By james art Donald Trump admires Adolf Hitler.
As appalling as this statement is, even more appalling is the fact that it is hardly news, and yet Trump is thriving in American politics. Thanks to Trump’s wife, we know he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches. My new ordernext to his bed. He dined with Nazis and defended them publicly. He used the language of Nazis, as ABC’s Jonathan Karl wrote, “calling his political opponents ‘parasites’ and saying illegal immigrants were ‘poisoning the blood of the country.’
This week in an article in the Atlantic Ocean by his editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, titled “I Need the Generals Hitler Had,” Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, retired four-star Marine Gen. John Kelly, echoed accusations that Trump would say admiring things about Hitler.
Others Goldberg spoke with confirmed Kelly’s claims. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s presidency, said Trump is a fascist to the core.
Of course, with the attention span of the American media being such, there is every reason to think that this story may once again fade from view as it has in the past. But now the entire Trump campaign is planning a high-profile event that will ensure references to Trump and MAGA and Hitler and Nazis stick in the mind as the 2024 campaign enters its final full week.
That’s because Trump will hold a rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. This has political pundits scratching their heads because Trump has zero chance of winning anything of note in New York, the place that knows him best and therefore hates him the most. (In past elections, his performance in the city, and especially in Manhattan, has been anemic.) Even filling the venue is likely to be a challenge unless Trump pays attendees, as he has done in the past.
But this rally resonated for another reason. In February 1939, the German-American Bund also organized an infamous rally at Madison Square Garden (which at the time was elsewhere in the middle of Apple). Politicians and commentators have already pointed out the uncomfortable similarities between the highly anti-Semitic, pro-Hitler event months before the start of the war in Europe. But given the events of the past few days, comparisons to the 1939 event are likely to become more frequent.
Of course, Trump’s well-known admiration for autocrats and the deep-rooted racism and anti-Semitism that have permeated his comments and behavior throughout his life support the point. But the reality is that Trump is not running away from it. He boasted that he owned a copy of Mein Kampf (even though it didn’t, it actually did My new order). He would puff himself up, sharing a story, most likely made up, that the crowds at his rallies rivaled those of Hitler. When challenged to use Hitlerian language such as the references to poisoning the country’s blood, he doubled down and did more.
These facts, and many more like them, are why when on Wednesday night’s CNN Town Hall host Anderson Cooper asked Trump’s opponent in the upcoming Nov. 5 presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris, if she thought Trump was a fascist, her answer was unequivocal. “Yes,” she said. He said it because that’s who he is. (Remarkably, Cooper later asked her if Trump would be better on issues important to Jews. She answered well, but missed the opportunity to say, “You mean Donald Trump, who likes, praises, and imitates Adolf Hitler? “)
However, like the spineless politicians and industrialists who praised or normalized Hitler’s rhetoric, character and goals before taking power as the German Führer, virtually all of Trump’s GOP leadership either defended Trump or tried to minimize his remarks. Of course, they failed because Hitler ended up being one of the worst human beings in the history of the planet, a mass-murdering, dictatorial monster, and yet…or maybe because of it…Trump was repeatedly associated with him.
Meanwhile, journalists are joining, knowingly or otherwise, in efforts to blunt the effect of the disgusting reality that a man who said he would be a dictator from day one, that he would turn his army against his enemies, and that he would create concentration camps to millions of those who he thinks are poisoning our blood, not only admire Hitler, but actually intend to emulate him.
They are pretending that Trump’s economic policy positions should be judged as if he were a normal candidate and thereby distracting and thereby normalizing a man who tells us repeatedly that he will end America as we know it. following in the footsteps of the author of the greatest crimes against humanity the world has ever seen.
There are, of course, complete Trump apologists like the couch full of easy-going people in the Fox and Friends. On Thursday, they tried to counter Kelly’s claim that Trump fits the definition of a fascist, saying unconvincingly something along the lines of “He’s not far right, why would you call a fan of Hitler, Putin and white supremacy far right? He is not a dictator. Everyone wants to turn the army against their enemies.”
Maybe it’s the nonchalance with which Trump accepts the horrific, maybe it’s the solidarity of his party that ignores the fact that their leader is so dangerous, maybe it’s the media’s fault for their coverage. But whatever the reason, until this week Trump managed to become the first mainstream American politician to glorify the worst human being of all time. (Perhaps that’s why so many among us also overlook his connection to modern-day war criminals and brutal autocrats like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.)
But there are signs that this week could mark a turning point, and perversely, Trump himself may be responsible for the coup de grâce that ensures that in the final days of this campaign, his fascism and the high regard in which he apparently holds people like Hitler, may finally get at least some of the voter attention they deserve. (Let’s be honest. If people gave him the attention he deserves, Trump couldn’t be elected as a dog catcher.)
First came the revelations of Kelly and others in Goldberg’s excellent edition the Atlantic Ocean article. Then came an interview with Kelly in the New York Times this includes audio recordings of the general describing Trump’s deep flaws in his own voice.
In addition, Harris has done what few other political leaders have dared to do and regularly called Trump out on both his fascistic words, tendencies and agenda, as well as on issues like his apparent admiration for Hitler or his decision to send equipment to test for COVID of Vladimir Putin, while millions of Americans suffered without access to such urgently needed tools. She called revelations that Trump lusted after generals like Hitler “deeply disturbing” and “dangerous.”
As reporters compare the two events to the 1939 and 2024 MSGs, they will be struck by the similarities. A giant photo of George Washington towered over the crowd in 1939 as the Bund tried to make themselves – just as MAGA does – look like the most American of Americans.
The rhetoric embraced by speakers 85 years ago is repeated today at all Trump rallies, with similar references to participants as patriots and promises to return America to real Americans. Naturally, the nativism and racism that underpinned Hitler’s supporters in 1939 also underpin the MAGA ranks today. And the right in 1939 and today use the same slogan to describe their credo: “America First.”
The 1939 rally included an incident in which a Jewish protester ran onto the stage and was beaten, and the entire event was cordoned off from the city itself by an unprecedented demonstration of police. But it won’t take such performances to make Sunday’s event resonate. Last week’s headlines should do the trick.
And, I might add, not a moment too soon. It is time for the real issue at the center of the choice facing voters to be decisive in this campaign. Being a fascist and admiring Hitler should have disqualified Trump long ago. But whatever the reasons he’s come this far, it’s high time voters recognized them and kicked him out of American public life a week from next Tuesday.
When the Bund took place, one of the most prominent American political commentators of the time denounced it on the radio. He said: “In every corner of the earth, America felt nauseated. The American press unanimously condemned it as the most heinous sacrilege ever committed in the name of American liberty.
Unfortunately, we cannot expect the same from the American people or some in our media this week when an even more dangerous man headlines an even more dangerous event in the Garden. There will be defenders and equivocators, which we should expect.
But taken in conjunction with Harris’ clear and strong condemnation of this central element of Trump’s unfitness for office, the stories that have made headlines this week, and what we know about Trump, this week’s event should in a sane world be enough to bring Trump closer to the final political defeat he so richly deserves.