Can Any Honest Comparison of Trump to Hitler Escape Emotional Bias?
Or does the very contemplation hit too close to home?
I am an anti-Trumper. I am also Jewish.
What follows is my perspective, and mine alone.
To begin, let’s not ignore that we live in a world of justice and injustice both, of criminality and innate decency.
Of good and not.
There have been those responsible for concentration camps and those responsible for the Armenian Genocide. There have been those responsible for murdering black men and women and those responsible for hate crimes against Asians.
The Native American Trail of Tears was not made up history, nor were the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, two Kennedys, and Dr. King.
There are those responsible for killings at an LGBTQ-attended nightclub and those responsible for shootings in schools and movie theaters.
And so on.
Most frequently, the identities of the men and women who have committed such crimes are met with stunned surprise when the facts are exposed.
Who is to say, then, that those who become our leaders are immune? Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini … Putin?
Trump?
Case in point: U.S. Presidents are not immune from being murderous bastards either — Trump hero Andrew Jackson and the veritable ethnic cleansing of Native Americans, for example — and with over 130,000 Americans now dead as a result of a virus, it becomes quite easy becoming emotional at the possible expense of reason.
Still, I know several people who have passed away of Covid-19, in part the result of a leader in over his head who shrugged his responsibility to ill-equipped state governors while then tweeting for several of those states to “liberate.”
He did not create the virus; he exacerbated its domestic spread.
The self-titled “Wartime President,” Donald Trump, abdicated his responsibility and claims we’re winning a war with an invisible enemy. He’s says the virus will simply “go away,” and pays the scourge scant lip service in his press conferences.
And yet more die daily, and not because of “better testing.”
It’s a real fine line with which I’m struggling …
I received a number of complaints — several from fellow Jews — about a recent Facebook post I wrote comparing Trump to Hitler in terms of spreading propaganda.
Here is how Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels described the importance of perpetuating lies via propaganda:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
There’s that direct comparison, for starters, and much more to follow.
I stand by every word, and my list will be substantial.
I’ve had relatives perish in the Holocaust. I’ve also had survivors in my family, and relatives who fought in World War II and were decorated.
Trump never served in the military, which would be no issue if he was a unifier as opposed to a divider.
Instead …
- His Nazi-style rallies continue while he repeatedly rambles on about the “Kung Flu.”
- Remember “good people on both sides?” What about nationalists in the administration of the U.S. presidency? A “White Power” retweet, anyone?
- Were or are his immigrant camps really concentration camps? Further, was John Bolton right regarding what the president said about China, specifically Trump agreeing with the concept of their camps?
- Does Trump persecute (or fire) his political enemies?
- Did he use overt military-style police tactics when dispersing a peaceful rally in D.C., while then walking to a church and posing with a Bible?
- Has he declared war on the media? Has he created confusion on the part of his loyalists as to what is real and what is not?
- Did he ignore Russian bounties on the heads of American servicemen? As he denies the reports, calling them — sigh — “Fake news,” where is his outrage? Is he even investigating the matter?
What purpose does any of this questionable activity or inactivity serve other than to enflame?
I’m a “Star Trek” fan, a television and film franchise ripe with diversity. I was happy to find this viral meme — with words courtesy of George Takei, no stranger to internment camps — in reference to Trump’s ongoing rhetoric about the saving of racially-provocative statues and the enemy “left”:
How many will we lose in the end?
And what of Trumpism, the Trump-inspired movement, itself?
Donald Trump’s death count may well number in the millions once all is said and done, as Trumpism is the among most influential movements in the country right now.
Nazis are big supporters of Trumpism.
Consider the recent BLM protests (in which I’m proud to have marched and support) and their efficacy. Trump calls the protestors “terrorists” and “mobsters.”
I’ll say this once, as my comparison doesn’t always go over well.
Before Hitler rose to prominence, he was influenced by nationalism and the persecution of political enemies, inclusive of the press, among related variables.
None of this attitude ‘started’ with Hitler, which is a mistake many make. He was inspired by the above … as somewhere in the world today a young man or woman is so inspired by Trump and will one day rise.
I firmly believe Trumpism, if continued unchecked, will spawn a charismatic follower who will become more powerful and influential than Donald Trump and change the world still further.
This is what very few are contemplating. Immigrant camps, Nazi T-shirt styles, Covid deaths and Russian scandals aside, it’s those the current President of the United States has been inspiring — the neo-Nazis, and those B-Boys who threaten Civil War should their leader lose in November, as examples — who very much need to be watched.
Will another Holocaust happen? Doubtful; for now we have too many controls. But, if those controls are lost and anarchy takes over?
Anything goes, because our present wannabe dictator is inciting exactly that.
And THAT will add to the movement’s death toll.
I for one will not accept a simmering return to the days of Hitler. I am looking for the present snake to stop slithering come November and am doing my part in whatever tiny sphere of the universe I reach with my writing and other efforts to challenge perspectives of the other side. Otherwise, the rise of a charismatic, strong Nazi assuming a leadership role and bringing related “movements” together, engaging against their common enemy — who I’ll optimistically define as “us” — will happen that much faster and in time bring dire consequences.
IF history repeats itself, that leader will indeed, one day, inspire those masses like no other, inspired himself or herself by the current root ... unless others stand up and disallow it. We’ve had in this country, thankfully, strong enough movements of late to where the rise of wannabe dictators is not so simple.
Regardless, as a proud Jew, I stand by my every fucking word.
No chances taken.
The comparison is more than fair. In terms of emotional bias?
I’m emotional about the state of the world; I could care less about the con man.
It’s his impact about which I am concerned.
Thank you for reading.
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