November 8, 2016 will be the day that will live in infamy.
When it first sunk in on Election Night that my worst fears were becoming a stinging reality: that Donald Trump, stunningly, was on the verge of capturing the U.S. presidency, I immediately took to Facebook to write that now would be the perfect time to reread the “Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich,” the classic by William L. Shirer, chronicling Nazi Germany from the birth of Adolf Hitler in 1889 to the end of World War II in 1945.
After all, President-elect Trump resembles Hitler’s thuggish demagoguery, xenophobic impulses, bullying enemies into submission, along with his reckless, self-absorbed personality traits.
And both intimidators, for better or worse, were named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, Hitler in 1938, and Mr. Trump on Wednesday.
As it turns out, I stumbled on a New York Times review of a new book by the German historian and journalist Volker Ullrich, titled “Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939,” the first of two volumes on the German politician and leader of the Nazi Party.
So, instead of Shirer’s opus, I settled on Ullrich’s book to see if I could find some striking similarities between the Fuhrer and Donald Trump.
Not long after I cracked open the book, one similarity leaped off the page.
When Hitler assumed power in January 1933, German writer Klaus Mann, son of German novelist and social critic Thomas Mann, wrote in his diary, “News that Hitler is Reich chancellor. Horror. I never thought it possible. (The land of unlimited possibilities ... )”
The number of journalists and pollsters who echoed those very words the night after the 2016 presidential election, with “never thought it was possible,”… never thought Trump would actually win,” came thick and fast from a number of newspapers, blogs and cable television outlets from around the globe.
“What just happened?” was the recurring refrain of the day.
For starters, both Hitler and Trump were never known for their intellectual acuity; both came off as boorish and crude in conversations with others, unveiling a flair for uncontrolled rage and foolish knee-jerk reactions to critics.
President-elect Trump has been dubbed “The Twitterer-in-Chief” since he regularly takes to social media to strike back against anyone who criticizes him, from actor Alec Baldwin to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
Similarly, Ullrich points out in his book, that Hitler was a “deeply insecure arriviste” who held grudges.
Paul Kleinman, author of “Psych 101: Psychology Facts, Basics, Statistics, Tests, and More,” wrote that Hitler exhibited a personality type that “held grudges, had the tendency to belittle, blame, and bully, did not have a high tolerance of criticism, could not take a joke ... sought revenge, and was in high demand for attention.”
After such a detailed description, you would have thought Kleinman was writing a thumbnail biographical sketch of Donald J. Trump himself.
Hitler’s offensive and ignorant demeanor was never more prominent than when he would rant uncontrollably about the ``moneyed Jews'' infesting Germany.
Hitler’s wicked and vile anti-Semitism is without peer.
Still, when Trump preys on Americans fears and stereotypes with verbal lashes against illegal immigrants (“rapists and murders”) with an eye toward rounding up and deporting 11 million illegals, it does come off as rather Fuhrer-like.
Both Hitler and Trump swore off alcohol; and both flashed unique hair features, Trump with his wild and unruly hair; Hitler flaunted his signature toothbrush mustache.
Ernst Hanfstaengl, a businessman and friend of Hitler, tried unsuccessfully to get the Fuhrer to shave his mustache. Hitler flatly refusing, saying that “my mustache will be the rage one day — you can bet on that.”
Trump once told the “Today” show on NBC that “as everybody knows, but the haters and losers refuse to acknowledge, I do not wear a ‘wig.’ My hair may not be perfect, but it’s mine.”
What’s more, Hitler and Trump both campaigned on the promise to make their countries great again.
In addition, both Trump and Hitler boasted of grand architectural schemes for their respective cities: Trump, of course, contributed mightily to the New York City skyline with the construction of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Times Square, among other developments. Ullrich points out that Hitler, with the youthful Albert Speer as his principal architect, wanted to expand Berlin into an awe-inspiring metropolis, envisioning “a global Aryan empire with a world capital Germania replacing Berlin.”
When it comes to taxes, both Hitler and Trump, it seems, have a great deal in common as well.
In October 1934, early into Hitler’s reign, a scrupulous tax auditor noticed that the chancellor owed 405, 494.40 Reich marks in taxes for the fiscal year 1933-34 alone. The Munich Superior Financial officer was then quickly summoned to Berlin where he was harshly informed that the Fuhrer was “exempt from taxes due to his constitutional status.”
Such a scenario runs almost parallel to when The New York Times reported in October that because he declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 tax returns, Trump most likely avoided paying federal income taxes (legally) for up to 18 years.
Finally, although President-elect Trump hasn’t taken office yet and we aren’t yet familiar with his bureaucratic style, early indications are that he tilts to the Machiavellian divide-and-conquer approach with underlings.
Ullrich chronicles how Hitler liked to have subordinates come into his office and come up with ideas of their own, so they could compete with one another for the Fuhrer’s favor. This was a way, Ullrich notes, Hitler would like to play rivals against one another to “shield himself from usurpers of his power.”
Much like Hitler, Donald Trump seems to take great pleasure with subordinates and potential Cabinet picks parading through Trump Tower like they were getting ready to see Santa Claus in order to impress the boss with their bold new ideas for the new administration and curry favor as a trusted confidant of the new commander in chief.
As it stands now, it's unclear who really has Trump's ear: Steve Bannon, chief strategist and senior counselor to the president, or Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, considered to be one of the President-elect’s most trusted advisers.
So, as we await a new administration, only time will tell if the real estate mogul-turned-politician will bear some resemblance to the brutal dictator of the German Reich or whether he’ll make good on his campaign promise to drain the Washington swamp and “Make America Great Again.”
— Bill Lucey
December 8, 2016
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