Frenzy

There have been numerous calls to action in the past few days, of which perhaps the most temperate was by Eliot Cohen in The Atlantic.

I suppose that RtO's labeling of Trump as a Nazi was another such. It was a deliberate thought though likely to be misinterpreted. Not Many Americans have studied the politics of  the last years of Weimar, or the last years of the Italian republic in depth.

So, does Trump govern like the Nazis? The short answer is ja. The medium answer is heil ja. A detailed look provides  a robust answer

All during the rise of Trump I was struck by how closely his actions mirrored Hitler and, to a lesser extent, Mussolini. Once or twice I suggested that fascist tendencies were operating but I held back from labeling him a Nazi because in 2017 for most people that is just a contentless insult.

However, now he has taken power we can cite specific events.

The most important thing, for now, is the way in which Trump is not like Hitler or Mussolini. He does not have a private army of 3 million semi-disciplined brawlers to take his program to the streets. He may not need it, but whether he does or not,  he does not have it. He also does not have the kind of corporate cash that Hitler had to pay for subversion.

It may be that some of the similarities between Trump and Hitler are just the general outlines of would-be despots. And I do not intend to suggest that Trump has an ideology, specifically Nazi or otherwise, although Bannon has.

Following are some of the organizational schemes or maneuvers that were characteristic of Hitler that are also common with Trump:

First and foremost: fuhrerprinzip. The leader cannot err and demands unquestioning allegiance.

Second, gleichschaltung, the first step of both the Nazi and the Trump regimes.  Gleichschaltung can be translated as my-way-or-the-highway, and it has operated everywhere in Trumpland. Spicer, now known to be the Charlie McCarthy to Trump's Edgar Bergan, has been explicit, as has Conway.

Dolchstosslegende,  belief that the nation has failed because of a stab-in-the-back by unpatriotic internal enemies. This was the heart of Trump's appeal during his campaign and was not his alone. The Tea Party anticipated him..

Attack on the legitimacy of the polity; intention to dismantle the government. This is explicitly Bannon's idea, but also Trump's. His repeated claims that the vote was rigged was intended to make the process of electing leaders illegitimate.

Attack on the political parties, press, selected business enemies of the people. Here we find a notable divergence; in Germany in the '20s business was almost entirely devoted to rightwing (not always Hitlerian) policies; in America today, businesses are more various and the preponderance would probably be happy to be apolitical. (This is where Cohen's warning about co-optation should have its impact; but for the Republican Party the process has already run its course. For the party, the model they should have looked at was the Democrats of the 1850s who decided they could compromise with slavery and were destroyed.)

Contempt for facts, belief that the leader can create them. However, Hitler and Mussolini were voracious readers and consumers of history; it is doubtful Trump has read a book.

Admiration for a foreign despot. For Hitler, it was Mussolini, for Trump, Putin.

Rearmament.

Irredentism. The United States does not have any strictly irredentist claims but Trump has come close to inventing one with his claim in Iraq's oil.

 Is there any aspect of Trump's government that is much different from Hitler's? Only one. Hitler's relationship with the churches was testy, although he mollified them by concessions on schools and gleichschaltung did the rest. Trump has cozied up to the churches.

The anti-Hitler far right thought they could manage Hitler by partnering with him. He crushed them. The anti-Trump right, or much of it, thought the same. He has crushed them.