Trump May Not Be Hitler, But He's Doing A Horrifyingly Good Imitation Of Him

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Donald Trump is not Adolph Hitler.  Nor was Hitler a rapacious Manhattan real estate developer and reality TV star who stole a presidential election.    

But there are deeply uncomfortable similarities between Hitler's satanic quest to Make Germany Great Again and Trump's campaign to do the same for Amerika . . . er, America. And woe to those who still don't see the similarities and the menace a Trump presidency represents in this context two and a half years since the narcissistic boy-man took and promptly violated his oath of office with a smorgasbord of pronouncements, actions and racist diatribes -- which reached a new level of repugnance lat Sunday with his racist tweetstorm against four minority congresswomen -- that are strikingly similar to those of Der Führer.    

Okay, okay.  Trump merely told the women -- recently nicknamed The Squad -- to "go back" to their "crime infested" countries, whereas Hitler packed them in boxcars and sent them to his death camps.  But to both, Caucasians are the archtypally ideal citizens while people of color are inferior and interlopers.  And worse.  

Using Nazi analogies is typically a loser's game.   

Comparing someone or something to Hitler or the Third Reich stifles debate, almost always is in bad taste and triggers inevitable side debates about whether calling someone a Nazi is as bad as calling them a "kike" or "nigger."   

Then there is Godwin's Law, which states that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches inevitability.  

In the interests of full disclosure, I have broken what for me has been a cardinal rule about not using Nazi analogies.  This is when I have written about the Bush administration's embrace of torture techniques right out of the Nazi playbook, as well as the deafening lack of response from most Americans to this and other outrages not unlike the Germans who failed to speak out against the excesses of the Third Reich.  

My first such reference was in 2007, and I feel even more strongly now that these analogies have been apt given the circumstances, and certainly are fitting in the here and now since Trump is now so firmly ensconced in the pantheon of history's greatest racist and zenophobic madmen.  

But Mr. Godwin can rest easy, because in a coincidence that is seriously serendipitous, an acclaimed biography of Hitler makes the case that there are deep similarities between Herr Donald and Der Führer without intending to do so.    

The book is Hitler: Ascent (1889-1939) by Volker Ullrich, and the similarities -- again, without intent -- laid out by the German historian-journalist are so unsettling that there are accusations that Michiko Kakutani's September 2016 New York Times review of the book was a thinly-veiled Trump comparison at the time when he was still a long shot for the presidency.  It is not hard to see why.  This is because just about everything that Kakutani says about Ullrich's book reflects warnings that Trump should not be dismissed as just another crackpot who was born with a platinum spoon in his mouth.    

Chillingly, Ullrich sets up his 1,008-page portrait by stripping away the mythology that Hitler created of himself in Mein Kampf as just another talented guy.  (The comparison's to The Art of the Deal, Trump's Mein Kampf, which means "My Struggle," are mindblowing.)  

Ullrich warns in an introduction that "In a sense, Hitler will be normalized -- although this will not make him seem more 'normal.' If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific."   Ditto for The Donald.  

Let's go to the comparisons -- yet again without intent -- in Ullrich's own words:  

* Hitler was an egomaniac who "only loved himself," a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and a "characteristic fondness for superlatives" who had a "keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of other people."  

* Hitler had a "bottomless mendacity" that took advantage of the latest technology to spread his message and "was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth."  

* Hitler was an effective orator and adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences, concealing his anti-Semitism beneath a "mask of moderation" when trying to win the support of middle-class liberals.  

* Hitler specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements and adapted the contents of his speeches "to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners."  

* Hitler peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers and fomented chaos by playing to crowds' fears and resentments in "offering himself as a visionary leader who could restore law and order."  

* Hitler presented himself in messianic terms, promising "to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness," although he typically was vague about his actual plans while painting "the present day in hues that were all the darker."  

* Hitler virtually wrote the book on modern demagoguery by using repeated emotion-based "mantralike phrases" consisting largely "of accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future."  

* Hitler's ascension was abetted by the naïveté of adversaries who failed to understand his ruthlessness and tenacity, as well as partners who believed "he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence on him."  

There is another comparison to be made between Hitler and Trump: Cowardice.  

Like Hitler, Trump never does dirty work himself.   And Trump hides behind his enforcers, as did Hitler, while even his setbacks -- be it his Muslim ban, stanching the flow of jobs overseas or census citizenship question, to name but two examples -- merely embolden him to new and greater outrages.