That President Trump and the people around him are less on the ball than the Nazi leader does not make them any less dangerous. Their territorial expansionist fever dreams for Greenland and even Canada could provoke a global conflict. As it was in the leadup to Hitler’s 1938-39 invasion of Czechoslovakia, British and European leaders are scrambling to head off what could be a devastating conflict.
The White House’s demonization of immigrants mirrors that of the Nazis, and, as it was in Germany, it has also begun building giant prison camps. Much of the language that President Trump and those around him use to describe Muslims, Latin Americans, and Black Africans appears lifted directly from Nazi texts. Hitler’s disdain for democracy is part of a thread that also runs through today’s presidency. Even Trump’s desire for lock-step military spectacle has antecedents in 1930s Germany, as well as among authoritarian and fascist regimes throughout modern times.
Absent, however, from the Trump administration is the kind of meticulously brutal planning that characterized Nazi leadership. Instead, the Pentagon blasts random speedboats suspected of running drugs, while the Department of Homeland Security unleashes essentially leaderless thugs in states and cities whose officials will not toe the line.
It may be tempting to dismiss the theatrics as a full-court effort to distract public attention from the Epstein files. That would be a mistake. The administration has larger, more dangerous aims, even if the Hitler that its members seek to emulate is one with no more nuance than that presented on the History Channel.