In recent years, a number of people have been compared to Hitler by both the media and the public. Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un come quickly to mind, as do the members of the WestBoro Baptist Church. For Mr. Trump its something the public should be concerned about, as there are many parallels from the rise of Trump in the GOP in the years leading to his election, and the rapidity that the National Socialist German Worker's Party (Nazi party) rose to power in the early to mid-1930s. Both came at times when the world was still feeling the pressures of wars and international debt crises. The only difference was the way the parties followers were able to interact with not only each other, but their opponents as well. Thanks to the glory of the internet, Donald J. Trump rose to power not by a violent show of force, but by force of words. Both blossoming leaders used their followers to help push their agenda by giving them promises of things they wanted. Granted this is not dissimilar to many politicians, however, the meteoric rise in support is what sets Hitler and indeed Donald Trump apart. In both cases, this was the fault of the media. As an Ohioan during the years leading up to the 2016 election, coverage was for both John Kasich and Donald Trump was almost constant while other contenders for the leader of the GOP were given minimal air time as well as media coverage in general. The same was true for our dear friend Adolf in his, for the time, meteoric rise to power and popularity. Germany needed a savior, and in the eyes of a war-torn German people, he seemed to have been sent from God. (We'll come back to that one soon enough.) The only problem with Hitler, is that he realized he needed a scapegoat. Fighting for initially the Austro-Hungarian Empire in WW1 as a conscript, he later fought for the Germans when German generals promised the now losing Austrians and Hungarians that they would lead them to victory at a point in the war where defeat was imminent. The might of the German army helped to extend the war for another two years.
When the war had ended, Austria and Hungary were split into two different empires, based on political differences, and somebody was needed to be blamed for the war. Germany was the obvious answer as it's power helped to extend the war, and strict sanctions were put in place by a forerunner of the United Nations. As the Germans had one massive advantage over the enemy with one specific technological advantage, that came from the past. As most countries were using aircraft to bomb enemy cities and positions, the Germans had an excess of international flights via blimp. For an empire that needed massive fire power, and quickly, they realized it would be too long before their own bomber planes would even be able to rival those of the enemy. So they converted almost all of their passenger airships to bomber use. Which were filled with helium. Aditionally, as the Germans were starved of coal from embargoes in all of their ports, they used very clever pneumatic systems in their factories, which also used helium. After the war, the German port embargo was lifted, and shipments of coal could resume. However, it was an expensive undertaking to convert the factories back to a coal/steam systems. However, it was necessary, as Helium was denied to Germany in the sanctions that followed the Great War. (They then refilled their world famous Airship liners to run on Hydrogen as at the time they were the equivalent of the Jet Age to cross the Atlantic compared to slower passenger ships. This was one of the main causes for the explosion of the Hindenberg, but thats a story for another essay in another class.) Just as Germany had finished reverting its factories to run on steam, the stock market in America crashed, and the whole world suffered. But nobody suffered more than Germany. Already one of the poorest nations in Europe after sanctions from WW1, Germany was hit the hardest by the depression and most people were out of work. Instead of trying to rebuild under sanction laws, the German leaders decided to just print more money. (Cause thats definitely how that works.) By the mid-1930's the German Reischmark had so little value that you would need just about a wheel-barrow full of it to actually buy groceries. (Many Germans would actually burn the money to heat their homes as it was cheaper than coal, and would use it as wallpaper to cover the insides of their homes.) The people were angry, and nobody was angrier than the workers, who were both out of work, and the lucky ones with jobs weren't paid even enough to burn the money for heat during the winter. So when an angry mustache model came to power, he had to blame somebody for the problems. Thanks to many censorship laws in place by the German government, and still resounding sense of national pride, even when Hitler was in German Parliament, and his party controlled most of the seats in the early 30s, Hitler still couldn't tell the people that the economics problems facing them were in fact caused by the then German government. Hitler needed a scapegoat. The owners of the factories then, who still had money. Incidentally, most of these factory owners were Jewish immigrants, and with the international and historical view, dating back from the days when Venice was still a city state, that the Jews were a miserly bunch. Obviously to an angry mustache man this means that they would refuse to pay their workers, or even put their money back into the economy. Target acquired, and for the rest of time, Hitler convinced his party that the Jewish people were evil and were against Germany in every way.
750 words later, and we come back to modern times. Donald Trump needs a scapegoat for the still struggling post 2008 economic downturn Americans. Once bustling factories were still producing nowhere near the national averages of the early 2000s or the later half of the 20th century. (There is alot of things that caused this, and the 2008 housing crash was really the end of the industrial powerhouse of America.) Obviously, Trump needed support of the people without telling them that the culprit was actually international factories were cheaper and could produce more for less. And with a still post 9/11 boom of American Superiority Complexes, and dwindling international ties, Mr. Trump realized that he couldn't blame our own problems on either ourselves, or our closest trade allies. (Well, yet for the latter.) So he needed a group of people that have been a hotly debated issue for a while. (And I'm not talking about... you know what I'm not going to make that joke, but I'll let you finish it for yourselves.) Obviously it was the fault of the immigrants coming to the United States willing to work for the minimum wages that were being offered if it meant being able to live in the "Greatest place in the world." Obviously the people who were willing to work for what the corporations were offering, and not wanting more, were taking jobs from people who were wanting better working conditions and more pay. (And Abdi the neursurgeon is definitely stealing jobs from BillyBob the former factory worker, but again thats a discussion for another time.) Clearly then, its those pesky Mexicans trying to take advantage of America's advertising campaign of the "American Dream*." (*Restrictions apply) And as always, its the fault of the previous leader as it always has been, but this time, it was a man from another one of those groups of people the GOP supporters definitely do not like, so that was easy to propagate. And obviously a man who graduated from Harvard Law School was definitely worse at running a country than JimmyJohn who drives tractors for a living. (Not saying any way to make a living is a bad way to make a living, but if you're going to run a country I'm just going to vote for the man with the Law degree.) So yeah. there are quite a few parallels there. And, I'm not the first one to point it out, and I won't be the last. But for a while, it was an unrespected theory just created to keep the Annoying Orange from becoming president. Until one man came along, and started to plant the seeds of respectability into this crazy theory. A year and a half into Mr. Trump's presidency, an essay was published by one of the most respected Holocaust and Hitler historians. Christopher Browning's essay brought up a couple of great points, regarding both similarities and differences, as well as the rise of the Neo-Nazi movement that seemed to just so happen to rise again with the now president's campaign. (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940610/trump-hitler-history-historian , https://www.thenation.com/article/escape-hitlers-germany-taught-trumps-america/ , https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/07/16/its-not-wrong-to-compare-trumps-america-to-the-holocaust-heres-why/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.dc8b89308a4f )
(Also this is getting quite long and I apologize to anyone reading this, but I am quite the history buff when it comes to international affairs of the first half of the 20th century. I promise the next two points will be nowhere near as long.)
Moving on to our second favorite Hitler contender, Kim Jong-Un. Many people consider our glorious leader here to be even worse than the man, the myth, the mustache legend, Mr. Adolf himself. And on some points, its hard to argue. For example, while Hitler singled out people to abuse for the "greater good of the German people" he never kept his people unaware of the outside world. He brainwashed them quite a bit to the point where they thought they were the best and were the sole inheriters of the planet sure, but they were aware that the rest of the planet existed, and were allowed to interact with them. So on one hand, Hitler was nowhere near as bad as Mr. Never Not Bowled a Perfect Game. (And apparently he doesn't have a butthole so theres also that, and well, theres something to be said when your leader thinks of himself so highly that he pushes this onto his people.) However, as far as we know, mistah Kim has never slaughtered millions of Jewish people. (But he probably would if he could.) (https://www.handelsblatt.com/today/politics/north-korea-goodbye-stalin-hello-hitler/23571690.html?ticket=ST-4396253-b9igpSZOJEjIUmpv1KBk-ap5 , https://theweek.com/articles/450792/north-korea-isnt-nazi-germany--some-ways-worse )
Finally, we get to look at everyone's favorite religious cult, our friends at the Westboro Baptist Church. Although they have never been directly compared to Hitler, (That my 3 minutes of Googling could determine) its definitely hard not to include a modern group of people who hold such a horrible person in such high regard. How high of a regard? Well calling him the second coming is almost there. In fact, not only was Jesus Christ, the first savior sent directly from God, but so was Mr. Mustache, as they proclaim "God sent Hitler" in bold letters on one of their blog posts. The link citing this is following this sentence, but I wanted to put in there that the title of the website is the actual Blog sponsored by the WB-BC and I have no control over what they call it. (http://blogs.godhatesfags.com/workmen/2011/12/28/god-sent-hitler/ ) Also theres some bits of their FAQ page where they claim that they are not affiliated with the Nazi Party because the Nazi party (basically) was violent. And obviously, WB-BC isn't as violent as the people who abort babies and are gay or whatever. (https://www.godhatesfags.com/faq.html#Militia ) Additionally, I found a tweet that really speaks for itself so I'm just going to link it and not talk about it cause we just flew past 2000 words. (https://twitter.com/wbcsaysrepent/status/999694573138931712?lang=en )
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