By Brigitte L. Nacos
For the last several weeks I minimized my news consumption and instead took time out to read brand new books and reread classics in search for food of thought as I struggled to make sense of the senseless politics and policies of Donald Trump. While I may not have succeeded to understand the narcissistic 45th U.S. President fully, I found similarities between Trump’s and other authoritarian demagogues’ character traits.
Describing Adolf Hitler’s personality during his downfall from power, Volker Ullrich writes in his recently published second volume of his Hitler biography (Hitler: Downfall 1939-1945),
“Several of his character traits had become even more pronounced: his egocentrism, his inability to self-criticize, and his commensurate tendency to overestimate himself, his lack of scruples when choosing means to his ends, his habit of betting everything on a single card, his contempt for others and his lack of empathy.”
This short description of Hitler’s distinct personality disorders matches Trump’s moral deficits and his disparaging rhetoric and harmful behavior perfectly. While it is well documented that Mr. Trump is a pathological liar, nothing displays his lack of public truthfulness more shockingly than the just publicized textual and audio-taped excerpts from Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book Rage.
We hear Trump’s voice as he tells Woodward in January and February and March that he was fully informed of and understood the deadly Covid-19 threat but underplayed it publicly to avoid panic. In public, he actually denied the threat, called it hoax—the Democrat’s hoax.
The President, as always, must have figured –and still does--that he knows everything better than the best experts, whether the generals or his own administration’s public health experts that are globally known as leaders in their field. He threatened and silenced those experts who stepped forth and told the truth. Instead, he recommended harmful disinfectants and unproven the hydroxychloroquine medicine to counter the virus.
This squares with Hitler’s egocentrism, genius complex, and contempt for others. Hitler aimed to be the heroic builder of a Thousand Year Reich; Trump aims to be recognized by historians as the greatest president since Lincoln—or the greatest president ever.
Since yesterday, I have heard many talking heads bemoaning Trump’s failure to tell the American public the truth about the Covid-19 threat as early as he knew it. Of course, I agree. He should have used every one of his press conferences to promote face masks, social distancing, and frequent washing of hands. Instead he politicized face masks by not wearing one, holding mass rallies, and praising armed militias who threatened state governments for Covid-19 measures.
But words must be accompanied by deeds. And here Donald Trump’s complete failure contributed significantly to the high number of infections and the horrific number of deaths—more than 190,000 today. The President rejected from the outset the detailed plan for managing a virus pandemic established during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Although he knew of the highly infectious and deadly nature of Covid-19 according to the Woodward tapes, he refused to immediately order the massive and speedy production of personal protective equipment (PPE) for the medical community, testing kits, masks for the general population.
Like Hitler, Trump displayed his lack of scruples when choosing the means to his ends. His ends were the protection of “his” economy as assurance policy for a victory in November. Even at the expense of American lives. If measured by stock markets’ performances, Trump achieved one of his ends. He never mentioned the harm to the overall economy, millions of businesses, families, and individuals. Instead, he promised the quick return of his pre-Covid-19 economic miracle.
And that brings me to Hitler’s and Trump’s lack of empathy. Hitler lacked it and so does Trump. Not once did the U.S. President spend more than a few words in passing in the last months to mourn the deaths so many mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors.
In his recently published book DEMAGOGUE: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy the author Larry Tye draws interesting comparisons between McCarthy and Donald Trump. Important for both was that influential news media supported them—in the case of McCarthy the Hearst newspapers’ in the case of Trump the FOX News cable network. Although it needs to be emphasized that the symbiotic relationship between Trump and the FOX morning and prime time crews is unique in modern time. This is confirmed by historian Jon Meacham who said according to Brian Stelter (in his new book Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth), “It is hard to think of a similarly close relationship between a president and a single news outlet.”
Finally, Ullrich and Tye deal in their biographies with the importance of “enablers” in the rise of a malevolent dictator in the case of Hitler and a bomb-throwing conspiracy theorist in the case of McCarthy. Trump has plenty of enablers—around him in the White House, in the administration, the U.S. Congress, the former GOP—now Trump Party, and a remarkable core of the American public.
The compromising Woodward tapes will not change the minds of Trump’s enablers. The question is whether those enablers will prevail or be outnumbered on Election Day.
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