I was asked by a fellow student of mine why I compared Trump to Hitler and not Hillary in my online Western Civilization II class. My initial post was as follows:
For me, this comes down to the (very) old arguments of the political philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, who both argued that governments rose and fell based on the balance of both security and freedom. Hitler had argued that it was the Jews and foreign forces that had crippled their economy. Amid political turmoil, there was opportunity. Their economy was in shambles, their people poor, starving, and dying. Hitler rode on the back of German nationalism, telling the German people that Germany should come first.
Like our own elections, it was a campaign based on fear, insecurity, and instability. He skillfully played on the emotions of the audience bringing the level of excitement higher and higher until the people wound up a wide-eyed, screaming, frenzied mass that surrendered to his will and looked upon him with pseudo-religious adoration. Hitler offered something to everyone: work to the unemployed; prosperity to failed business people; profits to industry; expansion to the Army; social harmony and an end of class distinctions to idealistic young students; and restoration of German glory to those in despair. He promised to bring order amid chaos; a feeling of unity to all and the chance to belong. He would make Germany strong again; end payment of war reparations to the Allies; tear up the treaty of Versailles; stamp out corruption; keep down Marxism; and deal harshly with the Jews.
He was a populist leader, orating with the same demagoguery that elected Donald Trump just a few days ago. He promised strength, leadership, profits, an overthrow of foreign powers, to bring law and order to the land. He would make his country great and strong again. Those statements should seem indistinguishable between either Adolf Hitler or Donald Trump. Ultimately, both men offered security and stability. They offered a way of life in which they had sovereignty over their lives.
Freedom is difficult. You have to decide how to live your own life. You have to think about how your decisions will affect you and others. You have to think about how you’ll work, how you’ll eat, how you’ll survive. It then becomes easy to choose someone who promises you that you no longer have to work for that; that he (or in the case of Brexit, she) will do it for you, that he or she will give you the means to survive. All you need to be is a good Deutsche soldat.
My fellow student had responded to my post:
You bring up some very interesting and viable points. I do think that it is interesting how you compare Donald Trump to Hitler and not Hilary. I do not discuss politics with others because of the hives it can start, but what would your comparison be with either presidents knowing they claimed to offer the same things… security and freedom? I would personally have said that Hilary also shared similar campaign aspects to Hitler because she was the one who tried to offer employment, unity and most of the other characteristics you listed. Trump of course did mention a few of these as well, I am just curious of how you would see the comparison of both presidential candidates this year.
Good post! It was very interesting to read.
I wanted to share my response with the rest of you, in case someone asks you something similar.
Full disclosure, I’m a liberal in the mould of Bernie Sanders. After your post, I did some brief background research with the hypothesis of making the comparison of Clinton to Hitler, and they were on websites with biases opposite of my own; obviously I disagree, and I’ll explain why here (and hopefully I do their arguments justice).
First off, I want to talk about definitions. I called Trump a fascist because he is an authoritarian leader. He is strongly in favor with a demand for strong obedience to authority (as is evidenced by his opposition to civil disobedience and non-violent against police and police brutality). He has penned up journalists like animals, particularly the ones that have reported what he said in a bad light. Moreover, he has threatened to “open up the libel laws” so that he can open litigation against press that have reported negatively about him, including those that have no bias such as NPR, BBC, or Al-Jazeera.
But others have different definitions of fascism. Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge.com defines fascism in two ways: there is the Benito Mussolini brand and the Adolf Hitler brand. In the way of Mussolini, fascism is more about corporatism (that is, corporations suggest or write legislation) as well as having a strongman to implement these laws. If we go by that definition, then we are already halfway to fascism. However, Hillary Clinton has argued for the reinstating of Glass-Steagall (a repealed bill that originally prohibited commercial banks from engaging in investments) as well as strengthening Dodd-Frank (a bill that came forward after the stock market crash of 2008 that stopped banks from engaging from risky investments).
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has said that in his first 100 days in office, he wants to dismantle Dodd-Frank and allow banks to invest. He wants to tear apart the treaties, trade deals, and peace deals that have been made (NATO, NAFTA, TPP, the Iran Peace Deal, et al.) that he feels is harmful to the US.
Durden defines the Hitler brand of fascism by “the violence, the large-scale murder”, and lay “the hundreds of thousands of lives lost” in the recent wars at the feet of Clinton and Obama. However, one can argue that the recent wars were made in defense or retaliation rather than an attack based on aggression. (Keep in mind, this doesn’t negate how wrong it was that we continued these wars.) However, he seemingly also dismisses history, or at the very least forgets that as an upstart politician (which Donald Trump is as well), Hitler did not have any kills under his belt either.
More importantly, even if he did, it is his followers who committed the atrocities. Granted, Trump’s followers have not committed crimes on the scale of the Nazis, but suicides have been committed. Hate crimes have been committed in his name: students in elementary schools have already been told to “go back to Mexico”; students have been told by their teachers that they’ll “get Trump to send you back to Africa”; black churches have been firebombed and tagged “Vote Trump”; buildings have been vandalized with the slogan “Make America White Again”; women have reported being assaulted; black women have been threatened; and all of this while giving the reason that Trump is now president-elect.
He offered security by antagonizing “the other”, whether it was North Carolina’s HB 2 (or the so-called Bathroom Bill) and the LGBT; minority racial groups such as Asian-Americans (including those from the Middle East) and Hispanics; or religious minority groups (such as Muslims).
And to address your point about Hillary making the same claims as Trump, it would be political suicide to say, “I want to tear this country apart. I want to take away your jobs and give them to someone else.” It doesn’t make sense to do that when you want to get elected, and now more than ever, people want to feel that they’re being protected; if they don’t have that perception, they won’t warm up to you, and they will not elect you.
Answers in Philosophy 