quite that bad either. But every step Hitler took towards his delivering action on his hatred of Jews that was not challenged or stopped gave him leave to become that bad. 

We dodged a bullet when the insurrection of January 6th failed to deliver the results Trump wanted.  And we dodged another bullet when the various other schemes (ex: false electors) did not come to fruition. 

But the gun is still loaded. Even if Trump himself is denied the White House in 2024, the movement behind has power to continue his message of hate and anger and people (like Ron DeSantis) more than willing to take that movement to secure power for themselves at the expense of the further erosion of American democracy.

History is most definitely cued up to repeat itself.