EDITOR’S NOTE: There was a technology glitch in yesterday’s posting of Part 1 of Mike Randall’s series … so here is the full Part 1 column.
By Michael Randall
Today’s column is the first part of a two-part series that deals with Donald Trump’s rise to power in 2016, and his resurgence ahead of the upcoming November 2024 election. This first column compares his rise to those of other authoritarian politicians around the world, people who were at first elected, but betrayed their country’s constitutional laws and values and chose to use violence to remain in power. Trump already tried that once.
Human nature is complex and contradictory: generous and mean-spirited, gentle and violent, forgiving and vengeful, skeptical and gullible. In larger or smaller doses, all these qualities reside in each of us. We are a mess of contradictory qualities and are easily led by smooth talking political con-men who have only their own interests at heart.
Also, since the new century began, America’s stampeding social and economic changes have created major instability. Nonexistent twenty years ago, manipulative social media algorithms now addict and divide many of us. Many us can no longer afford housing, except for a tent, while others are lost to drug addiction. On our southern border, vastly increasing numbers of people from failing nations seek to find a new life in the US, while an unaddressed, growing national debt promises to collapse the US economy sooner or later. Other dramatic changes are on the horizon, including renewed threats of major war in Europe and in East Asia.
These troubles have undermined our nation’s basic optimism and reshaped our political behavior into fear, angry resentment, and contempt. During such unstable periods in democracies like ours, people yearn to return to times they remember as simpler, more comfortable.
Research reported in the “Journal of Economic History” (Volume 68, December 2008, Number Four) shows that when in struggle, both past and present Democracies begin to back-slide. Many citizens start to gather around extreme leaders who offer seemingly simple solutions to their problems, while blaming those problems on domestic and foreign enemies.
These wannabe powerful pied pipers inflame citizens’ existing grievances, create angry stories about identifiable groups being “enemies of the people.” This is a well-tried, well-proven, truly vile method used on susceptible people to rile them up and gain their support.
If elected, these creatures become authoritarian, and often carry out increasingly dictatorial actions using police and military forces to control their citizens. Sometimes they decide elections are no longer important, that the only good rule is their rule. Or, as in Putin’s Russia, Orban’s Hungary, and some other places today, they hold fake elections, often imprisoning or killing any strong opposition candidates ahead of time.
For example, a few: Julius Caesar in Greece, Napoleon in France, Porfirio Diaz in Mexico, Benito Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, Juan Peron in Argentina, Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, Victor Orban in Hungary, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and quite likely Trump if he is elected.
Parallels exist between Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency in 2016 and Adolph Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in 1934. Both men harangued their countries’ already angry citizens about “enemies.” Hitler ranted about Aryan superiority and condemned Jews. Trump rambles on and on with MAGA-yak and anti-immigrant rants, while whining about his criminal indictments, all of which he brought upon himself through his own actions.
Trump called upon his followers to invade the Capitol Building and stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win in November 2020. Hitler also created violent events that he blamed on “communists.” There are bigger threats to the US than “communists,” but they are still a convenient target for Trump. Both Hitler and Trump describe their imagined enemies as “vermin” that must be destroyed. Both men ranted about “them (Jews in Germany, migrants in the USA) poisoning our blood.”
German newspapers and Jewish groups in Berlin despised Hitler. Papers reported that “It would be impossible to establish a dictatorship,” for Germany’s constitution was “a barrier over which violence cannot proceed.” A major Jewish German organization claimed that “…no one would dare to touch (Jews’) constitutional rights,” that the nation would turn against any barbarian anti-Jewish policy.
Just before Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, the British ambassador to Berlin reported home, saying “Hitler…is an uncommonly clever and audacious demagogue fully alive to every popular instinct” and that “…the Nazis have come to stay.”
Shortly after gaining power, Hitler ordered his first concentration camp of many constructed at Dachau, initially to house his political enemies, but later to imprison and kill tens of thousands of Germany’s Jewish citizens, plus others he deemed his enemies. As his brutal rule advanced, he found many well-educated, thinking citizens to support his efforts, and he destroyed many of those who opposed him.
Here are three perspectives about Trump from his former senior Cabinet leaders. (1)
“He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him” (Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense). (2) “The depth of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life” (John Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security and White House Chief of Staff). (3) “President Trump demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution” (Mike Pence, Vice President)
So, what does Trump plan if he wins the election in November? He has already used violence to try to stay in power. Tomorrow, please read “Part Two: Trump Declares His Plans for America.” (Teaser: like Hitler, Trump plans to build big camps.)
Mike Randall welcomes comments from readers (no death threats, please) at merslife@gmail.com.
