Trump Would be America’s Hitler
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-by Harvey Wasserman
As The Donald unleashes his inner Adolf, there must be no illusions about what we face.
Through his COVID/drug-induced madness (like Hitler's addiction to crystal meth) Trump’s White Supremacism incites his violent fascist cadres. It’s all a terrifying re-run of Adolf’s rise to power in 1933 Germany.
The terror is escalating at the voting centers, inside and out. The Brown Shirts have blocked voter access at Alexandria, Virginia. Inside they pitch ballots on whatever pretext they can find.
This is the most critical juncture of the election-- where an election board decides whether to disallow mailed-in ballots.
Prepare to see them gather when the votes are counted.
Trump’s fascist rhetoric has sunk to a whole new level in demanding the arrest of his electoral opponent, Joe Biden. No other major party candidate has done that, not even Dick Nixon. Given AG Barr’s sycophantic contempt for the rule of law, take this threat at face value. Terrified of any strong woman of color, Trump has called VP candidate Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) a “monster.”
Yelling at right-wing militia groups to “liberate Michigan,” he’s got nothing to say about the armed fascist alleged plan kidnap duly-elected governor Gretchen Whitmer. Got that? Kidnap the Governor of a major state!!
At the Mexican border, stealth sterilizations mirror what Hitler did to Jewish, Roma, and eastern European women.
Many of these refugees have come here fleeing Latin American dictatorships installed and maintained by US forces. Some are U.S. citizens. Their children are held in cages.
All face Trump's COVID. None will get anything resembling his multi-million-dollar medical care we pay for. Death and disease rates are state secrets.
Hidden from the public and media, those who’ve seen the camps compare them compare them to Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, and other Nazi concentration camps.
Journalists, labor organizers, feminists, LGBTQ individuals, and progressive activists might remember that Hitler used such camps to “settle scores” once he consolidated power, a virtual inevitability with Barr by Trump’s side.
Like his racist, anti-semitic, Klan-lovting father, The Donald openly touts the “good genes” of his white followers. He attacks African-American, Mexican-American, and other citizens and immigrants of color as “murderers” and “rapists.”
Trump openly lauds Hitler's “racehorse theory,” arguing that human beings can be selectively bred like animals to produce a Master Race.
Here’s what Trump seig-heiled to a virtually all-white crowd in Bemidji, Minnesota, on September 18:
“You have good genes, you know that, right? ou have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it? Don’t you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”
Says Rabbi Mark Diamond, a senior lecturer on Jewish studies at Loyola Marymount University: “To hear these remarks said at a rally in an election campaign for the presidency is beyond reprehensible...
“This is at the heart of Nazi ideology. This has brought so much tragedy and destruction to the Jewish people and to others. It’s actually hard to believe in 2020 we have to revisit these very dangerous theories.”
Steve Silberman, a best-selling New York Times author, adds: “As a historian who has written about the Holocaust, I’ll say bluntly: This is indistinguishable from the Nazi rhetoric that led to Jews, disabled people, LGBTQ, Romani and others being exterminated. This is America 2020. This is where the GOP has taken us.”
At Trump’s core is contempt for what Hitler called “Jewish values”: compassion, empathy, remorse-- democracy itself. As reported by his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen, Trump thinks such beliefs (like science) are for “losers” and “suckers.” “You’re brutal people, not nice people at all,” he once told a room full of Israel supporters, referring to how Jews allegedly do business.
Trump’s backers love his ties to Jews like Cohen; his mobster mentor Roy Cohn; his son-in-law and fellow real estate grifter, Jared Kushner; consigliere Stephen Miller; and mega-backer Sheldon Adelson. His daughter has converted to Judaism, they say. His grandchildren are technically Jewish.
They might remember that Hitler personally signed waivers saving at least 77 Jewish officers who were useful to him while serving in the Nazi Army. Then he exterminated many of their families.
Some still dismiss Trump as a mere Mussolini, calling him a “clown,” as did many American journalists when they first encountered Hitler.
They ignore his utter lack of care for the 220,000-plus Americans who’ve died from his denial of the deadly realities of the coronavirus.
Trump’s hard-core followers suffer no such delusions. They proudly flaunt their swastika flags and Nazi tattoos. They happily salute him as der Fuhrer and loudly hate both Jews and people of color.
These are the “fine people,” who killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville. This is the “hero” 17-year-old who killed two peaceful demonstrators in Wisconsin (imagine if that kid had been black, how quickly the cops would’ve shot him to pieces, and what Trump would be saying about him now).
Now he’s urged his Proud Boy storm troopers to “stand back and stand by” in anticipation of a coming coup.
Approaching humankind’s most consequential election since 1933, Yale historian Timothy Snyder warns: “That the next atrocity will be different than the last one is not a reason to let it happen. It will be ours, and we have been warned.”
Our Election Protection campaign has become a terminal life/death struggle for our nation and our species.
It will take every ounce of our collective solidarity and strength to defeat Trump’s Hitlerian madness. Our survival demands we shed all illusions about what we face.
Never Again!!
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Harvey Wasserman co-convenes the Grassroots Election Protection Coalition Monday zoom (www.grassrootsep.org). His California Solartopia broadcasts at KPFK/Pacifica 90.7 fm Los Angeles; Green Power & Wellness podcasts at prn.fm. His People’s Spiral of US History awaits Trump’s departure at www.solartopia.org.
At Trump’s core is contempt for what Hitler called “Jewish values”: compassion, empathy, remorse-- democracy itself. As reported by his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen, Trump thinks such beliefs (like science) are for “losers” and “suckers.” “You’re brutal people, not nice people at all,” he once told a room full of Israel supporters, referring to how Jews allegedly do business.
Trump’s backers love his ties to Jews like Cohen; his mobster mentor Roy Cohn; his son-in-law and fellow real estate grifter, Jared Kushner; consigliere Stephen Miller; and mega-backer Sheldon Adelson. His daughter has converted to Judaism, they say. His grandchildren are technically Jewish.
They might remember that Hitler personally signed waivers saving at least 77 Jewish officers who were useful to him while serving in the Nazi Army. Then he exterminated many of their families.
They ignore his utter lack of care for the 220,000-plus Americans who’ve died from his denial of the deadly realities of the coronavirus.
Trump’s hard-core followers suffer no such delusions. They proudly flaunt their swastika flags and Nazi tattoos. They happily salute him as der Fuhrer and loudly hate both Jews and people of color.
These are the “fine people,” who killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville. This is the “hero” 17-year-old who killed two peaceful demonstrators in Wisconsin (imagine if that kid had been black, how quickly the cops would’ve shot him to pieces, and what Trump would be saying about him now).
Now he’s urged his Proud Boy storm troopers to “stand back and stand by” in anticipation of a coming coup.
Approaching humankind’s most consequential election since 1933, Yale historian Timothy Snyder warns: “That the next atrocity will be different than the last one is not a reason to let it happen. It will be ours, and we have been warned.”
Our Election Protection campaign has become a terminal life/death struggle for our nation and our species.
It will take every ounce of our collective solidarity and strength to defeat Trump’s Hitlerian madness. Our survival demands we shed all illusions about what we face.
Never Again!!
-------------
Harvey Wasserman co-convenes the Grassroots Election Protection Coalition Monday zoom (www.grassrootsep.org). His California Solartopia broadcasts at KPFK/Pacifica 90.7 fm Los Angeles; Green Power & Wellness podcasts at prn.fm. His People’s Spiral of US History awaits Trump’s departure at www.solartopia.org.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Fascists, Harvey Wasserman, racism
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 9:00 PM
11 comments
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11 Comments:
thanks for posting this, howie. you are the best!~
I'd like to take a little time out to talk about enablers. As a Black person in this country, it didn't take a lot to see the threat of supporting Republicans. Like most of us, I recognized it for little more than poorly concealed anti-Black sentiment. Overall, the party has consistently been hostile to all non-whites and most non-Christians. Trying to convey this to my white friends has been a chore. In the early 2000's, when I lived in west Michigan, liberal Democrats couldn't see the harm in supporting a man like Fred Upton. To them, he was mostly alright. They saved their vitriol for the Boehners of the world, who they felt was more harmful. Susan Collins was ok because she was pro-choice, but they ignored the rest of her record and the harm that came to minority communities because of it. I believe this thinking is finally coming home to roost. These mild mannered elected officials create the space for the monsters to operate. And the fact that all members of the GOP weren't voted out when and where possible has put us in the fix we're in.
I am not ignoring the neoliberal losers who inhabit the Democratic Party, who shoulder nearly as much blame as the GOP itself, but the fact that it has taken Trump to make everyone take the threat of fascism and white supremacy seriously is astounding. This president is the manifestation of the failure of liberalism as the antidote to fascism. We who oppose it better toughen up really quickly. At the very least, don't break bread with people who support fascism. That means family, friends, neighbors, etc. The politeness with which these abhorrent points of view are being engaged because people don't want to alienate others is frightening. These people are on board to kill me and my family if they are allowed to do so by the State.
Reagan launched this descent into American Naziism. Remember him launching his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia MS, just miles away from where Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered. Then he refused to visit an Allied War Cemetery to visit instead SS war dead in Bitburg.
I saw this at the time. Few others did, making the most incredible excuses for that Nazi tool and the warmongering murderers he led.
I knew about how Poppy Bush provided ships for the Bay of Pigs invasion, and that he's the only person in America who claims to not remember where he was when the fascist coup toppled the New Deal in November 1963. All of his subsequent governmental posts were his reward for being a Good Nazi.
And so on.
We were warned about this problem since the very beginning of the nation, particularly Franklin warning about us losing our Republic.
The Wall St Coup of 1934 isn't as well-known as it should be. Neither is the Powell Memo, which should read like a history now that all of the goals of that fascist crap have been realized, often with the active compliance of the "Democrats".
Now throw into the mix the American Quisling, the double-CK Joe Biden, who never saw a freedom or liberty of the American people he didn't want to eliminate. Trump had pretty much destroyed American governance. Biden's job is now to cement it in place.
And he will, for he's already vowed that Nothing Will Fundamentally Change - from the damage Trump has inflicted.
Die For Profit$.
sadly nodding in total agreement with the above.
I've been citing the parallels between this shithole and Nazi Germany and Hitler for 4 decades now... to no avail... still.
I am especially sympathetic to Zed's befuddlement. Astonishingly, the black demographic is supporting a lifelong racist (as are women who are supporting a lifelong misogynist and a rapist). How does one react to such widespread pandemic stupidity?
The comment about reagan is salient, but I remember nixon running an even more obvious dog-whistle campaign in the south to win in '68. He did so with LBJ's '66 passage of civil and voting rights pillars of his "great society", and thus southern whites, poof, became republicans.
note: both nixon and reagan committed treason, almost identically, to win. In both cases, the Democrat tasked with administering "justice" refused to do jack shit. back then, it was surprising. today, it is expected... SOP.
And I would warn Harvey that there be hordes of morons out there who couldn't discern who is hitting them in the groin with that cricket bat but who DO react viscerally to anyone who dares draw parallels between america/americans and nazis. The more obvious the parallels, the more hysterical they get. Perhaps he already knows.
Excellent article Harvey, even if it is 40 years too late.
Fascism is an authoritarian, nationalistic and anti-socialist political ideology that preaches the need for a strong state ruled by a single political party led by a charismatic leader. Hitler and the Nazis came to power with the support of more than ten million workers. Further, that very month, March 1933, the first camp was opened – for the incarceration of officials of the Communist and Social Democratic Parties. And on May 10 1933 in Berlin banned books were burnt openly and watched by some 70,000 people. Trump ticks those three ideological boxes and like Hitler was elected — his supporters include millions of workers, whilst millions of others are disenfranchised. In April 2019 his administration began enforcing a zero-tolerance immigration policy that has resulted in thousands of children being separated from their families. We must not forget Obama's equally strict policy and that separation of families started on his watch, along with the use of gas on migrants wishing to enter the US. We must also remember that it is we the people who keep electing the likes of Hitler & Trump, King & Queen Ortega, the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front, Turkey's ever power-hungry president Erdoğan and other odious types including Rodrigo Kill 'em All Duterte of the Philippines, Bolsonaro and Orbán.
Trump and Hitler also got about the same minority of eligible voters (31%) but still failed to "lose".
And you need to add in the irregular armies of both (boogaloo or whatever trump's calls themselves and the brown-shirts in Germany) that are the line of demarcation between boilerplate fascism and naziism.
Then there are the identifying symbols: German nazis had the hackenkreutz; american nazis have their redhates.
it does seem as though the entire world's voters are dumber than shit, doesn't it.
America was founded on the genocide of the Native Americans. We bought, brutalized and enslaved Africans as personal property. But forget all that... we can't ever allow ourselves to be guided by a Hitler...that would be anti-American??
"Our survival demands we shed all illusions about what we face."
indeed. we face a "stark" choice between corrupt neoliberal fascism and kleptocratic naziism.
our survival demands we understand and do a 180. not just choose which shit-based entree to gobble down for the next 2 or 4 years.
8:29 needs to do better research. HITLER WAS NEVER ELECTED TO ANYTHING.
Yes, his party won a large portion of the Reichstag, but were still not the majority. It took a foolish belief that giving Hitler a "responsible" position would rein him in, so the German equivalent of today's US Republican party pressured the aging and senile President of the Weimar Republic to appoint Hitler to the Chancellorship. Hitler then used this alliance to first make the leftist parties illegal, then he turned against his political allies and had them banned as well. Once that was achieved, Hitler had the Reichstag pass the Enabling Acts which gave Hitler dictatorial power, then voted themselves out of existence.
Now go verify what I've given you, 8:29 You won't believe me until you do.
accurate, 10:22.
different times, though. in this shithole, 30% can win the whole shit-enchilada. And he doesn't need enabling acts as long as nobody in congress will impeach him nor even impede his worst impulses. Barr can act as the enabling act.
trump could impose martial law. he's got covid and his 30% believe religiously about vote fraud. He could stop the election. I don't frankly know why he does not. I have all confidence that the democraps would only whine about it. I seriously doubt the military would intervene on behalf of democracy. He's got his million or so irregulars ready to stand up. And the cops have already demonstrated their fealty by deferring to the irregulars. He's got BLM playing the part of the jews.
trump may not care to be fuhrer so much as he wants to be adored by his throngs and have the government shower him with graft to make himself richer. But, again, I have no clue why he hasn't already made such a declaration. He's right where Hitler was after the enabling acts.
Thank you @1022.
Hitler was leader of the Nazi Party before it and the allied Nationalists polled between them, in March 1933, over 20 million votes, an absolute majority (51.9%) of the votes cast. Yes the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor likely involved chicanery and the March 1933 election did not include all political parties, but such practices also take place today in what passes for democracy in the 'free world.' The tragic and substantive fact is that Hitler, elected twice by then as leader, and the Nazis came to power with the support of more than 10 million workers.
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