Not only is Trump not like Hitler, he is not even George Wallace and likely isn’t even a racist.   I know this goes against the popular media refrain, but I do not see there is evidence to make these very serious charges. While it is easy to fall into this lazy habit of hyperbole, in the end the hype never lives up to the words. When that happens, the overall argument falls flat. We saw this when Al Gore’s movie promised Hurricane Katrina’s every year due to global warming. When it didn’t happen, many American’s wrote off climate change as a hoax.   So too with Trump. When we advance to the general election this summer, Trump will abandon some of the radical rhetoric and move to a more palatable form of populism. When he does this, many Americans will see the over the top warnings about Trump as unfounded. We have already seen a preview of his playbook for the general election. A few weeks ago he told the NY Times that the whole “build a wall” business is no more than a negotiating strategy.

Let’s make an honest contrast of Hitler’s rise and Trump’s. By the time Hitler began his rise to power, not only did he have a private army (the SA or brown shirts), he had a track record of using violence to achieve political goals and he had a detailed plan for a movement based on a long history of anti-Semitism. Adolph Hitler was building a movement, Donald Trump is only promoting Donald Trump.   Yes, one can draw superficial parallels, but to do so runs the risk of being discredited. Continue reading “No, Trump is not another Hitler” →