Hitler’s Germany, Trump’s America: Is there really that much difference?
This election as much as Trump’s steady polling has shown the ugly side of the American mindset and it's not unlike one we’ve seen before. Mexico, watch out!
I know on the surface comparing these two might seem like an over-exaggeration that borders on condescension (for his fans anyway), but if you look at what Trump’s done over the last four years, what he’s encouraging his supporters to do and what he’s threatening over the next four, then the resemblance between the two is a lot clearer than you think. Firstly, let’s look at the current tragedy unfolding.
Trump’s America
With the Election all but over, we’ve seen the President commit crimes even his own bought and paid orchestra, better known to him as the parrot who keeps on giving, or occasionally Fox News, can’t get behind. Usually steadfast in its support for Trump, the American media network has entertained a number of hosts during this abnormally long election, some of which are seemingly more objective than anyone’s used to. While this has triggered confused protests among the hard right of Trump’s supporters, it also shows how far Trump has gone if his favourite ego inflator is having a hard time justifying or even standing by his claims.
It’s hardly a secret that in the months leading up to the election Trump has spent an inordinate amount of time and character space preparing to undermine the result of the election in the event of him losing: unless he wins in which case it’s totally legitimate. And on the eve of Biden being crowned, Trump has double, triple and quadrupled down on doing anything he can to torpedo the unfavourable result, including baselessly claiming voter fraud, shamelessly blasting democrats for ‘stealing’ the election, filing countless lawsuits and — the icing on top of the cake — falsely declaring victory before the results are counted. What this does is go far beyond the pale of a toddler throwing a tantrum or a desperate animal backed into a corner and shows Trump’s true nature as an amoral populist willing to do anything to stay in power.
If anything the only thing holding Trump back from full-blown authoritarianism is the fact that he’s on the world stage and can’t control the mass consumption of media and how his antics are perceived by an ever-observant public. If he could, is it truly a large step to consider he would indeed crown himself dictator, or perhaps he’d take a page out of Putin’s Fascism handbook and repurpose himself as an eternal commander in chief.
Because what this election has shown is that Trump’s only form of democracy is him winning. Anything else is simply not democracy. This has prompted his supporters to go out in what is ever-increasingly looking like mobs to protest the counting of votes; or something the dictionary, the law and anyone who doesn’t live in Trump’s fictional America is called democracy. In fact, it’s to these that the subject of the article pertains, because voting for the actions and beliefs of someone like Trump can, perhaps, be excused once. The aged-old gimmick of saying, ‘but we thought he would be different once he acquired power,’ would be applied as a defence. But what’s startling is how his polling has consistently remained around 40% and that even after 4 years of chaos, antics, name-calling, fear-mongering, scapegoating, and many many more the fact he’s come so close to winning another term speaks library long volumes about his supporters.
For instance, and I’m just curious, if you’re a Trump supporter are warning bells not ringing when you hear about his endorsement by considered authoritarian governments around the world, such as Hungary, Russia, Turkey and, yes this is true, even the Taliban? Is that not a moment when you step back and say, okay, who is it I’m really voting for here? I mean, clearly, the fact he recommended injecting bleach to cure Corona or blames anyone but himself for the handling of a virus, which has left America the front runners in both cases and deaths, wasn’t enough. Nor was his laundry list of blatant racism, his perverse sowing of discord, his disregard for coherent discourse or respect for the constitution. Or what about the fact he was impeached for encouraging interference by a foreign government in the election, or that he lies so much his face has permanently turned orange?
What’s that?…You still want to vote for Trump?
Despite everything Trump has accomplished, or perhaps more accurately, inflicted over his term as President, he’s still managed to convince a very near majority of the population that he is the lesser evil, or in his words the greatest gift since Lincoln; a statement riddled with so much irony and hypocrisy it’s akin the Jenga of stupidity. As none of the above seems to have had an impact on the people who supported him the first time around, the only thing left to surmise is that his America doesn’t care; they don’t care that he’s much if not more authoritarian in nature than the governments who endorse him; they don’t care that his tactics bear striking resemblance to Hitler’s in ’30s Germany or Big Brother’s in Orwell’s 1984. By now, they’re so far down the rabbit-hole of ignorance that they fully believe whatever narrative he chooses to spin. And now we’re brought succinctly round to the parallel.
Hitler’s Germany
Even a blind person should be able to see the parallels between Hitler’s priming of Germany and Trump’s of America. From creating common enemies (Muslims, immigrants, liberals); to demanding the media report his news, not the facts and certainly not the ‘fake’ news; to touting himself as deeply religious so as to warrant the support of traditional conservatives; to propaganda which encourages they lock his opponents up; to his rallies which allow him to bask in waves of blanketing devotion; to adopting misinformation as part of his daily conduct and; to the last few days where he has sought to discredit or even subjugate the very foundations of democracy in order to win, the similarities in their techniques and execution go on and on.
What’s important here is not just that Trump’s methods of controlling and ruling the population mirror that of Hitler’s, but in voting for his reelection his supporters are willingly drinking from his cauldron of corruption, emboldening him to do both worse and more. As stated, one vote can be chalked down to a lapse in judgement. A second indicates a deeper movement of resentment bubbling to the forefront of America: one echoed as well as exacerbated by the presence of a political opportunist like Trump. See for Hitler it took more than simple scare tactics, authoritarian measures, physical intimidation and societal manipulation, but a complacent enabling and in much of the case a devout following to rise to power. It also didn’t hurt that his supporter's voices were usually the loudest, not unlike the current President.
The difference is before Hitler seized power the Nazi party was polling at about 33% of the vote. Meaning the popular vote of Germans was also still the sane vote. Trump’s supporters, however, are so far-reaching, so buoyed by their own right-wing bubbles that they don’t see how their absolute devotion to Trump looks, talks, walks and acts a lot like Hitler’s fanbase did 90 years ago. And by voting for his second term they’ve become complicit in the madness, reality tv, pageantry and the farce that is the Trump presidency; so much so that he very nearly won. I mean how broken does a country need to be that it not only elects someone who is being compared to Hitler but would do so twice?
This refers to the most upsetting and hardest thing for the rest of us to understand, which is how when Trump’s incompetence, his inadequacies, his shortcomings and misdemeanours are made as plain as day, beamed all over the world and into every home in America, they can still vote for him. What’s baffling to us is fuel for his legions of fans. Suggesting that he represents the fringe, a selection of radical insurgents, is no longer accurate. Clearly, the man now represents the way around 70 million of the electorate feels towards a society it can no longer get to grips with. It seems an autocrat is what they want and in much larger percentages than the Germans did.
Now, all of the above notwithstanding, this does not mean the comparison between the two is by any means unilateral, or that the resulting atrocities of Hitler will be in any way repeated by a second Trump term. Nor does this alleviate responsibility from those who are anti-Trump, as most of the American media outlets or as they’ve now become known, late-night talk show hosts — whose repeated belittlement bears at least some responsibility for pigeonholing his original supporters and labelling their unintelligence for all to see — would have you think. But neither does this and many other discount excuses get anyone who has cast a vote for Trump off the hook. What it does is paint a dangerously declining picture of democracy for the future and highlight the ability of populist leaders to garner and galvanize a horde un unflappable followers. The latter of which will all still be there, despite a Biden victory, looking for the next Trump — one who will no doubt bear a striking familial resemblance to him — so they can espouse their deep-seated, authoritarian beliefs once more.
In the end and no matter the result, America has been exposed, many of its true opinions unearthed by this election. Willing to overlook, ignore, rationalise and/or applaud Trump's extremism, his voting base and to a smaller majority, yet large extent America itself has shown its true colours. What this means for the next few years is the squabble over the direction of American Democracy becomes more potent in social discourse and the power struggles of the infuriated masses who consider Trump their dethroned idol will ferment and, perhaps, seek deeper extremism made possible by the bullet holes of his legacy. Either way, his voters have spoken in surprising numbers and revealed an inclination towards a darker path that seems a little too similar to the one another country tread nearly a century ago.
