Trump: A Comparison of Autocrats (or, Does This Sound Familiar?)

Tell me, does any of this remind you of Donald Trump?

"I understood the infamous spiritual terror which this movement exerts...at a given sign it unleashes a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked person breaks down..."

Throughout the Primaries Trump has moved from one target to the next, whoever he sees as his greatest threat being hammered down before moving on to the next greatest threat. Thus we have attacks on "Low Energy Jeb". When he's gone, Trump turns his malignant gaze to "Little Marco" who is "trying to be Don Rickles". Then, when Rubio is out of the picture, we get "Lyin' Ted" and his "crazy wife". If a particularly damaging new story comes out, he averts his attention to the threat of the moment, going on another anti-press (and anti-intellectual) tirade. If he gives a bad interview, well then it's time to turn his scorn on the interviewer for the next few days. Always aware of the enemy of the moment, and always ready to unleash a "barrage of lies and slander" until their nerves break.

"The power which has always started the greatest...political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been the magic power of the spoken word...All great movements are popular movements, volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotional sentiments, stirred either by the cruel Goddess of Distress or the firebrand of the word hurled among the masses..."

Trump plays on emotions, particularly fear and anger. No critical thinking necessary, and reason is a vice; whatever you feel in your gut should guide you.

What the masses needed, he thought, were not only ideas--a few simple ideas, that is, that he could easily hammer though their skulls--but symbols that would win their faith, pageantry and color that would arouse them, and acts of violence...which, if successful, would attract adherents and give them a sense of power over the weak.

Simple ideas to be hammered through skulls: Mexico and China are bad!! We need to ban Muslims!!! I will kick ISIS' ass!!! I will make everything great!!!

Symbols and pageantry: Witness any given Trump rally.

Acts of violence: I repeat, witness any given Trump rally.

...he was intrigued by what he called the "infamous spiritual and physical terror" which he thought was employed by the Social Democrats against their political opponents. Now he turned it to good purpose in his own anti-Socialist party. [People] were assigned to his meetings to silence hecklers and, if necessary, toss them out.

Protestors at Trump rallies being immediately set upon by violent supporters, while Trump smirks from the stage and offers to pay the legal costs if any of his supporters are arrested, and saying things like "maybe they SHOULD get attacked" when asked about the events later.

Other comparisons: The use of a minority group (or groups) as a scapegoat for all, or most, of society's ills (ban the Muslims, and deport all the Mexicans, and our problems will be solved!), and his use of the "Great Man Theory" ("Only I can solves your problems...Only I can make you great...Only I can protect you...Only I will tell you the truth...Listen only to ME...Trust only ME...Not a party, not an ideology, just Me! Me! Me!").

I have started rereading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and I couldn't help making these connections between one autocrat and another. I'm not suggesting that Trump would murder six million people (well, he may do so if he makes good on his threats to nuke the Middle East, but let's assume that he would never actually follow through with that), but I think there is no doubt (based on his public statements) that he would be perhaps the most authoritarian president we have ever had. This is a guy who brags that the military will follow his orders even if the orders are illegal. He promises to crush the free press by changing the law so that people can't report negatively about him. He threatens to strip the "racial enemy" of their very citizenship (i.e. the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants). He says all of this...and his supporters cheer!

It's at times like this that I think of a line of dialogue from film Revenge of the Sith:

So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause.

Hopefully we will never have to witness what a Trump presidency would have looked like, but the fact that millions of people have come out specifically to vote for this man is a sad statement, and a testament to this fact: history is a wheel, and it always comes 'round to the same place again.

sources:
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer, ppg. 43, 46, 69 and 70.

Click here to see the scene that I referenced from Revenge of the Sith.