Yes, Trump Is Like Hitler, but Not in the Ways You Think
Beyond the caricatures lies a chilling blueprint: how both leaders exploited grievances, scapegoated the vulnerable, and built myths of strength to dismantle democracy.
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Note: After reading this, be sure to check the reader comments, where a Nazi apologist attempts to cloak hateful ignorance in pseudo-historical nonsense. Witness how I dismantle each of his points, exposing the staggering depths of his intellectual dishonesty and moral depravity. [I ask that you refrain from engaging with him in the comments section. As Nazi love appears to be his only focus in life, he thrives on opportunities to spew his bile at any audience.]
Comparisons between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler often provoke strong reactions. Hitler looms so large in history—as both a monstrous figure and the archetype of authoritarian evil—that any comparison risks being dismissed as histrionics. “Hey,” some say, “Trump hasn’t orchestrated the mass murder of six million Jews, Romani people, and other marginalized groups.” That’s true. However, comparing Trump with the Hitler of pre-World War II Germany—when he was consolidating power, eroding democracy, and crafting myths to manipulate his base—is far from hyperbolic. Ignoring these parallels risks erasing the warnings of history, leaving us blind to its darker repetitions.
As the saying goes, history may not repeat itself, but it rhymes—and in this case, the parallels between Hitler’s rise and Trump’s rule read less like a subtle stanza and more like a relentless drumbeat. Both relied on amplifying grievances, dehumanization of enemies, and myths of personal strength to consolidate their power. To miss these echoes is not merely naïve; it is an invitation to repeat them.
Governance by Division: The Parallels Between Hitler and Trump
Both Hitler and Trump rose to power by exploiting grievances, scapegoating marginalized groups, and undermining the democratic institutions designed to protect against tyranny. Their strategies, tailored to their times, reveal a disturbing blueprint for authoritarianism.
Every Problem Needs a Villain: Exploitation of Grievances
Hitler: Post-World War I Germany was a nation humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles and devastated by economic collapse. Hitler seized on these grievances, channeling anger toward convenient scapegoats: Jews, communists, and minorities. His refrain was clear: Germany’s suffering was not failure but betrayal. Yet many of these grievances were fabrications. Jews were falsely accused of controlling global finance, orchestrating Germany’s defeat, and corrupting its society—all baseless conspiracies designed to distract the public from the real causes of Germany’s turmoil. Hitler also weaponized regional divisions, presenting himself as the unifier of a fractured Germany, even as his policies deepened societal rifts.
Trump: Trump’s grievances are as flexible as his truth-telling is theatrical. He frames enemies at every turn—immigrants, “globalists,” public health initiatives, and government institutions—presenting himself as the protector of “forgotten Americans.” Many of these enemies, like those conjured by Hitler, exist largely in the rhetoric he constructs: asylum seekers portrayed as violent criminals, public health measures framed as assaults on personal freedom, and federal agencies depicted as agents of a sinister “deep state.” Through Project 2025, his blueprint for gutting federal agencies, he brands programs aiding the vulnerable as “waste.” Like Hitler, Trump turns societal challenges into tales of betrayal, distracting from genuine systemic issues while positioning himself as the savior.
Historical Echo: Both leaders weaponized societal frustration to frame themselves as the only cure for treachery. But their grievances were often as fictitious as the enemies they conjured. These narratives transformed complex failures into conspiracies of betrayal, breeding perpetual distrust and dividing their nations along imaginary fault lines.
The Villainization Machine: Scapegoating and Dehumanization
Hitler: Hitler’s propaganda machine, typified by Der Stürmer, reduced Jews to caricatures of vermin, criminals, and existential threats. This dehumanization wasn’t merely rhetorical—it paved the way for systemic exclusion and violence, culminating in the Nuremberg Laws and, ultimately, the Holocaust.
Trump: Trump’s media ecosystem—Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN—operates as a modern-day Der Stürmer. These outlets churn out dehumanizing narratives, vilifying immigrants as “invaders” and LGBTQ+ people as threats to children. Trump himself refers to migrants as “animals” and has labeled entire nations “shithole countries.” His words inflame his base and justify brutal policies like family separations at the border, while emboldening vigilante militias.
Historical Echo: Stripping enemies of humanity is the authoritarian’s first step. From Hitler’s caricatures to Trump’s “invasions,” the tactic turns oppression into moral obligation.
Burn It All Down: Undermining Democratic Norms
Hitler: The Reichstag Fire gave Hitler the pretext for emergency decrees, the suspension of civil liberties, and the Enabling Act, granting him near-absolute power. Within months, the Weimar Republic was reduced to a hollow shell.
Trump: In his second term, Trump promises to escalate his assault on democracy. His relentless claims of a “stolen” election have become gospel among his supporters, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Project 2025 outlines plans to purge civil servants, pack courts with loyalists, and consolidate executive power. The January 6th insurrection failed to install him, but its spirit—delegitimizing dissent and subverting democracy—remains central to Trump’s playbook.
Historical Echo: Crisis has long been the alibi of tyrants. Where Hitler used fire, Trump uses conspiracy, but the goal is the same: to replace democratic guardrails with personal loyalty.
The Hollow Myth of Masculinity: Hitler’s Übermensch and Trump’s “Trump Bros”
At the heart of authoritarianism lies a deep contradiction: a projection of strength that masks profound insecurity.
Hitler: The Nazi Übermensch ideal glorified Aryan superiority, celebrating mythical strength and dominance. Yet Hitler himself was a frail, paranoid man addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates. His inner circle was no better: Göring was a morphine addict and Himmler obsessed with pseudoscience and the occult. The architects of the “master race” were anything but masterful.
Trump: Trump’s version of the Übermensch myth is embodied by the so-called “Trump Bros”—a hyper-masculine faction of his base that fetishizes dominance, toughness, and the rejection of empathy. Trump, who admires authoritarian strongmen like Putin and Bolsonaro, projects his vision of “strength” through these followers. Groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers translate his rhetoric into action, patrolling borders, intimidating opponents, and violently enforcing his agenda. Meanwhile, Trump himself—obese, sedentary, and infamously thin-skinned—is the embodiment of fragility cloaked in bravado.
Historical Echo: Authoritarian leaders have always relied on myths of strength to distract from their own weaknesses. The Übermensch and the “Trump Bros” are not models of virtue—they are tools of manipulation and control.
The Cowardice of Enablers, the Danger of Willful Ignorance
The parallels between Hitler and Trump reveal a deeply unsettling truth about authoritarianism: it doesn’t thrive on strength—it thrives on division, deception, and the deliberate weakness of those who refuse to resist it.
Trump, like Hitler, cloaks his frailty in the trappings of masculinity, casting himself as a protector while stoking fear and punching down at the vulnerable. True strength builds bridges; it doesn’t tear others down to mask insecurity. But Trump’s fragile ego demands a constant stream of scapegoats, and his followers—those who parade as "real men"—revel in dehumanization and cruelty, confusing domination with leadership. These are not strong men—they are cowards hiding behind myths, their power built on the suffering of others.
But the blame does not rest with Trump alone. History will judge the sycophantic politicians who cheer him on, the spineless Republican leaders who twist themselves into pretzels to excuse his every action. They are not protectors of democracy but opportunists too craven to defend it. Their loyalty to party—or to Trump’s cult of personality—outweighs their duty to the Constitution, and their inaction has allowed authoritarian rot to spread through the nation’s core.
And then there are the voters—the willfully ignorant masses who delight in their own manipulation, clinging to grievances and conspiracies spoon-fed to them by propaganda machines masquerading as news. These are not the defenders of liberty they imagine themselves to be but pawns in a game they neither understand nor control. Their refusal to engage with facts or to see through the lies makes them complicit in the destruction of democratic norms.
Authoritarianism doesn’t arrive in a single flash of tyranny. It grows because of these enablers: the weak people who spread it, the cowardly leaders who refuse to stop it, and the ignorant followers who applaud it. To confront this reality requires not just vigilance but courage—the kind of courage absent in those who have sold their values for power, who have traded truth for comfort, and who will one day be remembered, not as patriots, but as accomplices.
Your support—whether through liking, restacking, a paid subscription, or using the Buy Me a Coffee button—helps fuel my efforts to expose the hypocrisy, corruption, cruelty, and lies of Trump, the Republican Party, and their enablers.
Trump said Hitler “did some good things” and wanted generals like the Nazis, per his longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly
Sources
Ian Kershaw, Hitler: A Biography
Norman Ohler, Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
Project 2025 (The Heritage Foundation)
Reports on Proud Boys and Oath Keepers (The Atlantic, Southern Poverty Law Center)
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Excellent analysis of the chilling parallels between two mentally broken, hideous, tyrants. What a sad commentary on humans that we allow such demagoguery, and are fooled so easily.
They will never recognize themselves.