"Once a person has chosen a creed, their desire to believe that their choice was a good one often becomes stronger than their desire to discover what is actually true." Is one shining example of the wisdom in this short, philosophical piece.
Throughout history the truth has been suppressed by powerful entities that use fear and intimidation to maintain control of this mass of people whose ability to discern truth is more like simply accepting and then following the status quo of their existence. Why so many great advances have been shirked or delayed because they lacked sanction by the powers to be. The danger in this followership was easily illustrated during World War II in Germany and in Japan where followership became fanatic and willing to do anything, even the most hideous acts, for their creed.
The Mortal Storm:
I dreamed I was in Germany in the 1930s.
And all of my family members were Nazis.
And I was the only one of them who recognized how evil Hitler was.
And when I awoke, I realized that it was not a dream.
For a long time after my conversion to atheism I still had a lot of respect for Christianity.
But within the last several years my respect for it has been greatly diminished, primarily as
a result of the hypocrisy, dishonesty, and lack of discernment which is evident in the things
which are constantly being posted on Facebook by people who call themselves Christians.
(One of the reasons I'm no longer on Facebook is I'm disgusted by things I see posted by
Christian friends and family members.)
These are the things that have bothered me the most:
1. Christians I see claiming that America was intended to be a Christian nation, and that
Freedom of Religion is a myth or was only intended to be for Christians. (There was a time
when most Christians I knew believed in Freedom of Religion. That was an important part
of the Baptist heritage passed down from Roger Williams.)
2. Christians who oppose equal rights for homosexuals. I am a firm believer in equal rights
and religious freedom, and totally opposed to theonomy (the idea that civil law should be
based on religious law).
3. Christians who distort what the Black Lives Matter movement is about, who assume that
all protesters are rioters, and who use the rioting as an excuse to ignore or deny the very real
problem which led to the protests. True Christians stand up for people who are oppressed.
4. Christians who have come to view conservatism and capitalism as necessary components
of Christianity. Many are incapable of differentiating between economic systems and systems
of government, and have been convinced that "liberal", "radical", "socialist", and "communist"
are just dirty words that mean pretty much the same thing. Notice how they label anyone who
believes in any amount of socialism as a "communist" or "Marxist".
5. The so-called Christians who worship president Donald Trump, who either ignore or condone
his immoral behavior, who are fooled by his false claims, and who summarily dismiss anything
said against him as liberal lies. This one disturbs me the most because many of my family
members fall into this category. I am very sad to see how brainwashed they've become.
Here is an excerpt from an article from Christianity Today:
"To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his
blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom
you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your
witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say
if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the
cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone
take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness
for decades to come?"
I am a non-believer myself, and I'm telling you how it has affected my respect for Christianity.
And I have very little against the teachings that have been ascribed to Jesus.
It's the words and deeds of people who claim to be Christians that bother me.
"God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." - Romans 2:24
Some of the things I've written here, especially about my family members, may seem a bit harsh.
But I believe that this is one of the darkest times in American history. I'm afraid that Donald
Trump might be our first president to refuse to leave office after clearly losing an election.
(America has always prided itself on its peaceful transitions when a new president is elected.)
And yet my family members continue to support him, and despite all evidence to the contrary,
they are still fooled by his ridiculous lies. I am concerned that even if he should attempt a
military coup, even if the seeds of discord he's sown should lead to a second American civil
war, those family members would still steadfastly support him, convinced that his cause was
just and they were following God's will. I FEEL SO ASHAMED!
Donald Trump, a man with no honor or integrity, a totally self-absorbed hypocrite and con-man,
the hero and perfect representative of modern American Christians. (Matthew 24:10-11, 7:15-17)
"These people want the kind of prophet who is a windbag and a liar,
promising plenty of wine and beer." (whatever it is they wish to hear)
Micah 2:11
One last comment about Christianity:
As I mentioned before, I have very little against the Biblical Jesus. His teachings are the best part of
the Bible. But most people who call themselves Christian (Christ-like) today are NOTHING LIKE HIM.
To me, they seem much more like the New Testament Pharisees (the Conservatives of their day)
who were constantly in conflict with Jesus. And they expose modern Christianity for what it is: a sham,
a brainwashing cult that appeals to stupid, smug, selfish people who believe they have a God given
right and responsibility to force others to accept their values. They claim that they stand for freedom,
but the only freedom they really believe in is the freedom to be like them. (MAGA = CHRINO.)
If people who call themselves Christians actually followed the teachings of Christ instead
of their earthly leaders, this would be a much better world. The fact that they don't, and
their behavior which is a natural result, is possibly the most effective argument in support
of the common conclusion that the God they believe in doesn't really exist.
"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians,
who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle."
Brennan Manning
O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,
gimme a break before I die:
grant me wisdom, will, & wit,
purity, probity, pluck, & grit.
Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind,
gimme great abs & a steel-trap mind,
and forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice -
these little blessings would suffice
to beget an earthly paradise:
make the bad people good -
and the good people nice;
and before our world goes over the brink,
teach the believers how to think.
Philip Appleman
I began this commentary with something that implied that Donald Trump is
similar to Adolph Hitler, and that the MAGA cult is similar to the Nazi cult.
Here are excerpts from two Facebook posts written by a friend of mine
that explain the similarities between the two:
Yes, It Is Appropriate to Compare Trump to Hitler
by Tom Owen Meinen, Omaha Nebraska
I used to respect Elon Musk. He's been highly successful, and his Tesla cars are really good, IMO.
That's all well and good, but I don't respect anyone who does a Nazi salute. I won't be gaslit into
thinking that salute was anything other than what it was. When I first saw the still image of it, I
thought that maybe he was just waving to the crowd, but that was not the case. In the video, it's
obvious he was performing a Nazi salute, and he did it twice.
In typically despicable MAGA gaslighting and dishonesty, the far-right extremists have tried to
obfuscate the issue by publishing photos of Democrats such as Kamala Harris holding a hand up,
appearing to be that same salute. However, they actually were just waving.
Here's how to tell the difference: Watch the videos. In any of the videos, you can easily tell if
the person was just waving or if they were doing the NSDAP salute. Musk was doing the NSDAP
salute; the others weren't. If Donald Trump had any semblance of human decency, he would
condemn what Musk did and sever all association with him. But he's not doing that. That tells
the world that Trump approves of that. Germans all over the world pointed out that if he had
done that in Germany, he would have been promptly arrested. It's illegal in Germany to do
Nazi salutes or to display any Nazi emblems, other than doing so to for historical performance.
I've spent my whole adult life studying Nazi Germany. At a young age, I wanted to know why
millions of people would support a despot like Adolf Hitler. I majored in German in college.
I learned to speak the language fluently, and was an exchange student in Germany.
I interviewed people who lived through that era, including one dear friend who had been
a victim at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
There's a belief out there that no one should ever be compared to Hitler. That's Godwin's Law,
which was created because of people inappropriately comparing people to Hitler, for example,
when Hank Williams, Jr. compared Obama to him. However, the fact that inappropriate
comparisons to Hitler do exist does not mean that there's no such thing as an appropriate
comparison. For example, it's totally appropriate to compare Benito Mussolini to Hitler.
Mussolini's fascist party in Italy is what Hitler modeled his party after. Other ruthless
dictators such as Idi Amin also warrant the comparison.
There will never be another person who's identical to Hitler in every way. No mad scientist is
going to clone Hitler and program him with NSDAP ideology. That sounds like a plot to a B
science fiction movie. However, comparisons to Hitler are valid and appropriate if a politician
reuses Hitler-style dirty tricks. Those are all red flags, and Donald Trump has more red flags
than an NSDAP military parade. I see those warning signs over and over, and am frustrated
that so many Americans ignore them and are easily manipulated by MAGA criminals into
thinking they're something other than they actually are. These are but a few of Trump's
recycling of NSDAP rotten tricks.
1. The use of scapegoating.
Hitler scapegoated the Jews, the Roma People, homosexuals, communists, and others long
before his party set up concentration camps. Trump employs similar scapegoating, fostering
an "us versus them" attitude. He blamed the country's problems on immigrants, Muslims,
Mexicans, liberals, and others. I hope Trump never sets up any concentration camps, and I
actually think it's unlikely he'll set out to mass murder Jewish people. However, scapegoating
was already a dirty trick when Hitler did it prior to creating the concentration camps. The
camps, of course, made matters much worse, but the scapegoating itself was already bad.
It was a way to manipulate the public into supporting a despot.
2. The use of the "everyone else is lying" trope.
Hitler knew he could not have people finding out genuine news stories and thinking for
themselves. His propaganda team therefore set up the narrative that the press was so corrupt
that they could never be trusted, but that the Nazi newspapers, radio shows, news reels,
and even TV shows were simply independent sources that could be trusted. (Yes, there
was television in Nazi Germany; it just wasn't anywhere near as widespread as radio and
newspapers.) Hitler referred to all non-Nazi news sources as the "Lügenpresse" (the "lying
press".) Trump does the same thing, except the term he uses is "fake news." I would challenge
any MAGA person to go off of right-wing propaganda media for a month and instead consume
news from a multitude of sources, especially foreign ones like Al Jazeera and the BBC.
3. Use of the "we're the world's greatest" trope.
While the United States has had many impressive successes such as the Apollo moon program,
creating networking technology, winning World War II as part of an alliance of nations, the
main notion we've all been fed most of our lives is that we're the "greatest country in the world."
In reality, there's no such thing. It's not a reasonable goal for a country to be the best at
everything. Stats show that we're far from the best in multiple areas. Yet, as Americans refuse
to let go of that myth, it blinds us.
What most Americans don't realize is that Hitler used a similar trope. He claimed that they
were rebuilding their country from ruins after WW1 and into the greatest empire the world
had ever seen. He claimed that Germans were inherently superior to everyone else, both
genetically and culturally. The truth is, we don't need to be seen as the best at everything.
No one should expect to be. The world's greatest distance runner cannot also be the world's
greatest sprinter, swimmer, bicyclist, etc. A more sane approach is to focus on excelling in
areas where we can, and to do so without claiming to be the world's greatest. Just work to
perform well, and let that speak for us. We only look arrogant when we make the obviously
untrue claim of being the best at everything. This "we're the greatest" nonsense only blinds
us of the areas where we desperately need to improve, and it makes us look foolish and
arrogant to the rest of the world. However, worst of all, filling ourselves up with false pride
kills our ability to solve our problems and to improve where we need to. A much healthier
trope is, "America is working hard to be the best we can be."
4. Emotionally driven pep rallies.
I wish everyone reading this would watch the Nazi propaganda film, "Triumph of the Will"
and then compare it to Trump rallies. The film covers the Nazi pep rally in Nuremberg in
1934. In it, there is nothing to the effect of, "Let's build concentration camps and commit
genocide" or "Let's start a world war." No, the Nazis were smarter propagandists than that.
In the film, they made it look like good and hard-working Germans were all working together
to make their country great again. (Sound familiar?) If someone somehow knew nothing about
Nazism and saw this film, they might think it's just a bunch of motivated people working to
make their country better. There was a lot of pomp and symbolism designed to make people
feel good and to have a positive view of the Nazi Party. It's chilling to see how well they did
feel-good propaganda when we know the terrible things they went on to do.
Trump is talented at riling people up and at appealing to their national pride. That was a
talent Hitler also had.
5. Exploiting people's wounded national pride.
Hitler exploited Germans' wounded national pride. Trump does the same. Hitler was an expert
at exploiting people's pain over Germany having lost World War I, and at having to adhere to a
humiliating peace treaty. He also exploited people's economic frustration. The whole world was
in a depression at the time, and Germans had to suffer that depression in addition to wounded
national pride. He was a great public speaker, and he used that ability to convince Germans that
every other organization was corrupt, and that only he could fix their problems. Trump is doing
the same thing. The pandemic and the War in Ukraine caused a worldwide economic crisis with
frustrating inflation that has made it harder to afford groceries. When people get upset over their
grocery bill, it's hard for them to analyze and understand the nuanced reasons why prices went
up so much. It's always easier to simply blame a group of people than to study complex issues
to learn how we might deal with them.
6. Violent reprisal against political opponents.
This is one area in which there's a significant difference between Trump and Hitler, at least
currently. Hitler was determined for his political party to be the only one with any power in
Germany. To do so, he had his political opponents arrested and locked up. In some cases, he
had them murdered. While Trump hasn't done this yet, he has threatened to do so. I take him
at his word. He says he'll lock up people who have opposed him, and I believe him. If that turns
out to be a bluff, it will be a welcome surprise. Nevertheless, it's disturbing that he would make
such a threat.
7. The use of a coup d'état.
This is one of the most disturbing similarities. Hitler originally attempted to seize power via
force. He did so in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. He was attempting to duplicate Mussolini's
successful coup in Italy, but he failed. He was even sent to prison for his crime. Unfortunately,
after he got out, he was able to successfully take power legally (without actually being elected
himself).
The January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol were Trump's coup d'état. The MAGA crowd
has attempted to gaslight us into believing they were just an unruly mob, or even peaceful
protestors, but that's not true. January 6th was the date when Vice President Pence was
obligated under the Constitution to certify the electoral votes that secured Biden's win.
Trump's ugly little plan was to prevent Pence from doing so and instead to insert fake
electors whom Trump had put together, thus resulting in a Trump win without his having
actually earned those electoral votes. Fortunately, Vice President Pence put his duty to
uphold the Constitution over any imagined duty to do Trump's dirty work. That's why the
crowd erected a gallows to use to murder Mike Pence. They literally were shouting "Hang
Mike Pence," and that's exactly what they intended to do if Pence didn't bow to Trump's will.
Fortunately, his coup d'état failed, but now he has 4 years to prepare another one. Trump also
prepared over 60 lawsuits that he used to try to manipulate the courts into giving him the
electoral votes he needed to win in 2020, but had not earned. Fortunately, he was laughed
out of court all 60 times. There was no evidence of any election "steal" by Joe Biden.
8. Unjust use of emergency powers.
When Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he still wasn't a dictator. Not yet.
At the time, he shared power with President Hindenburg and the Reichstag (the parliament).
However, after someone burned down the Reichstag, Hitler used the public's panic to justify
having the Reichstag pass the Enabling Act, which granted emergency powers to Hitler. He
was given the power to create laws unilaterally. Then, after President Hindenburg's death,
Hitler simply eliminated his position and assumed his powers.
Trump has only just begun his second term, but he's already talked about emergency powers.
He's claimed he needs them to deal with an economic crisis. He's said that he needs to be able
to quickly enact his tariffs to save the economy. First, while there are economic problems that
the pandemic and the Ukraine War caused, inflation has gone down (though prices have not
reverted to their previous state). The current economic problems are not anywhere near as
severe as the Great Depression was. Even if they somehow were, tariffs would be a terrible
method to deal with them, as they would cause more inflation. Congress could, of course,
refuse to give him those powers, but they proved mostly spineless against Trump in his
first term. It seems unlikely that they'll grow a spine now.
This does touch on something the average person can do to thwart Trump's power grab.
You can write to your Congressperson to tell them you don't want Trump to get emergency
powers, and that laws Trump wants should have to be passed by Congress, as is normal
constitutional procedure, before Trump can sign them into law.
It's ironic that the party called the "Republican" is busy destroying our republic. Never forget
that Trump's run for President was illegal under the 14th Amendment. That law prohibits any
insurrectionist from holding any political office. The MAGA extremist cult has attempted to
gaslight the country into thinking the raid on the US Capitol was just a protest, but it was not
that. It was an insurrection. It was an attempt to force the Vice President to be derelict in his
duty to certify the electoral votes of the election that Biden won, and they threatened his life
if he didn't. That's a coup d'état, just like Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch was. And it absolutely IS
appropriate to compare Trump to Hitler for that reason alone. They were both insurrectionists.
They were both pariahs fighting against a democratic republic. I wrote of the many other
reasons why Trump is similar to Hitler in my other post.
Some people are angry at me for telling the truth about Trump, and to them I say: That's your
problem, not mine. Cult members hate people for telling the truth. That was true of the Nazi
cult, and it's true of the MAGA cult. I will continue to be honest, and my honest assessment of
Trump is that he's an evil and despicable human being. If we had justice in the United States,
he would be sitting in a prison cell. Germany actually did send Hitler to prison. Their mistake
was in not leaving him there long enough. He was only there for about 9 months (of his five-
year sentence). He should have been sent there for about 15 to 20 years. That could have
prevented the Holocaust.
The truth about Trump is that he's an illegal president, and a despicable convicted felon who
sexually assaulted a woman and attempted to bribe a foreign leader. To call him an unfit leader
is a gross understatement.
This is my page, and so I set the rules.
1. No personal attacks. If anyone does that, I'll simply delete their response and block them.
2. No responses that include references to the Nazi era by anyone who hasn't done the required
reading. Too many Americans get their information from nonsense sources like Fox News.
Anyone wishing to respond must have read the following two books:
#1 Adolf Hitler by John Toland.
#2 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer.
It's impossible to have a productive intellectual discussion without genuine facts. These two
works are well-respected authorities on Nazi Germany. Fox News, Newsmax, and right-wing
pundits are not. Those nonsense sources have propagated the ridiculous claims that the Nazis
attempted to confiscate its citizen's guns and that Nazism was a type of socialism. Claims like
that are long-debunked nonsense that have no place here. Regurgitate the same nonsensical
talking points and I'll simply delete it.
Someone who wants to accurately understand history should want to read genuine historical
accounts instead of parroting crackpot web sites or entertainment masquerading as news
(Fox and Newsmax). The bottom line is this: If you haven't read both John Toland's and
William L. Shirer's historical accounts, you have no business commenting on Nazism.
I will delete any such response that isn't backed up by a trustworthy source on history.
I'm about delving deeply into history, not about one side making unsubstantiated claims
only followed by the other side doing the same. No one has to take my word for anything.
Everything I've said about Nazi Germany is backed up by Toland and Shirer's works.
🧙🏻 Additional discussion of these subjects may be found in the commentaries
for my articles "My Religious Position" and "Religion and Politics",
and my poem "Buscadors de el Tesoro Escondido".
Nazi propaganda sign from the 1940s:
"He who serves Adolf Hitler, serves Germany.
' He who serves Germany, serves God."
Donald Trump quoting Napoleon:
"He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
Slogan I saw on a MAGA baseball cap:
"God, Guns & Trump"
"Sometimes I feel like I can't even sing.
I'm very scared for this world. I'm very scared for me."
R.E.M. (You Are The Everything)
This book chronicles an infinite allegoric odyssey of Absolute Awakening in which a learned man, a mute man, and a recluse woman are the principal players. The mute and the recluse are the learned one's Teachers and Guides on his journey of Enlighten
Throughout history the truth has been suppressed by powerful entities that use fear and intimidation to maintain control of this mass of people whose ability to discern truth is more like simply accepting and then following the status quo of their existence. Why so many great advances have been shirked or delayed because they lacked sanction by the powers to be. The danger in this followership was easily illustrated during World War II in Germany and in Japan where followership became fanatic and willing to do anything, even the most hideous acts, for their creed.
Ron
I dreamed I was in Germany in the 1930s.
And all of my family members were Nazis.
And I was the only one of them who recognized how evil Hitler was.
And when I awoke, I realized that it was not a dream.
For a long time after my conversion to atheism I still had a lot of respect for Christianity.
But within the last several years my respect for it has been greatly diminished, primarily as
a result of the hypocrisy, dishonesty, and lack of discernment which is evident in the things
which are constantly being posted on Facebook by people who call themselves Christians.
(One of the reasons I'm no longer on Facebook is I'm disgusted by things I see posted by
Christian friends and family members.)
These are the things that have bothered me the most:
1. Christians I see claiming that America was intended to be a Christian nation, and that
Freedom of Religion is a myth or was only intended to be for Christians. (There was a time
when most Christians I knew believed in Freedom of Religion. That was an important part
of the Baptist heritage passed down from Roger Williams.)
2. Christians who oppose equal rights for homosexuals. I am a firm believer in equal rights
and religious freedom, and totally opposed to theonomy (the idea that civil law should be
based on religious law).
3. Christians who distort what the Black Lives Matter movement is about, who assume that
all protesters are rioters, and who use the rioting as an excuse to ignore or deny the very real
problem which led to the protests. True Christians stand up for people who are oppressed.
4. Christians who have come to view conservatism and capitalism as necessary components
of Christianity. Many are incapable of differentiating between economic systems and systems
of government, and have been convinced that "liberal", "radical", "socialist", and "communist"
are just dirty words that mean pretty much the same thing. Notice how they label anyone who
believes in any amount of socialism as a "communist" or "Marxist".
5. The so-called Christians who worship president Donald Trump, who either ignore or condone
his immoral behavior, who are fooled by his false claims, and who summarily dismiss anything
said against him as liberal lies. This one disturbs me the most because many of my family
members fall into this category. I am very sad to see how brainwashed they've become.
Here is an excerpt from an article from Christianity Today:
"To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his
blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom
you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your
witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say
if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the
cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone
take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness
for decades to come?"
I am a non-believer myself, and I'm telling you how it has affected my respect for Christianity.
And I have very little against the teachings that have been ascribed to Jesus.
It's the words and deeds of people who claim to be Christians that bother me.
"God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." - Romans 2:24
Some of the things I've written here, especially about my family members, may seem a bit harsh.
But I believe that this is one of the darkest times in American history. I'm afraid that Donald
Trump might be our first president to refuse to leave office after clearly losing an election.
(America has always prided itself on its peaceful transitions when a new president is elected.)
And yet my family members continue to support him, and despite all evidence to the contrary,
they are still fooled by his ridiculous lies. I am concerned that even if he should attempt a
military coup, even if the seeds of discord he's sown should lead to a second American civil
war, those family members would still steadfastly support him, convinced that his cause was
just and they were following God's will. I FEEL SO ASHAMED!
Donald Trump, a man with no honor or integrity, a totally self-absorbed hypocrite and con-man,
the hero and perfect representative of modern American Christians. (Matthew 24:10-11, 7:15-17)
"These people want the kind of prophet who is a windbag and a liar,
promising plenty of wine and beer." (whatever it is they wish to hear)
Micah 2:11
One last comment about Christianity:
As I mentioned before, I have very little against the Biblical Jesus. His teachings are the best part of
the Bible. But most people who call themselves Christian (Christ-like) today are NOTHING LIKE HIM.
To me, they seem much more like the New Testament Pharisees (the Conservatives of their day)
who were constantly in conflict with Jesus. And they expose modern Christianity for what it is: a sham,
a brainwashing cult that appeals to stupid, smug, selfish people who believe they have a God given
right and responsibility to force others to accept their values. They claim that they stand for freedom,
but the only freedom they really believe in is the freedom to be like them. (MAGA = CHRINO.)
If people who call themselves Christians actually followed the teachings of Christ instead
of their earthly leaders, this would be a much better world. The fact that they don't, and
their behavior which is a natural result, is possibly the most effective argument in support
of the common conclusion that the God they believe in doesn't really exist.
"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians,
who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle."
Brennan Manning
O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,
gimme a break before I die:
grant me wisdom, will, & wit,
purity, probity, pluck, & grit.
Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, kind,
gimme great abs & a steel-trap mind,
and forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice -
these little blessings would suffice
to beget an earthly paradise:
make the bad people good -
and the good people nice;
and before our world goes over the brink,
teach the believers how to think.
Philip Appleman
I began this commentary with something that implied that Donald Trump is
similar to Adolph Hitler, and that the MAGA cult is similar to the Nazi cult.
Here are excerpts from two Facebook posts written by a friend of mine
that explain the similarities between the two:
Yes, It Is Appropriate to Compare Trump to Hitler
by Tom Owen Meinen, Omaha Nebraska
I used to respect Elon Musk. He's been highly successful, and his Tesla cars are really good, IMO.
That's all well and good, but I don't respect anyone who does a Nazi salute. I won't be gaslit into
thinking that salute was anything other than what it was. When I first saw the still image of it, I
thought that maybe he was just waving to the crowd, but that was not the case. In the video, it's
obvious he was performing a Nazi salute, and he did it twice.
In typically despicable MAGA gaslighting and dishonesty, the far-right extremists have tried to
obfuscate the issue by publishing photos of Democrats such as Kamala Harris holding a hand up,
appearing to be that same salute. However, they actually were just waving.
Here's how to tell the difference: Watch the videos. In any of the videos, you can easily tell if
the person was just waving or if they were doing the NSDAP salute. Musk was doing the NSDAP
salute; the others weren't. If Donald Trump had any semblance of human decency, he would
condemn what Musk did and sever all association with him. But he's not doing that. That tells
the world that Trump approves of that. Germans all over the world pointed out that if he had
done that in Germany, he would have been promptly arrested. It's illegal in Germany to do
Nazi salutes or to display any Nazi emblems, other than doing so to for historical performance.
I've spent my whole adult life studying Nazi Germany. At a young age, I wanted to know why
millions of people would support a despot like Adolf Hitler. I majored in German in college.
I learned to speak the language fluently, and was an exchange student in Germany.
I interviewed people who lived through that era, including one dear friend who had been
a victim at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
There's a belief out there that no one should ever be compared to Hitler. That's Godwin's Law,
which was created because of people inappropriately comparing people to Hitler, for example,
when Hank Williams, Jr. compared Obama to him. However, the fact that inappropriate
comparisons to Hitler do exist does not mean that there's no such thing as an appropriate
comparison. For example, it's totally appropriate to compare Benito Mussolini to Hitler.
Mussolini's fascist party in Italy is what Hitler modeled his party after. Other ruthless
dictators such as Idi Amin also warrant the comparison.
There will never be another person who's identical to Hitler in every way. No mad scientist is
going to clone Hitler and program him with NSDAP ideology. That sounds like a plot to a B
science fiction movie. However, comparisons to Hitler are valid and appropriate if a politician
reuses Hitler-style dirty tricks. Those are all red flags, and Donald Trump has more red flags
than an NSDAP military parade. I see those warning signs over and over, and am frustrated
that so many Americans ignore them and are easily manipulated by MAGA criminals into
thinking they're something other than they actually are. These are but a few of Trump's
recycling of NSDAP rotten tricks.
1. The use of scapegoating.
Hitler scapegoated the Jews, the Roma People, homosexuals, communists, and others long
before his party set up concentration camps. Trump employs similar scapegoating, fostering
an "us versus them" attitude. He blamed the country's problems on immigrants, Muslims,
Mexicans, liberals, and others. I hope Trump never sets up any concentration camps, and I
actually think it's unlikely he'll set out to mass murder Jewish people. However, scapegoating
was already a dirty trick when Hitler did it prior to creating the concentration camps. The
camps, of course, made matters much worse, but the scapegoating itself was already bad.
It was a way to manipulate the public into supporting a despot.
2. The use of the "everyone else is lying" trope.
Hitler knew he could not have people finding out genuine news stories and thinking for
themselves. His propaganda team therefore set up the narrative that the press was so corrupt
that they could never be trusted, but that the Nazi newspapers, radio shows, news reels,
and even TV shows were simply independent sources that could be trusted. (Yes, there
was television in Nazi Germany; it just wasn't anywhere near as widespread as radio and
newspapers.) Hitler referred to all non-Nazi news sources as the "Lügenpresse" (the "lying
press".) Trump does the same thing, except the term he uses is "fake news." I would challenge
any MAGA person to go off of right-wing propaganda media for a month and instead consume
news from a multitude of sources, especially foreign ones like Al Jazeera and the BBC.
3. Use of the "we're the world's greatest" trope.
While the United States has had many impressive successes such as the Apollo moon program,
creating networking technology, winning World War II as part of an alliance of nations, the
main notion we've all been fed most of our lives is that we're the "greatest country in the world."
In reality, there's no such thing. It's not a reasonable goal for a country to be the best at
everything. Stats show that we're far from the best in multiple areas. Yet, as Americans refuse
to let go of that myth, it blinds us.
What most Americans don't realize is that Hitler used a similar trope. He claimed that they
were rebuilding their country from ruins after WW1 and into the greatest empire the world
had ever seen. He claimed that Germans were inherently superior to everyone else, both
genetically and culturally. The truth is, we don't need to be seen as the best at everything.
No one should expect to be. The world's greatest distance runner cannot also be the world's
greatest sprinter, swimmer, bicyclist, etc. A more sane approach is to focus on excelling in
areas where we can, and to do so without claiming to be the world's greatest. Just work to
perform well, and let that speak for us. We only look arrogant when we make the obviously
untrue claim of being the best at everything. This "we're the greatest" nonsense only blinds
us of the areas where we desperately need to improve, and it makes us look foolish and
arrogant to the rest of the world. However, worst of all, filling ourselves up with false pride
kills our ability to solve our problems and to improve where we need to. A much healthier
trope is, "America is working hard to be the best we can be."
4. Emotionally driven pep rallies.
I wish everyone reading this would watch the Nazi propaganda film, "Triumph of the Will"
and then compare it to Trump rallies. The film covers the Nazi pep rally in Nuremberg in
1934. In it, there is nothing to the effect of, "Let's build concentration camps and commit
genocide" or "Let's start a world war." No, the Nazis were smarter propagandists than that.
In the film, they made it look like good and hard-working Germans were all working together
to make their country great again. (Sound familiar?) If someone somehow knew nothing about
Nazism and saw this film, they might think it's just a bunch of motivated people working to
make their country better. There was a lot of pomp and symbolism designed to make people
feel good and to have a positive view of the Nazi Party. It's chilling to see how well they did
feel-good propaganda when we know the terrible things they went on to do.
Trump is talented at riling people up and at appealing to their national pride. That was a
talent Hitler also had.
5. Exploiting people's wounded national pride.
Hitler exploited Germans' wounded national pride. Trump does the same. Hitler was an expert
at exploiting people's pain over Germany having lost World War I, and at having to adhere to a
humiliating peace treaty. He also exploited people's economic frustration. The whole world was
in a depression at the time, and Germans had to suffer that depression in addition to wounded
national pride. He was a great public speaker, and he used that ability to convince Germans that
every other organization was corrupt, and that only he could fix their problems. Trump is doing
the same thing. The pandemic and the War in Ukraine caused a worldwide economic crisis with
frustrating inflation that has made it harder to afford groceries. When people get upset over their
grocery bill, it's hard for them to analyze and understand the nuanced reasons why prices went
up so much. It's always easier to simply blame a group of people than to study complex issues
to learn how we might deal with them.
6. Violent reprisal against political opponents.
This is one area in which there's a significant difference between Trump and Hitler, at least
currently. Hitler was determined for his political party to be the only one with any power in
Germany. To do so, he had his political opponents arrested and locked up. In some cases, he
had them murdered. While Trump hasn't done this yet, he has threatened to do so. I take him
at his word. He says he'll lock up people who have opposed him, and I believe him. If that turns
out to be a bluff, it will be a welcome surprise. Nevertheless, it's disturbing that he would make
such a threat.
7. The use of a coup d'état.
This is one of the most disturbing similarities. Hitler originally attempted to seize power via
force. He did so in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. He was attempting to duplicate Mussolini's
successful coup in Italy, but he failed. He was even sent to prison for his crime. Unfortunately,
after he got out, he was able to successfully take power legally (without actually being elected
himself).
The January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol were Trump's coup d'état. The MAGA crowd
has attempted to gaslight us into believing they were just an unruly mob, or even peaceful
protestors, but that's not true. January 6th was the date when Vice President Pence was
obligated under the Constitution to certify the electoral votes that secured Biden's win.
Trump's ugly little plan was to prevent Pence from doing so and instead to insert fake
electors whom Trump had put together, thus resulting in a Trump win without his having
actually earned those electoral votes. Fortunately, Vice President Pence put his duty to
uphold the Constitution over any imagined duty to do Trump's dirty work. That's why the
crowd erected a gallows to use to murder Mike Pence. They literally were shouting "Hang
Mike Pence," and that's exactly what they intended to do if Pence didn't bow to Trump's will.
Fortunately, his coup d'état failed, but now he has 4 years to prepare another one. Trump also
prepared over 60 lawsuits that he used to try to manipulate the courts into giving him the
electoral votes he needed to win in 2020, but had not earned. Fortunately, he was laughed
out of court all 60 times. There was no evidence of any election "steal" by Joe Biden.
8. Unjust use of emergency powers.
When Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he still wasn't a dictator. Not yet.
At the time, he shared power with President Hindenburg and the Reichstag (the parliament).
However, after someone burned down the Reichstag, Hitler used the public's panic to justify
having the Reichstag pass the Enabling Act, which granted emergency powers to Hitler. He
was given the power to create laws unilaterally. Then, after President Hindenburg's death,
Hitler simply eliminated his position and assumed his powers.
Trump has only just begun his second term, but he's already talked about emergency powers.
He's claimed he needs them to deal with an economic crisis. He's said that he needs to be able
to quickly enact his tariffs to save the economy. First, while there are economic problems that
the pandemic and the Ukraine War caused, inflation has gone down (though prices have not
reverted to their previous state). The current economic problems are not anywhere near as
severe as the Great Depression was. Even if they somehow were, tariffs would be a terrible
method to deal with them, as they would cause more inflation. Congress could, of course,
refuse to give him those powers, but they proved mostly spineless against Trump in his
first term. It seems unlikely that they'll grow a spine now.
This does touch on something the average person can do to thwart Trump's power grab.
You can write to your Congressperson to tell them you don't want Trump to get emergency
powers, and that laws Trump wants should have to be passed by Congress, as is normal
constitutional procedure, before Trump can sign them into law.
It's ironic that the party called the "Republican" is busy destroying our republic. Never forget
that Trump's run for President was illegal under the 14th Amendment. That law prohibits any
insurrectionist from holding any political office. The MAGA extremist cult has attempted to
gaslight the country into thinking the raid on the US Capitol was just a protest, but it was not
that. It was an insurrection. It was an attempt to force the Vice President to be derelict in his
duty to certify the electoral votes of the election that Biden won, and they threatened his life
if he didn't. That's a coup d'état, just like Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch was. And it absolutely IS
appropriate to compare Trump to Hitler for that reason alone. They were both insurrectionists.
They were both pariahs fighting against a democratic republic. I wrote of the many other
reasons why Trump is similar to Hitler in my other post.
Some people are angry at me for telling the truth about Trump, and to them I say: That's your
problem, not mine. Cult members hate people for telling the truth. That was true of the Nazi
cult, and it's true of the MAGA cult. I will continue to be honest, and my honest assessment of
Trump is that he's an evil and despicable human being. If we had justice in the United States,
he would be sitting in a prison cell. Germany actually did send Hitler to prison. Their mistake
was in not leaving him there long enough. He was only there for about 9 months (of his five-
year sentence). He should have been sent there for about 15 to 20 years. That could have
prevented the Holocaust.
The truth about Trump is that he's an illegal president, and a despicable convicted felon who
sexually assaulted a woman and attempted to bribe a foreign leader. To call him an unfit leader
is a gross understatement.
This is my page, and so I set the rules.
1. No personal attacks. If anyone does that, I'll simply delete their response and block them.
2. No responses that include references to the Nazi era by anyone who hasn't done the required
reading. Too many Americans get their information from nonsense sources like Fox News.
Anyone wishing to respond must have read the following two books:
#1 Adolf Hitler by John Toland.
#2 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer.
It's impossible to have a productive intellectual discussion without genuine facts. These two
works are well-respected authorities on Nazi Germany. Fox News, Newsmax, and right-wing
pundits are not. Those nonsense sources have propagated the ridiculous claims that the Nazis
attempted to confiscate its citizen's guns and that Nazism was a type of socialism. Claims like
that are long-debunked nonsense that have no place here. Regurgitate the same nonsensical
talking points and I'll simply delete it.
Someone who wants to accurately understand history should want to read genuine historical
accounts instead of parroting crackpot web sites or entertainment masquerading as news
(Fox and Newsmax). The bottom line is this: If you haven't read both John Toland's and
William L. Shirer's historical accounts, you have no business commenting on Nazism.
I will delete any such response that isn't backed up by a trustworthy source on history.
I'm about delving deeply into history, not about one side making unsubstantiated claims
only followed by the other side doing the same. No one has to take my word for anything.
Everything I've said about Nazi Germany is backed up by Toland and Shirer's works.
🧙🏻 Additional discussion of these subjects may be found in the commentaries
for my articles "My Religious Position" and "Religion and Politics",
and my poem "Buscadors de el Tesoro Escondido".
Nazi propaganda sign from the 1940s:
"He who serves Adolf Hitler, serves Germany.
' He who serves Germany, serves God."
Donald Trump quoting Napoleon:
"He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
Slogan I saw on a MAGA baseball cap:
"God, Guns & Trump"
"Sometimes I feel like I can't even sing.
I'm very scared for this world. I'm very scared for me."
R.E.M. (You Are The Everything)
🌎 MUNDUS SINE CAESARIBUS 👑