Welcome to the Book Club of Complicity: How Trump Voters Became the Willing Executioners of American Democracy

Required Reading for the Shameless: 6 Books That Prove Trump Voters Cheer Authoritarianism, Enable Cruelty, and Push America to the Brink

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Welcome to the Book Club of Complicity!

Congratulations! Your vote for Donald Trump has earned you a coveted invitation to an exclusive club—a veritable salon of enablers, blind loyalists, and those who truly put the “free” in freefall of democracy. Membership here is granted only to those who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to ignoring historical precedent, cozying up to authoritarianism, and ensuring that the arc of history bends not toward justice, but into a smoking wreckage. Bravo!

This is no ordinary book club; it’s an intellectual journey tailored to celebrate your critical contributions to the slow unraveling of democracy. Our meticulously curated reading list will guide you through the annals of human history where individuals—like you—helped despots rise to power. From the fall of Weimar Germany to the collapse of ancient republics, you’ll find kindred spirits on every page. Don’t worry—you won’t have to dig deep for parallels; they’ll leap off the pages and smack you in the face—like a woman fighting off Trump’s sexual assault.

But wait, there’s more! Each book will not only explain how democracies crumble but will also offer the profound revelation that it was never just one man’s doing. It took an entire movement of people—like you—who cheered as institutions burned, laughed as the vulnerable suffered, and shrugged at every new violation of law, decency, and human rights.

You are not just a bystander in these pages—you are a central character in the tragedy.

So, welcome to the Book Club of Complicity. History is already writing your name in the footnotes of its darkest chapters. Enjoy the reading. After all, you wrote the prologue.

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1: Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer

Theme: Individual Psychology—How Blind Loyalty Fuels Authoritarian Movements

Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer (1951) is a masterclass in understanding the psychology of mass movements, and its relevance to MAGA is so precise it feels like prophecy. Hoffer dissects the mindset of the "true believer"—someone who surrenders individuality, critical thinking, and personal responsibility to be swept up in the intoxicating allure of a collective cause.

Hoffer explains that mass movements don’t attract thinkers or leaders—they attract those desperate to escape their own insignificance, dissatisfaction, or failures. MAGA thrives on this vulnerability, offering its followers a sense of meaning and purpose through rage and submission. Trump’s rallies aren’t political events—they’re mass therapy for the aggrieved and the ignorant. His chants of “Lock her up” or “Stop the steal” serve as a unifying liturgy of grievance, paranoia, and vengeance.

And he knew exactly how to hook you.

✔️ He gave you an enemy—immigrants, LGBTQ people, “woke elites.”

✔️ He gave you a persecution fantasy—you’re the “real victim” in America.

✔️ He gave you a savior complex—only he could “fix it.”

This is why you excuse every crime he commits. It’s not because you don’t see the corruption—it’s because you don’t care.

🚩 Trump steals from you? It’s a deep-state setup.

🚩 Trump sells out the country for his own benefit? He’s a “smart businessman.”

🚩 Trump openly calls for political purges, revenge trials, and a dictatorship? That’s “just Trump being Trump.”

No matter what he does, you defend it. It’s not about Trump’s competence, morality, or even ideology. It’s about your desperate need to believe.

Hoffer understood this decades before Trump ever descended that escalator. And the only thing more terrifying than how accurate his warnings were? How willingly you’ve proved him right.

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2: Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free

Theme: Passive Complicity—How Ordinary People Normalize Authoritarianism

Milton Mayer’s They Thought They Were Free (1955) is a chilling anatomy of complicity, a dive into how ordinary Germans—people like you who thought they were just “good citizens”—became the unwitting architects of one of history’s darkest chapters. Mayer’s post-war interviews reveal an unnerving truth: they didn’t see themselves as bad people—just as you likely don’t. They convinced themselves they were just “taking their country back.” Their leader, they insisted, was “saving them.” And above all, they assured themselves they weren’t responsible.

Sound familiar?

🚩 Banning books that discuss racism, LGBTQ identities, or the Holocaust? “Just protecting kids.”

🚩 Teachers fired for discussing slavery? “Just keeping politics out of schools.”

🚩 Trump calling immigrants 'poison' and promising mass deportations? “Just securing the border.”

🚩 Denying federal aid to cities with a lot of “black and brown people”? “Just fiscal responsibility.”

Replace “Hitler” with “Trump” and the script doesn’t miss a beat. MAGA adherents cheer for executive orders that erode civil liberties, dismantle reproductive freedoms, strip LGBTQ rights, and gut environmental protections—all under the comforting pretense of “restoring order” and “defending the family.”

The normalization of cruelty is central to Mayer’s warning. Propaganda doesn’t kick in the door—it whispers in your ear, softly, relentlessly, until reality bends in its favor. Each small concession to power makes the next outrage seem ordinary. Mayer’s Germans didn’t wake up in a dictatorship; they slipped into it, one book burning, one censored headline, one disappearing neighbor at a time. MAGA operates on the same principle.

But perhaps Mayer’s most damning insight is how authoritarianism thrives on grievance politics—the great lie that someone else (immigrants, minorities, “woke” elites) stole the country from them. MAGA’s entire identity hinges on victimhood—the belief that their suffering isn’t the result of corporate greed or Trump’s own policies, but a conspiracy orchestrated by “the left.” Just as Mayer’s Germans blamed Jews and communists for their nation’s woes, MAGA blames every marginalized group they can find.

And once you convince people they’re victims, you can justify anything in the name of revenge.

You don’t think you’re a villain. But neither did they.

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3: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem

Theme: Bureaucratic Indifference—The Banality of Evil

Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963) delivers an unnerving insight: atrocities don’t require sadists or fanatics—they require obedient bureaucrats, rule-followers, and the willfully indifferent. Adolf Eichmann, the logistical mastermind of genocide, wasn’t a raving ideologue but a chillingly ordinary bureaucrat. He wasn’t driven by hatred—he was driven by careerism, loyalty to the system, and an unthinking obedience to rules.

This is what makes Arendt’s thesis so terrifying: evil doesn’t always look like a dictator ranting from a podium. More often, it looks like a government official stamping an order, a police officer enforcing a cruel law, or a judge ruling that “his hands are tied.”

Trump’s MAGA movement has weaponized this exact bureaucratic indifference to devastating effect.

🚩 Family separations at the border? Just “immigration enforcement.”

🚩 Raiding schools and churches for migrants? Just “upholding the law.”

🚩 Stripping trans people of legal recognition? Just an “administrative update.”

🚩 Forcing rape victims to give birth? Just “protecting life.”

Like Eichmann’s meticulously scheduled trains to Auschwitz, MAGA policies devastate lives while masquerading as ordinary governance.

And what is your response?
You clap. You laugh. You make memes.

This mindset is what enables atrocities to become mundane, procedural, inevitable. Trump’s followers cheer dehumanizing policies not because they think they’re monstrous (though, truth be told, some do), but because they believe the system is simply “restoring order.” Even Trump’s legislative machinery mirrors Arendt’s warnings. Take the push to criminalize abortion access or the outlawing of gender-affirming care nationwide. These policies are couched in dry, bureaucratic language—"state regulations," "executive actions"—designed to seem neutral and impersonal. But make no mistake: they are engineered for cruelty, designed to erase and destroy lives.

Arendt’s warning wasn’t just about the men giving the orders. It was about the people like you—who vote for them, support them, excuse them, and then pretend they had nothing to do with it.

And when history asks what happened, you’ll respond the same way Eichman and every bureaucrat in every authoritarian regime has:

"I was just following orders."

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4: Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners

Theme: Enthusiastic Participation in Oppression

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996) reveals a haunting, inescapable truth: atrocities aren’t committed by lone dictators; they require the willing participation of ordinary people. The Holocaust didn’t happen because Hitler single-handedly orchestrated it—it happened because millions of Germans embraced their role as enforcers of cruelty. They weren’t passive bystanders; they were eager collaborators, driven by pre-existing bigotries, nationalist fervor, and a moral framework that rationalized unimaginable inhumanity.

MAGA’s unflinching embrace of state-sponsored persecution follows this same trajectory. Trump’s movement has normalized dehumanization, recasting entire groups—immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, racial minorities—as existential threats to America’s survival.

And what do you think happens next?

Goldhagen demonstrates that the Holocaust wasn’t a historical anomaly—it was the inevitable result of a culture where hate was normalized, propaganda replaced truth, and cruelty became a civic duty. MAGA operates in the same way. It isn’t enough for Trump’s followers to support bad policies; they must revel in the suffering those policies inflict.

🚩 Abortion bans forcing rape victims—some as young as 10—to give birth? You cheer.

🚩 LGBTQ kids denied healthcare, bullied out of existence, or worse? You celebrate it as a “win for family values.”

🚩 Trans adults banned from legally existing as their gender? You call it “common sense.”

🚩 Mass deportations—families torn apart, children left parentless? You chant, “Build the wall!”

🚩 Asylum seekers deported to their deaths? You laugh.

🚩 Teachers fired for discussing race, slavery, or LGBTQ identities? You call it “protecting kids.”

🚩 Book bans that target Black history, queer authors, even Holocaust education? You claim it’s “stopping indoctrination.”

🚩 Trump calling his enemies 'vermin' and vowing to 'root them out like a cancer'? You scream “MAGA!” in response.

This isn’t political difference. This is complicity in atrocity.

Goldhagen’s thesis—that ordinary people don’t just tolerate evil, they actively carry it out when the conditions are right—has never been more relevant. Trump’s movement thrives on scapegoating, offering his base a simplistic, rage-fueled solution to every problem: blame the “other.” The suspension of asylum, the push to criminalize gender-affirming care, Project 2025’s plan to purge government workers and replace them with ideological foot soldiers—none of this is incidental to MAGA’s rise. It’s central to it.

Just as Nazi Germany justified persecution as a defense of German identity, MAGA masks its bigotry as patriotism.

When Trump calls LGBTQ people “freaks,”
When he labels immigrants “poisoning the blood of America,”
When he vows to “root out the radical left like a cancer”—

These aren’t just words. They’re marching orders. This is how violence begins—not in secret, but in plain sight, cheered on by those who pretend history isn’t repeating itself.

Goldhagen’s most chilling insight? People don’t just accept evil—they embrace it when the culture makes it permissible. MAGA’s willingness to celebrate policies that strip away human rights—while draping themselves in the flag and parading the Bible—proves that complicity isn’t passive. It’s a choice.

And if you’re clapping? It’s because you’ve already made yours.

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5: Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny

Theme: How Democracies Are Dismantled

Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny (2017) is not just a warning—it’s a survival manual for democracy in an era where authoritarianism marches in under the guise of patriotism and moral righteousness. His twenty lessons expose how democracies crumble, not in an instant, but through a slow, deliberate erosion of institutions, norms, and truth itself.

Snyder’s most urgent warning is the need to defend institutions—the press, the judiciary, and free elections—pillars of democracy that Trump has targeted with ruthless precision.

But Trump’s authoritarian ambitions don’t stop at elections. Project 2025 lays out a roadmap to eliminate judicial independence, purge civil servants, and replace them with MAGA loyalists—ensuring that every branch of government bends to Trump’s will. This is how democracies die—not with a single decree, but through the quiet, methodical replacement of law with obedience.

Snyder warns that tyranny thrives on propaganda and the destruction of truth. Trump doesn’t need a coherent policy agenda; he only needs to saturate the public with disinformation until facts become irrelevant. His strategy isn’t just to lie—it’s to make truth impossible to discern.

Here’s how Trump is copying the authoritarian playbook word for word:

Undermining Truth & Institutions – Laying the Groundwork for Tyranny

(Eroding checks and balances, silencing dissent, and ensuring total control over information.)

🚩 Normalizing Political Violence by Pardoning Loyalist Criminals → Trump has already pardoned January 6 rioters and other pro-Trump criminals, sending a clear message: political violence in his name will be rewarded, not punished—a hallmark of rising autocracies.

🚩 Eliminating Independent Oversight to Enable Absolute Power → Project 2025 will abolish federal watchdogs that investigate corruption, ensuring Trump and his allies can operate without accountability—a classic authoritarian strategy to entrench control.

🚩 Weaponizing the Federal Reserve to Rig the Economy for Political Gain → Trump’s team is plotting to replace the Federal Reserve board with loyalists who will manipulate interest rates and economic policy to benefit his administration and punish blue states, using the economy as a tool for authoritarian control.

Reshaping Government Into a One-Party State – Purging Opposition & Securing Total Control

(Transforming democracy into an authoritarian regime through purges, coercion, and ideological control.)

🚩 Purging Nonpartisan Officials and Replacing Them With Loyalists → Trump is abolishing civil service protections so he can fire career government officials and replace them with MAGA loyalists—turning federal agencies into personal instruments of power.

🚩 Reclassifying Political Dissent as Terrorism → Project 2025 proposes expanding “domestic terrorism” laws to target left-wing activists, ensuring that any opposition to Trump’s rule can be criminalized as a national security threat.

🚩 Replacing Public Education With State-Mandated Indoctrination → Trump’s plan includes defunding public schools, diverting taxpayer money to religious institutions, and removing federal oversight—paving the way for ideological control of education and erasing opposition from future generations.

Establishing Police-State Rule – Criminalizing Dissent & Enforcing Political Obedience

(Expanding authoritarian enforcement through mass surveillance, militarized policing, and repression of dissent.)

🚩 Constructing Mass Internment Camps to Enable Ethnic Cleansing → Trump has started using military bases (including notorious Guantanamo) and detention centers to imprison millions of immigrants, a direct revival of authoritarian regimes that weaponized mass internment as a tool of persecution.

🚩 Expanding State Surveillance to Identify and Crush Opposition → Project 2025 proposes a national surveillance program targeting activists, journalists, and political enemies—an authoritarian blueprint for silencing dissent before it begins.

🚩 Deploying the Military as a Domestic Political Weapon → Trump has openly suggested using the U.S. military against civilians who protest him, a clear step toward military-backed authoritarian rule.

🚩 Granting Law Enforcement Unchecked Power to Enforce Regime Loyalty → Project 2025 will eliminate federal oversight of police brutality, giving law enforcement near-total immunity to suppress protests and punish opposition with impunity.

Ethnonationalist Policies & Mass Persecution – Manufacturing Internal Enemies to Justify Tyranny

(Scapegoating marginalized groups and institutionalizing persecution to consolidate power.)

🚩 Legalizing State-Sanctioned Persecution of LGBTQ+ Americans → Project 2025 plans to repeal anti-discrimination laws, institutionalizing second-class status for LGBTQ+ people in housing, employment, and healthcare.

🚩 Controlling Reproduction to Enforce a Nationalist Agenda → His allies openly discuss bans on birth control, IVF, and fertility treatments—authoritarian regimes have long sought control over reproductive rights to dictate the future population.

🚩 Weaponizing Federal Agencies to Enforce a Nationwide Abortion Ban → Project 2025 proposes an abortion surveillance network to track and punish those who seek reproductive care, a dystopian tool of state control.

🚩 Expanding “Religious Liberty” Laws to Establish Theocratic Rule → His administration aims to let businesses and government officials refuse service to non-Christians, LGBTQ+ people, and women—effectively making religious extremism a government-endorsed policy.

🚩 Using Welfare Cuts to Punish Political and Ethnic Enemies → His allies seek to bar immigrants and their U.S.-born children from welfare, healthcare, and education, ensuring only Trump-loyalist communities receive social support.

🚩 Turning Schools and Hospitals Into Surveillance and Deportation Zones → Trump has already expanded ICE enforcement to schools, hospitals, and social services, using fear and intimidation to force immigrants into the shadows.

🚩 Revoking Citizenship to Strip Political Opponents of Rights and Protections → Trump wants the power to revoke U.S. citizenship from naturalized immigrants and political enemies, a classic authoritarian move to silence dissent and create a nation of conditional citizenship.

Weaponizing Economic and Environmental Collapse to Cement Power

(Using economic hardship, environmental destruction, and financial coercion to solidify authoritarian rule.)

🚩 Crippling Labor Rights to Strengthen Corporate and State Control → Project 2025 aims to dismantle worker protections, making economic desperation a tool for authoritarian compliance.

🚩 Turning Environmental Disaster Into a Political Weapon → Abolishing the EPA and gutting climate policies ensures dependence on corporate elites while stripping opponents of regulatory power.

🚩 Defunding Social Programs to Weaken Opposition → Cuts to Social Security and Medicare disproportionately harm marginalized and opposition-leaning voters, ensuring dependency on authoritarian rule.

🚩 Privatizing Public Lands to Reward Loyalists and Weaken Federal Authority → Selling off national parks to corporate allies consolidates wealth among Trump-friendly industries while stripping public resources from future administrations.

And yet, his supporters still insist this isn’t fascism. They don’t believe it’s tyranny, because tyranny always happens to "other people."

But Snyder makes it clear: authoritarianism isn’t built by strongmen alone.

Tyranny doesn’t come kicking down the door—it waits for you to open it.

And when you applaud Trump’s next abuse, you’re not just unlocking the door—you’re laying out the welcome mat.

[Check out

Timothy Snyder

on Substack]

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Book 6: Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Theme: The Consequences—How Societies Destroy Themselves

Jared Diamond’s Collapse (2005) is a forensic examination of how civilizations self-destruct—ignoring warning signs, clinging to failed ideologies, and choosing short-term greed over long-term survival. Sound familiar?

Easter Island deforested itself into extinction.
The Mayans overexploited resources until droughts made their cities unlivable.
The Ancestral Puebloans ignored climate shifts until they abandoned their settlements forever.

Every time, leaders ignored the red flags. Every time, they told themselves everything was fine—until it wasn’t. Reading this book alongside MAGA’s fanatical devotion to Trump’s environmental reversals and climate denialism is like watching history write its final chapter.

Trump’s environmental agenda isn’t just reckless—it’s a textbook example of what Diamond calls “ecocide.” By reviving coal plants, gutting environmental protections, and opening fragile ecosystems to oil drilling, he ensures short-term profits for the powerful while condemning everyone else to a future of scarcity, fires, floods, and famine.

And MAGA? You cheer it on.

🚩 Rolling back clean air and water regulations? A “win for business.”

🚩 Deregulating methane emissions? “Good for energy independence.”

🚩 Gutting protections for endangered species? “Too much government interference.”

🚩 Slashing funding for climate science? “A waste of taxpayer money.”

This isn’t policy—it’s scorched-earth sabotage.

Diamond reveals the most dangerous illusion in this thinking:

💀 There is no economy without a habitable planet.

💀 There is no “winning” when your cities are underwater, your crops are failing, and your air is unbreathable.

💀 There is no “owning the libs” when you can’t find clean drinking water.

Trump’s climate denialism and environmental pillaging are already fueling intensified climate disasters, mass displacement, and global instability.

Collapse isn’t an abstract possibility. It’s already happening. And just like every doomed civilization before us, you’ll pretend it isn’t real—until it’s too late.

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Your Role in the Fall—and the Only Way Out

When the textbooks are written, your name won’t appear under “patriot.” It will appear under “accomplice.” You’ll stand as a symbol of how democracies collapse: not from the force of one man’s ambition alone, but from the willful ignorance, apathy, and complicity of those who handed him the keys to power. Your votes weren’t just ballots; they were endorsements of lies, cruelty, and corruption.

There will come a time when you—or your children—will want to look away from what you helped build. You’ll pretend you were merely a bystander, a passive observer swept up in forces beyond your control. You’ll tell yourself that history won’t judge you, that the horrors unfolding around you weren’t your fault. But you won’t be able to escape the truth. No dictatorship rises without its enablers. No demagogue ascends without a willing audience. No nation crumbles into authoritarianism without millions of hands placing brick after brick in its walls. And when you reflect on your place in this unraveling, you’ll have to ask yourself: was it worth it? Was the fleeting pleasure of “owning the libs” worth sacrificing the very democracy that gave you that freedom in the first place?

Every great tragedy of history has been accompanied by the same chorus of justifications:

“We didn’t know.”

”We didn’t believe it would go that far.”

”We thought someone would stop it.”

That chorus will echo again, this time from you. But we do know. We do believe it will go that far—because it already has. And no one is coming to stop it but us.

You’ve chosen your side in history. But there’s still one chapter left to write. The books in this club don’t just tell the stories of those who stood by and watched democracy die—they also contain the lessons of those who fought to save it. Snyder, Arendt, and Diamond all point to one truth: resistance isn’t just possible—it’s necessary.

And so, the final question isn’t whether history will judge you. It isn’t whether your complicity will be documented. That’s already written in ink. The final question is this: Will you fight to undo what you helped create? Or will you remain what history will call you—Trump’s willing executioners?

And, no, you don’t get to mimic the Nazis’ excuse, “I was just following orders,” by saying, “I was just voting Republican.”

Defending democracy isn’t just the job of politicians or activists—it’s a responsibility we all share. The fight starts now, with tangible actions that make a real impact. For practical steps you can take, check out my companion piece, “Would You Kill Baby Trump?”.

If you liked this article, please share it, subscribe (a paid subscription would be amazing), and tap the "Buy Me a Coffee" button. Your support fuels my efforts to expose corruption and hold the complicit accountable.

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Discussion Questions for the Book Club of Complicity

1. Which Version of America Are You Trying to Bring Back—And for Whom?
   Milton Mayer’s Germans justified Hitler’s rise by romanticizing a mythical past, conveniently ignoring the suffering it inflicted on others. When you chant Make America Great Again, what exactly are you picturing? The 1950s, when segregation was law? The 19th century, when women couldn’t vote? Or the Jim Crow South, where “simpler times” meant terror and second-class citizenship for millions? You keep saying you want America “back”—but back to what? Does it ever cross your mind that the America you long for was someone else’s nightmare? Or is that the point?

2. Why Are Your Freedoms More Important Than Everyone Else’s?
   MAGA howls about “tyranny” when asked to wear a mask or get vaccinated, but they have no problem forcing rape victims to give birth, banning books, outlawing gender-affirming care, or letting corporations poison drinking water. If government overreach is so terrifying, why do you cheer it when it’s used to control others? Be honest—do you actually care about freedom, or do you just want the power to force everyone else to live by your rules while playing the victim?

3. If Every Expert, Journalist, Historian, Scientist, and Judge Tells You Trump Is a Threat—Are They All Lying, or Are You Just a Gullible Sucker?
   MAGA will believe anything Trump tells them, no matter how absurd. Climate change is a hoax? The 2020 election was stolen? January 6 was both “peaceful” and an “FBI setup”? You’ve been lied to so often you can’t even keep track of what you’re supposed to believe. At what point do you stop and ask yourself: If every historian, journalist, scientist, and judge contradicts my beliefs, is there a chance that I’m just an easy mark for the biggest con man in modern history?

4. "Just Following Orders" or Just Following Hatred?
   Hannah Arendt exposed how ordinary people rationalized atrocities by claiming they were simply obeying the system. When you cheer Trump’s mass deportations, attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, or bans on teaching real history, do you tell yourself you’re just “supporting the law”? Or is the law simply giving you permission to embrace the cruelty you wanted all along? If laws changed tomorrow to legalize political imprisonment, forced sterilization, or internment camps, would you go along with that, too?

5. Is the Cruelty the Point, or Just a Bonus?
   Daniel Jonah Goldhagen documented how ordinary Germans actively participated in Nazi crimes—not because they had to, but because they wanted to. When you cheer for policies that jail desperate migrants, strip away women’s bodily autonomy, and deny healthcare to trans kids, are you really defending “law and order”—or do you just enjoy watching people suffer? When you laugh at families being torn apart, does it feel like a victory? Because it sure looks that way.

6. If Trump Calls His Enemies "Vermin," Do You Hear the Echoes of History? Or Are You Too Far Gone to Care?
   Every authoritarian regime—from Nazi Germany to Rwanda to Serbia—has used dehumanizing language to justify mass persecution. Trump now calls his opponents “vermin,” talks about immigrants “poisoning our blood,” and vows to “root them out like a cancer.” When leaders start calling human beings pests, history tells us what comes next. Do you recognize these words for what they are—a prelude to something far worse? Or have you convinced yourself that, this time, it’s different?

Further Reading: A Guide to the Lies, Hate, and Weakness That Build Dictatorships

It Can’t Happen Here (1935) – Sinclair Lewis
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) – Hannah Arendt
Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (1992) – Christopher R. Browning
The Road to Unfreedom (2018) –

Timothy Snyder

How Democracies Die (2018) – Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
Fascism: A Warning (2018) – Madeleine Albright
The Authoritarian Personality (1950) – Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford
The Anatomy of Fascism (2004) – Robert O. Paxton
Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism (2020) –

Anne Applebaum

Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (2020) – Ruth Ben-Ghiat
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) – William L. Shirer
Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010) –

Timothy Snyder

The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933) – Wilhelm Reich
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) – Margaret Atwood
1984 (1949) – George Orwell
Darkness at Noon (1940) – Arthur Koestler
The Plot Against America (2004) – Philip Roth
The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964) – Richard Hofstadter
The Death of Truth (2018) – Michiko Kakutani
Democracy in Chains (2017) – Nancy MacLean