Sometimes History Does Repeat Itself: Rise of Trump Recapitulates Rise of Hitler

I was watching a documentary on a history channel (European, not American because the US medias are too scared to air anything that fundamentally challenge Trump's dictatorship) on the rise of Hitler. The parallels with the rise of Donald Trump are uncanny.

Here's such an analysis by "Outrightpower" on this subject to which I will add a couple of comments:

https://outrightpower.substack.com/p/parallels-between-the-nazi-rise-to 

1- As Hitler's popularity among the German population was tentative (ups and downs in legislative elections) in the late 1920s-early 1930s, the traditional conservative establishment thought of Hitler as a joke, as a lowly charlatan who could not be taken seriously. But as Hitler's "national socialism" continued to nibble away votes from the conservative establishment, the latter thought it smart to let Hitler bring more votes to their sides as the number one enemy were the Communists. So they sought an alliance with Hitler in the thought that they could win his voters while still being able to keep him under check. 

Per Wikipedia: Asked to become chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg in 1932, Papen ruled by presidential decree ...His failure to secure a base of support in the Reichstag (Parliament) led to his removal by Hindenburg and replacement by his former ally, General Kurt von Schleicher. Determined to return to power, Papen, believing that Adolf Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, pressured Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor and Papen as vice-chancellor in 1933 in a cabinet ostensibly not under Nazi Party domination....Hindenburg consented. Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, during which the Nazis placed him under house arrest, ransacked his office and murdered some of his close associates.

The German conservative establishment, particularly Alfred Hugenberg's German National People's Party (DNVP), eventually formed a coalition government with the Nazi Party on 30 January 1933, and the entire conservative establishment was eventually absorbed into Hitler's "Nazi" party (short for National Socialist German Workers' Party, or in German "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" (NSDAP). In sum, not taking Hitler seriously and believing in their ability to control him, the German conservatives enabled him to power where he sidelined them. 

In the US and during Trump's ascendancy, the establishment republicans (known as GOP) figured that Trump was not a serious politician, but rather a charlatan populist imbecile. But with Trump's appeal to the ignorant rightwing rural base of republican voters, they GOP could not ignore him either. They believed that Donald Trump could be controlled in the event he made it to government. Both before, during and after his first term in office, they never made a clear move to completely separate themselves from him. His "MAGA" movement eventually absorbed the entire GOP party which bascially no exists as a functional party.

Hitler scapegoated the Jewish community to rouse vitriolic violence among his NAzi followers. Trump has scapegoated the immigrant community to rouse vitriolic violence among his  MAGA followers. 

Nazi in Germany in the 1930s, MAGA in the US in the 2010s. 

2. In the Germany of the 1930s, the army was the sole armed force of the country. It was well regarded by the population. There no other militias or armed groups that could challenge the supremacy of the official armed forces. But Hitler created his own militia, the SA, short for SturmAbteilung or Storm Division. It was Hitler's original paramilitary group and it played a major role in scaring off the traditional conservatives of the country. 

In the US, Donald Trump did not have his own militia or paramilitary group. But over the decades, the extremist rightwing christian nationalists, mostly underground, had mushroomed across the country and carried out massive terrorist attacks like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 (Timothy McVeight), The Groyper Army of Nick Fuentes, the Ruby Ridge (Idaho) standoff in 1992 between Randy Weaver and the FBI, and many others. These rightwing, extremist, white christian nationalist, racist anti-government movements mostly remained under the radar, especially when the president was a republican (Reagan, the Bushes, etc.). But their numbers and visibility dramatically grew after the election of the first black african president, Barack Obama in 2008.

Donald Trump exploited these groups and appealed to them with all sorts of statements and positions, including his false claim that Obama was not born in the US that aimed at undermining Obama's legitimacy as a president. These groups were the standard bearers of the MAGA movement as it plowed itself into the Capitol on January 6, 2021 trying to undermine the 2020 election results.

The "Outrightpower" article provides further details on the similarities between NAZI and MAGA. Must read because we may be on the verge of another major clash between the traditional conservative branch of humanity (fascists, nazis, religious, mysogynistic, militaristic, violence advocates, racists, exclusive of everyone else, virulence, hatred, nationalism, savage capitalism, etc.) and the liberal progressive branch (openness, diversity, liberalism, individual freedoms, inclusive, racial and gender equality, kindness, acceptance, distribution of wealth, democracy, patriotism, social justice, non-discrimination, etc....).