Trump and Hitler

There is a taboo about likening someone to Hitler.

The rule even has a name, Godwin's Law: reductio ad Hitlerum. The presumption of the rule of debate is that comparison with Hitler is so extreme and hyperbolic that the person who makes the comparison loses all credibility.

We need to rethink Godwin's Law.

The thrust of the amicus brief my attorney and I filed in the tariff case is that Trump is flagrantly claiming a power clearly given to Congress alone, and that this is part of a larger pattern of growing authoritarian rule. My attorney didn't cite Hitler. But it did argue that Trump's takeover of the Civil Service and his wholesale attack on federal judges in Maryland were part of a bigger project of taking personal control of the government. The brief argued that Trump respects no limit on his power. Where does it stop?

In the month since we filed that brief, Trump said explicitly that the tariff on Brazilian exports was retaliation for their prosecuting Jair Bolsonaro, a former leader who, like Trump, led a riot in an attempt to retain office. Trump threatened to withhold appropriated funds to repair the Baltimore bridge that services the Port of Baltimore in retaliation against a Democratic governor in Maryland who said Baltimore did not need federal troops. Trump's FBI searched the home of a national security critic, who wrote a tell-all book critical of Trump. He used a pretext to fire a member of the independent Federal Reserve Board member. Trump told Intel they should fire its CEO, then took 10 percent of Intel for the government, and now praises the same CEO. Trump bullied NVIDIA and AMD into ceding 15% of revenue from sale of certain chips to the U.S. government as tribute and payback for Trump's administration deciding that those chips were not a national security threat after all. 

L'État, c'est moi.  Trump isn't hiding it. He is showing it off. He can do whatever he wants and no one can stop him, and each time he gets away with it he is stronger for doing so. He is getting bolder.

Marc Bayliss graduated a year ahead of me from Medford High School. He was a scholar athlete and an All State football player. He graduated with honors from Notre Dame. He speaks seven languages. He tells me he was especially dismayed by the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health organization and our cancellation of humanitarian projects administered by USAID. He has served on multiple boards and commissions throughout his adult life. 

Bayliss

Guest Post by Marc Bayliss
 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." This is originally from George Santayana. It was paraphrased again by Winston Churchill in a 1948 speech to the British House of Commons as "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

After graduation from Notre Dame in 1970, I was selected to fulfill the role of a Rotary International Graduate Fellow for my graduate studies at the University of Salzburg and the University of Innsbruck. All expenses paid for my post-grad degree. Most people in Austria couldn't pin down my accent when we were speaking in German. In my first few months I happily shared that I was from the USA. Their response was muted and aloof. 

Trump was popular with the message: Make Germany great again

 I was puzzled until a movie opened my eyes. The movie was "TORA! TORA! TORA!" A joint production of Japan and Hollywood about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. In a 1,000-seat movie emporium in Innsbruck I was shocked into the reality of understanding when all 1,000 Austrians jumped to their feet to cheer whenever a battleship of the U.S. Navy was blown sky high by Japanese bombs.

From that time on I knew that my ambassadorial scholarship was teaching me real-life international relations.  

For background - in 1945 Innsbruck was occupied by the 91st Division of the U.S. Army. The 91st (the "Tall Firs Division") trained at Camp White, Oregon, near Medford. And in another local connection, the German Wehrmacht surrendered and faced a "stand-down" at the Brenner Pass -- just 12 miles due south of Innsbruck. One of the chief negotiators of the tense stand-down was a young officer of the U.S. 10th Mountain Division named Bill Bowerman. He was also from Medford, and later a track and football coach at Medford High, and then the University of Oregon. He was the partner of Phil Knight in founding Nike. 

But the dynamic that still remained 25 years after the end of WWII in Austria was that Americans were the "victors" and the Austrians were the "vanquished." It took a lot of trust and carefully crafted friendships on my part to help overcome that stigma. 

Now, what about the history of then versus now? After I was able to overcome an awkward dynamic, I gently asked my older Austrian neighbors how Hitler gained their vote. The answers from those who lived during those times was that Hitler promised two things; To whip inflation and to create and protect jobs for Germans and Austrians.

So how do we fast-forward to compare then with now? Here are some similarities with Donald Trump today and Hitler's Germany 100 years ago:

--- Both craved territorial expansion. Trump wants Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal. Hitler forced expansion of the Third Reich into Austria, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. 

--- Dissidents were sent to special-purpose detention facilities.

--- Both promoted civil insurrection. For Trump: January 6th, 2021 at the Capitol. For Hitler: the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, November, 1923. 

--- Both made strong efforts to gain traditional conservative support.

--- Both made strong attacks on the press. Hitler and Trump both criticized the media as biased and denied access to journalists with whom they disagreed. 

--- Both harnessed the power of emerging media. For Hitler it was a newfangled invention called radio. For Trump it is social media and the internet. 

--- Both attacked elite universities. 

--- Both closed the borders. 

--- Both were convicted by trial.  

--- Both managed the historical record, blocking out and stigmatizing forbidden opinions. Hitler famously burned books. Trump is demanding federal museums remove language that describes milestones in racial or gender equality.

 

--- Both promoted science denial. Hitler forced into exile the top physicists, scientists and intellectuals. These included three Nobel Prize winning physicists, Albert Einstein, Edward Teller and Erwin Schrodinger (and his famous fictional cat). Trump is cancelling research grants.

--- Both applied strict tariffs on foreign goods. 

--- Both demanded and received implied approval from large businesses. For Hitler it was Thyssen and Krupp, cutting edge industries for 1930's Germany. For Trump it is all of the high-tech giants. 

So - coincidence or repeated ideologies? And what are the consequences if we continue to disregard the past?

Churchill and Santayana know.

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