Yes, I run the risk of running up against Godwin’s Law. But as Mike Godwin himself said, sometimes that’s not unreasonable.
The point is not to *never* make Hitler/Nazi references and comparisons; just that they should be done with some care and thought. And I think in this case, they’re perfectly legitimate. It’s not so much that Donald Trump is Hitler — although he definitely has some tendencies that make you think he’s liable to do some similar things. It’s more the whole atmosphere around him, the people that support him, and some of the things Trump does. In addition, I really feel that anyone who supports Trump would’ve supported Hitler.
Think of the violence at his rallies, how he supports and encourages it. Often this is directed at his political opponents and journalists. For instance, he calls Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary”, says she belong in jail, and has made some not so veiled allusions that she should be subject to violence. Has any recent candidate for a major office in the USA done things like this?
He has received much support and endorsements from people associated with the KKK and white supremacist movements, and rarely if ever disavows them, sometimes incredibly pretending not to know who they were or what they represented:
“Just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK?” Trump said on CNN. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don’t know.”
His latest campaign manager is Steve Bannon, who comes from an alt-right site, breitbart.com.
Multiple times he has taken (e.g., retweeted) images, tweets, ideas from white supremacist sites, including this image, which he quickly tried to clean up, changing the Jewish star to a circle. As quoted in this article:
“The presumptive Republican nominee is literally recycling White Supremacist propaganda,” wrote the New Republic’s Jeet Heer. “And we’re inured to it.”
He and/or some of his closest “advisers” (and family members) clearly have close connections to such sites — how else would he be finding and using such material so readily and quickly.
Never in a recent American presidential election have the white supremacists felt so empowered.
In addition to his attacks on Mexicans, Muslims, and African-Americans, there have been many anti-semitic themes and incidents during his campaign. His closing ad was widely viewed as anti-semitic.
And there are those with more substantial knowledge about how Hitler came to power that think there are some clear similarities.
All in all, this is a very serious comparison, and a very serious issue. More reason that Trump is totally unfit to be President, and perhaps more importantly, anyone who supports him is, err, either not seeing things clearly, or a despicable person.