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By now, most people have heard the liberals comparing President Trump to Adolf Hitler. One can assume this is due to Trump's immigration reform policies, his stance on Muslims and Muslim refugees, his ongoing conflicts with the mainstream media and print journalism, and his campaign slogan of "Make America Great Again". The more interesting analysis is why they would exactly do this. There are a couple reasons one can conclude for this. One reason would be they are not well-versed in German history and have just a cursory knowledge of NAZI Germany and thus don't honestly know the facts and truth of history. A second reason may be that they do have a full-fledged knowledge of the NAZI's and are just playing fast and loose with the truth and facts in order to paint a false narrative in the minds of Americans. With the dumbing down of America over the last several years through our failing education system, it is quite plausible that just incurring this image of Hitler and NAZI Germany in the minds of people would be an effective way to undermine and delegitimize a new president. So who were the NAZI's, what did they do, and is there any real correlation with their rise to power and policies with that of Donald Trump?
The NSDAP, The National Socialist German Workers Party, aka NAZI's, were national socialists. They were leftists. One could write for pages and pages on the rise of The Third Reich and get into the real minutiae of every facet of their ideology and worldview. Suffice to say, we will keep this truncated due to this being a blog and not a novel. Many have called the NAZI's right-wing and the left has tried vehemently to whitewash their ideology. They were no doubt right of Communism and Marxist-Leninist Russia, but they were an anti-capitalism, anti-American, big government national socialist party. Here are Hitler's own words to describe his party's ideology:
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions"
-Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s speech on May 1, 1927. Cited in: Toland, John (1992), Adolf Hitler. Anchor Books. pp. 224-225
Clearly, the views of Hitler and the NSDAP more closely aligned with the Democratic Party and liberalism than that of conservatives. If you look at their 25-Point Plan, you will find they supported an expansion on a large scale of an old age welfare program, the formation of a strong central government that had their tentacles in every facet of German life, and followed Keynesian economics policies by running large deficits and using government programs to reduce unemployment. All of which mesh with today's liberal agenda.
The NAZI's believed that the Jews were the root of the problems in Germany and thus wanted to eradicate them. They believed they were an inferior race and their mixing of blood with the true Germanic Aryan was the cause of Germany losing power in Europe and the world. They worked diligently at fomenting anger and divisions among classes, races, and religions. They preyed on the fears of the German people and used that to gain power and solidify their dominance. They also were expansionists and believed in Lebensraum, or living space, for growing Germany and harboring the German people. They clearly had a goal of world domination. So how does this ideology and worldview compare with that of Donald Trump?
The answer is it doesn't. President Trump is looking at enforcing existing immigration laws and trying to control the numbers of unvetted people entering America. Muslim terrorism is a reality and we are at war with a fascist ideology that believes, much like the NAZI's, they are the superior race and religion. Hitler exterminated over six million Jews for no reason other than he deemed them a scourge on Germany. The German Jews weren't blowing up people, beheading people, or going on shooting sprees to carry out a religious Jihad. So, the comparisons between Hitler and the Jews with Trump and Muslims is a weak argument at best. Mr. Trump has argued to put America first and to keep Americans as safe as possible from terrorism. He has not argued for any expansionist policies or more living space for the American people. Some may say he may be more of an isolationist even. So that comparison is quite weak as well. He hasn't used his power to shut down any media outlets and hasn't shown any signs of growing the federal government to an even larger scale. The fact that America has a solid foundation as a constitutional republic also makes it much harder for someone to rise up in the fashion of Hitler. Germany was steeped in the traditions of a Kaiser, a king, and the people were foreign to the workings of a democracy. This is another difference between America and 1920's-1930's Germany.
History is important and should be used as a guidepost for us today. It is worth looking at correlations and parallels, but it is quite another to play fast and loose with the truth and facts in order to delegitimize and undermine a president. That is disingenuous at best. The left is still foaming at the mouth because they were oh so close to radically changing the America our founding fathers established. With Hillary Clinton losing, they now are deftly scared that Mr. Trump will tear down all that they have worked so hard to build. Their socialist agenda is in jeopardy and one can assume this comparison with Hitler and the NAZI's will continue for the next four years. They are counting on the American people to continue to be ignorant and too dumb to research the real history of Germany and Hitler. Let's hope that they are sadly mistaken and that this comparison will be seen for what it really is, a distraction and a veiled attempt at undermining a new president and our constitutional republic.
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