A historian outlined some alarming parallels between the rise of Adolf Hitler and the ascendancy of Donald Trump — but he sees one even more startling difference.
Timothy Ryback, director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague, has written multiple books on Hitler and Nazi Germany, including the recently published "Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power." He spoke to Salon about the similarities between the Third Reich and the MAGA movement.
"While political contingency certainly precludes historical inevitability, it does not mean that there are not resonances, parallels and lessons to be taken from the past," Ryback said. "Perhaps it is best to view them as warning signals. I think this is what we are seeing with the repeated comparisons between Hitler and Trump. There are, in fact, some rather disturbing rhymed couplets, if you will."
Hitler lost the 1932 presidential election by 6 million votes but tried to get the courts to overturn the results, just as Trump did in 2020 despite losing by 7 million popular votes and 74 electoral votes, after each of their claims of fraud and irregularities by state officials were rejected.
"Trump said he would be dictator for a day, while Hitler promised a thousand-year Reich," Ryback added. "Whether we are talking about 24 hours or a millennium, it is as chilling a rhymed couplet of stated political intent as one could envision."
Both Hitler and Trump vowed revenge against their political enemies, and both of them tapped into the economic despair, fear and hatred simmering in their nations' heartland, but Ryback said Trump holds sway over his followers far beyond any influence that Hitler had with his own core supporters.
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"I spend more time rubbing my eyes than rolling them," Ryback said. "The parallels between America and Weimar Germany astonish me. Legislative gridlock, political polarization, a deluge of incendiary news stories (some fake, some real), a proliferation of handguns. It’s like déja-vu all over again."
"What troubles me most?" he added. "The fact that Hitler and his National Socialists never received more than 37 percent of the national vote in a free and open election, and Trump is polling at around 50 percent or higher, according to some sources.
"These are percentages of popular support that Adolf Hitler could only have dreamed of achieving in a free and open election. The big question is how much Joe Biden’s historic decision and Kamala Harris’ historic candidacy will have on polling numbers and ultimately at the voting booth."
