1. Once in power, both moved quickly to isolate their countries from other democratic nations: Hitler signed treaties with Italy and later Japan to form the Axis Alliance. During his presidency, Trump cut US funding for NATO. He added, if re-elected, he has threatened to withdraw from NATO altogether.
2. Both sought to cancel treaties and agreements that promoted harmony with democratic nations. When Hitler took power in January 1933, he promised to honour the sovereignty Poland and other eastern European nations. He also promised to cede the Rhineland to France forever. Two years later, in March 1935, his troops invaded and took control of Alsace-Lorraine. Additionally, he violated every provision of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles that ended the Great War (WWI). Apart from threatening to defund, withdraw, and undermine NATO, Trump has instructed his MAGA disciples in the Senate and the House of Representatives to not back funding for Ukraine or Taiwan (which has had direct threats from China).
3. Both have expressed sincere respect for totalitarian leaders and their methods of governance and quickly forged alliances with them. Hitler formed the pact with Italy, Japan, and Stalin’s Soviet Union, before later invading that country. Trump has repeatedly expressed his admiration for Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his style of wielding absolute power as a dictator, Xi Jinping’s iron fist rule of China, and Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, suspension of democratic institutions.
4. Both Hitler and Trump attacked the free press, claiming that media criticism of their policies was treasonous. Hitler’s brownshirts and later his SS, attacked newspapers and magazines that didn’t support his policies and then forcibly closed them down by law. He established his own media outlet in the 1920’s, the Völkischer Beobachter to disseminate his propaganda. He also controlled the German airwaves, forming The Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft in 1925. Trump had Fox News as his propaganda outlet, up until they were sued for $2.7 billion by Dominion Voting Systems. This caused its owner, Rupert Murdoch, to instruct his ‘reporters’ to temper the outright lies they were promoting for Trump and against his opposition parties. Trump has now formed Truth Social, his own media outlet to counter Twitter (now called X) to attempt to spread his lies and propaganda. Other far-right media outlets now include the Washington Examiner, Epoch Times, Newsmax, The Blaze, Hannity.com, Breibart, and a dozen more fringe websites.
5. Both sought the support from white nationalists by targeting racial, religious, and ethnic minorities. Both Hitler and Trump gave incendiary speeches and proposed and enacted oppressive policies. Hitler promoted his Aryan nation idea making Jews, Romas, Slavs, LGBTQ+ individuals, and countless others, stateless and therefore unable to vote. Up to eight million men, women, and children from these groups were incarcerated in concentration camps.
6. Trump openly supports white billionaires, old white men with guns, and the NRA. He has asserted immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” – a line straight out Mein Kampf. Hitler’s racist policies were enforced by Heinrich Himmler’s SS (Schutzstaffel) and Joseph Göbbels’ Reich Ministry of Propaganda. In 1990, Trump’s first wife Ivana, gave an interview to Vanity Fair in which she said that Donald was fascinated with Hitler, so much so that he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches on his bedside table. When asked about this last month, he said he couldn’t recall having the book and if he did he would never read it. We all are aware Trump has limited reading skills. While in the White House his subordinates had to make daily short, paragraph long summaries, in order to get him to even glance at them.
Both urged police and their supporters to assault defenceless citizens.
Hitler encouraged his Brownshirts, initially an unofficial organisation, to attack dissenters at his rallies. By law, they became official and morphed into the SS. By 1935, laws were passed that allowed them to attack and close down businesses run by Jews. Detention in concentration camps was his next step which led to the genocide embodied in the Holocaust (what the Jews call the Shoah and what the Roma and Sinti call Porojmos, which translates to the Devouring).
Trump has his MAGA supporters. This includes the now disgraced groups, Moms for Liberty, The Proud Boys, QAnon, Oath Keepers, Three percenters, 11 Percenters, Boogaloo Boys, Rise above Nation, Unite the Right, and NSC-131, Truckers for Trump and Cowboys for Trump. Individuals from these organisations were amongst the insurrectionists who attacked the Capital on January 6th 2021. As of January 5th 2024, more than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes associated with the insurrection. Of these, about 730 have pleaded guilty while another 170 have been convicted at trial. About 750 have been sentenced with about 500 incarcerated in prison. Trump has said he will consider pardoning most of those who have been charged should he return to the Oval Office.
7. Both attacked labour unions, defining them as enemies of capitalism, while they abused their executive power to enrich the far-right white industrialists. Hitler surrounded himself with officers and advisors who were prepared to declare their unwavering loyalty to Der Führer, even going so far as to require his generals to sign a loyalty oath. In May 1933, just 3 months after he took power, Hitler dissolved German Trade Unions, removed their right to strike and undertake collective bargaining. He replaced their leader who was incarcerated in Dachau and formed he DAF, deutsche Arbeitsfront. Trump was anti-union and anti-labour. He encouraged freeloaders (non-contract workers), made it more difficult to enforce collective bargaining agreements, silenced workers, and restricted their freedoms to join unions. He packed Federal courts with appointees with anti-labour judges, he filled the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union appointees, he restricted overtime pay, opposed wage increases, and gutted health and safety restrictions, and he helped insurers reduce coverage and made it easier for pharmaceutical companies to inflate drug prices.
8. Both postured as military strongmen while ordering arms build-up that serve no immediate offensive or defensive needs. Hitler served as a Gefreiter, lance corporal in the Great War. In 1933. Defying the Versailles Treaty, he expanded the Wehrmacht which consisted of the Heer (army) the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe (air force). By 1939, the Kriegsmarine was not ready for war, having only 78,000 personnel. In 1939, the Heer had grown to 75 divisions consisting of 24,000 officers and 2.7 military personnel which include both men and women. At that same time, the Luftwaffe had 4,000 aircraft ad 400,000 personnel. During Trump’s four years in office, between January 2017 and January 2021, the defence budget rose from $716 billion to $750 billion. President Obama’s last budget had defence spending at just over $600 billion. In December 2019, Trump founded a new branch of the military, The Space Force. Although of draft age during the Vietnam war, Trump received a medical exemption for alleged ‘bone spurs’ which would render him unable to march in formation.
9. Both purged government officials who weren’t loyal to, or agreed with, their policies or their methods of implementation. Hitler sacked numerous generals when battles didn’t go his way. Government officials were appointed for their loyalty to Hitler and Nazi policies and not necessarily for their skills or abilities as civil servants. Needless to add, Jews who had previously served as civil servants, teachers, or university professors, were summarily dismissed, their pensions annulled and found themselves unable to find employment thereafter. In the Nuremberg Trials, 24 of Hitler’s ,most important political and military leaders were convicted, most receiving the death penalty. In all, 199 defendants were tried, 161 were convicted with 37 sentenced to death; 5,728,051 Jews were murdered, plus more than 6 million others who either opposed Nazi Germany or were of other religions. This included 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, political opponents Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men and at least 3 million Roma and Sinti people. Trump boasted that he only appointed the ‘best people’ as advisors, cabinet members, and judges. His original cabinet consisted of his son-in-law, wealthy businessmen, and doners to his campaign. Of the original 15 appointed heads of executive departments, and the total of his so-called A-Team of advisers, 92% were dismissed and replaced by the time Trump left office. 11 of Trump’s cabinet members and associates have been charged with Federal crimes, 14 aides, doners and advisors have been indicted or imprisoned and, while in office, he issued 193 pardons or commuted the sentences of those convicted or facing trial, most of whom were his friends, doners, or advisors. Now, running for re-election, he has promised to appoint only loyalists to his cabinet and purge the permanent employees in the civil service on the basis their loyalty to himself. He has indicated that he will replace them with sycophant toadies who will, without questioning, do his bidding.