Adolph Hitler and Donald Trump can be described as great salesmen, despite the fact that Adolph went to prison for a failed coup attempt and Donald was tried and acquitted for his failed coup attempt. Both men were subsequently able to convince millions of people to follow them, consider them great leaders – that takes salesmanship.
MAGA people are incredibly sensitive to comparisons to Hitler, and they love to expound upon the fact that none of our fellow citizens have been carted-off to concentration camps although massive immigrant detention by masked ICE agents and the “inhumane” centers might actually undercut that claim – but both men were able to transform social norms in record breaking time. The known reason, frequently written about, is economic hardship, a feeling of being left behind or victimhood. For Germany it was the shame of losing WWI and the punishment enacted upon them by the victors. For the MAGA base it has been a combination of social factors referred to as the “culture war.” This consists of embracing long-standing Russian propaganda against immigrants, LGBTQ threats to the “traditional family,” and globalization (or more often “globalists,” a slur for Jews) versus economic nationalism; along with propaganda concerning the second amendment and a woman’s right to choose.
In Russia and the United States, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Evangelical movement have been exploited by both Putin and Trump to create a narrative of an assault on “family values” and God’s will itself. Both men are also seen as God’s messengers by a significant number of both denominations. This is particularly problematic because it transforms politics into religious zealotry – a war against Satanic, or demonic influences. Both Putin and Trump, are sinners to the extreme – one a mass murderer of Chechens, Syrians and Ukrainians; the other a convicted felon and a sex offender. In Putin’s case, a life-long atheist/communist before “conversion,” in Trump’s case, a career con man who was never seen inside a church until it became politically expedient.
Trump was able to escape relatively unscathed from Helsinki after telling the biggest lie in American intelligence history: that proven U.S. intelligence was no more reliable than the word of a lifelong enemy of the United States. This was the first irrefutable proof of a mental pathology known as character or personality disorder, because Congress voted 517-5 to impose sanctions and Trump himself signed into law economic sanctions on Russia as punishment for the cyber warfare Trump claims, to this day, is a hoax.
Trump, like Putin, is a billionaire. They are members of an elite class, and again, the irony and the tragedy of Russian history and current American history is that a previous elite or aristocracy must be purged so that the new elite can dominate the proletariat and rob them blind. No one knows how much of Russian wealth has been stolen by Putin and his oligarchs, but Trump and his family are shamelessly conducting family business and accumulating personnel wealth by using all of the foreign and domestic connections gained through the power of the Presidency and the White House.
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Trump openly extols the politics of President McKinley, the gilded age, and a country made great through “talent and tariffs.” An era of robber barons and their ultimate trickle-down theory where the super wealthy get all the economic advantages given by government, along with ownership of the press to control the message, in order to convince the common man that economic stewardship, in the hands of the super-talented, and super-rich, will produce a high tide that lifts all ships. History, of course debunks this theory, and a World War, economic depression, and a second World War, produced the exact opposite: total destruction and a world order that had to be rebuilt after the loss of 60 million lives.
The aftermath of WWII fostered economic cooperation between nations, the founding of the United Nations, UNICEF, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, USAID, etc. (after rebuilding the economies of Germany and Japan), with the belief that international cooperation, and charity by richer nations toward poorer nations, was the best inoculation against future conflict and war. And the preeminent super power both militarily and economically, expended more of our wealth for international development than any nation on earth (humanitarian relief all over the world, for flood, drought, famine, etc., bore America’s brand).
At the end of the war in Europe and the Pacific we came to a collective gratitude for peace, an understanding that unbridled lust for power and wealth had created chaos. The nation felt the need to reward selfless service and heroism through newly created government programs like the GI Bill and VA loans. Home ownership and higher education previously the privilege of the well-to-do. The Depression awakened us to the role government could play, providing safety nets like social security or medical insurance.
Now, those programs are being dismantled, mocked by the uber-rich, who declare empathy the biggest mistake of western civilization. Societal safety nets, and international good will, slashed or eliminated. The fact that it is all being done by someone with multiple bankruptcies, who put us seven trillion more dollars in debt in his first term; the fact that he brought in the richest man in the world to run an instantly created office of government efficiency, to root out fraud waste and abuse, is Orwellian. The only president in American history who is a sex offender and convicted of fraud, convinced tens of millions of Americans that he was rooting-out fraud and abuse. That is salesmanship!
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But the greatest danger and the greatest threat to America, NATO, and the free world, is Trump’s collusion with Russia. Six of the president’s closest friends and advisers were convicted of obstructing the investigation into Russian election interference. He pardoned all but his lawyer, Michael Cohen, who spilled the beans on Trump’s multiple lies about financial dealings and communication with Putin through Russian government operatives.
Two coverups are transpiring before our eyes: his collusion with Jeffrey Epstein and his ongoing collusion with Vladimir Putin. The definition of collusion is to coordinate with the purpose to deceive. Everything about the Epstein case screams of a coverup, and hopefully for the victims, the truth will finally be known. But an ally, Ukraine, is at war with Russia and Putin continues to kill our Ukrainian friends. Trump called Putin a “genius” for the invasion, he called President Zelensky a “dictator.” He blamed Zelensky and former President Joe Biden for the war, he personally attacked Zelensky in a disgraceful Oval Office takedown; he rolled out the red carpet for an enemy in the midst of war, faked a peace agreement that not only has not led to a ceasefire, but has allowed Putin to keep bombing our ally daily with no commitment of the weapon systems needed to defeat our enemy. Trump held up a picture from Putin of the two leaders and gushed like a school boy with a crush, once again reminding us of his personal relationship with the murderer of Alexie Navalny and so many tens of thousands of other innocent souls.
And we still have no national dialogue about the one fact that is the cause of all of the chaos; exactly like Hitler, the unfortunate and rare phenomenon: a malignant narcissist came to power. Because it is the least known mental illness people have rationalized sadism, pathological lying, the refusal to choose right over wrong, and the inability to feel sympathy or empathy. They have succumbed to the common mistake of thinking that a narcissist or egomaniac (which is not mental illness) is synonymous with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
It is shameful that GOP leadership could not live up to their oath of office and convict him for his abuse of power that led to two impeachments, the second, for an attempted coup. And it is a shame that unless that same leadership comes to understand that they are dealing with the most serious mental health diagnosis of all, we could lose this Republic. Like Hitler, he has neutralized the other branches of government. He has just announced to our military leadership that half the American public is an “enemy within,” and that military force is needed to keep law and order in American cities. He went to the United Nations and told the ambassadors from all over the world that their countries “are going to hell” and that he has been “right about everything.” Hopefully our generals and admirals and our allied nations realize that they are dealing with a madman, because, like Hitler, he has already accomplished the near impossible – made our country, in just nine months, unloveable to the rest of the world.
