By Brigitte L. Nacos
One hundred years ago, in November 1923, Adolf Hitler marched with several thousand of the Nazi Party’s storm troopers to the center of Munich to forcefully take over the local and state governments as first step to win power in Berlin. The Munich Putsch failed but 21 persons were killed in the violent clash between Nazis and police and Reichswehr soldiers. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to four years in prison. Behind bars, he wrote his manifesto “Mein Kampf.” After serving only nine months, he was released and resumed his role as undisputed leader of the Nazi Party. A decade later, in 1933, Hitler became German Chancellor and soon thereafter replaced the democratizing governmental system with a dictatorship of terror.
After losing the 2020 election, then President Donald Trump incited thousands of his supporters, among them violent far-right extremists, to march on January 6, 2021 to the U.S. Capitol and prevent the Congress to certify the Electoral College vote in favor of Joe Biden. In the violent clash between Trump supporters and Capitol Hill police four persons died. An injured police officer died later. Belatedly, this year, Trump was indicted on four criminal counts for his illegal efforts to stay in power. As president and more so thereafter the presumptive Republican nominee for next year’s presidential election has been outspoken about his views, such as on his disdain for democratic pluralism and his desire to violently persecute opponents.
Recently, while rereading Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” my inevitable comparisons between Hitler’s and Trump’s rhetoric heightened my anxieties over a possible, if not likely, second Trump presidency. Hitler as the leader of a new minor party and Trump as sitting president failed pulling off their respective coup d’etats. But after those failures both became more ruthless in their written and spoken words.
The rhetorical similarities between the two men’s rhetoric are striking and plentiful. In the following, I compare a few citations from Hitler’s manifesto that predicted his fascist ideology with Trump’s increasingly threatening rhetoric following the failed insurrection and during the current pre-primary phase of the 2024 presidential campaign.
To begin with, Hitler and Trump cast themselves as leaders with superior qualities. Trump has called himself not just smart but “a very stable genius.” He has often mentioned his uncle, a physicist at MIT, to emphasize the extraordinary gene pool in his family. Hitler wrote, “Human progress and human cultures are not founded by the multitude. They are exclusively the work of personal genius and personal efficiency.” He, of course, was the genius with the right to hold all power.
The two men share the claim that their rise to power was predestined and guided by the will of God. Hitler wrote, “I believe today my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.” He also claimed that the German people’s mission under his leadership was “designed…by the Creator.” Hitler’s acolytes echoed their idols assertion. Trump, too, has spoken of being “The Chosen One.” Brad Pascale who managed his 2020 campaign, lauded Trump by tweeting, “Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation and only God could allow me to help.” And Trump’s current social media platform is full of tweets by his supporters and retweets by Trump that depict the former president as God-like.
Hitler condemned democracy as a creature of Marxists and insisted that “the question of legality is only of secondary importance,” in case of an existential threat “when the employment of all possible resources” is justified. He wrote of the necessity to “destroy the parliamentary institution from within” and to “wipe out” the existing state which he called “the Jewish state.”
Similarly, the once again presidential candidate Trump has condemned not only the existing legal system but called for the “termination of the Constitution” and other “rules and regulations.” Recently, he said in a campaign speech, “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” he said, “They’ll do anything…to illegally, to destroy America…”
Trump’s rooting out promise sounded like the American version of Hitler’s plan to destroy and wipe out the domestic enemy in Germany which he implemented once in power. Hitler attacked Jewish internationalists and presses calling for the extermination of those who “spread the international poison” among the people. Today, Trump attacks globalists, bankers and media organizations and thereby which invokes the old conspiracy theory about Jewish influence over financial institutions and news organizations.
Like Hitler then, Trump now sells himself as populist who fights for the common people. Hitler did not hide his disdain for regular people. In “Mein Kampf,” he wrote that the public is “mostly stupid” and has a short memory. Trump reveals his true feelings about his own supporters only behind closed doors. According to a Trump administration insider the president said of his own supporters, “I don’t have to shake hands with these disgusting people.”
The comparative examples of fascist rhetoric in early 20th century Germany and early 21st century United States of America should answer the question whether to fear Donald Trump’s increasingly fascist rhetoric—or not.
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