COMPARATIVE FASCISM:
ADOLF HITLER AND DONALD TRUMP
A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Chico
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in History by © Benjamin Robertson 202 1 Fall 2021
COMPARATIVE FASCISM:
ADOLF HITLER AND DONALD TRUMP
A Thesis by Benjamin Robertson
Fall 2021
APPROVED BY THE DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES:
Sharon Barrios , Ph.D.
APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE:
Christine Goulding, Ph.D.
PUBLICATION RIGHTS
No portion of this thesis may be reprinted or reproduced in any manner unacceptable to the usual copyright restrictions without the written permission of the author.
Dedication
I dedicate this to Donavan and to my family, who have all made this project possible.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
While there are many that I am grateful for in helping me complete this thesis, I would like to first thank Dr. Jason Nice. Dr. Nice’s feedback and editing throughout the writing of this project, combined with his taking over as Committee Chair made sure this thesis made it to the finish line. His support, advice, encouragement, and optimism made this project possible, even in the midst of a pandemic.
I would also like to thank Dr. Christine Goulding. Her support and enthusiasm for German education was a catalyst that pushed me to study German history. The education and encouragement I received from her made studying German exciting and rewarding. Without her help, I surely would not have been able to use original German sources in this research.
I am also thankful for Dr. Robert Tinkler’s support in this project, and I am especially grateful that he joined as an advisor when there were unexpected changes to this thesis committee.
Lastly, I would like to thank my boyfriend Donavan and my family. Their help and support throughout this thesis have helped me see this project through to its completion. Without their love and encouragement, this thesis would have been impossible.
ABSTRACT
COMPARATIVE FASCISM:
by
© Benjamin Robertson Master of Arts in History
California State University, Chico Fall 2021
Since Donald Trump began campaigning for United States president in 2015, scholars of fascism have debated whether Trump’s movement was fascist . The concept of an American regeneration inherent in Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” fit with the palingenetic core of fascism, but many scholars have argued that this is not enough to claim Trump is a fascist. However, after Trump incited an insurrection that led to the storming of the United States Capitol, many scholars began to change their position a nd claimed that this moment of aggression defined him as a fascist leader. Some historians, like Roger Griffin, have viii
maintained that Trump is not a fascist. Still, many more scholars began defining Trump as a fascist after the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
This study argues that Trump is a fascist, and that he has been a fascist from the beginning of his 2016 presidential campaign . The 2021 insurrection was merely an extension and culmination of Trump’s ideology, and not the only moment that defines him a s fascist. In order to define Trump as a fascist and to analyze the way fascists gain and utilize power, this study applies comparative history and demonstrates the many similarities between Trump’s ideology and that of Adolf Hitler. Furthermore, this work is broken into two sections: the first compares and analyzes speeches from Trump and Hitler and demonstrates that Trump is a fascist leader. The second section compares Trump ’s and Hitler’s rise to power and the way they each governed once they had attained control of their governments. This work intends to contribute to the historical conversation o n fascism, while also utilizing comparative history to analyze contemporary events.
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. On December 18, 2019, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on two counts, for abusing his power as president and for obstructing Congress.1
After his 2020 election loss and constant spreading of misinformation of election fraud, Trump’s January 6th speech culminated in a mob of insurrectionists storming the United States Capitol.2
The riot that followed Trump’s speech, made possible by his lies regarding the 2020 presidential election, injured over 100 policemen, and for the first time since the War of 1812, the White House Capitol had been breached by aggressors.3
The amount of damage Trump brought to America and American politics was impressive to say the least.
1 Nicholas Fandos, "Trump Impeached for Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress," The New York Times, December 18, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/us/politics/trump-impeached.html
2 Peter Baker and Sabrina Tavernise, "One Legacy of Impeachment: The Most Complete Account So Far of Jan. 6," The New York Times, February 13, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/politics/capitol-riots-impeachment-trial.html
3 Lawrence B. A. Hatter, "Perspective: The Similarities to the Last Invasion of the Capitol Matter: So Do the Differences," The Washington Post, January 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/01/11/similarities-last-invasion-capitolmatter-so-do-differences/.
Since Donald Trump’s announcement of his candidacy for president, there has been debate among fascism specialists as to whether he should be categorized as a fascist leader.4
For some, like Robert Paxton, Trump’s incitement of an insurrection and attempted subversion of election results was enough to label Trump a fascist.5
However, Trump had done enough to be categorized as a fascist before the riot in the United States Capitol. While there are numerous ways one can go about proving Trump’s style of leadership is fascist, this work will utilize a comparative approach in order to do so. Specifically, this thesis proposes that the many commonalities between Adolf Hitler’s Nazi movement and Donald Trump’s movement, combined with their leadership styles once in power, demonstrate that Donald Trump and his movement are fascist.
Before proceeding, it is imperative to address the elephant in the room: this thesis compares a contemporary politician and Hitler, one of the most notorious men in modern history. However, this thesis by no means attempts to claim, assert, or even imply that Donald Trump is equivalent to Hitler. To do so would not only be a stretch and a massive anachronism, but it would also produce little-to-no value to the field of history. Instead, this work is interested in the similarities between the style and approach the two men had as politicians, both as outsider candidates and as eventual leaders.
Applying a comparative approach makes apparent that Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler exhibited many of the same political characteristics, strategies, and style in how they achieved
4 Paul Nicholas Jackson, "Debate: Donald Trump and Fascism Studies,” Fascism 10, no. 1 (2021): 1-15, https://doi.org/10.1163/22116257-10010009.
5 Jackson, "Debate: Donald Trump and Fascism Studies,” 1-15.
political power and in the way they governed. Furthermore, in using fascism as a mode of comparison, it is evident that Trump’s ideological and political ideals place him in the realm of modern fascist leaders. The goal of this work is to expand the understanding of how fascist leaders come to power, and it also aims to utilize comparative history as a means for understanding contemporary events. Furthermore, fascism does not present itself monolithically, so it is helpful for the field of fascism scholarship to draw comparisons when they are possible and applicable.6
But before we can point out the ways in which Trump is fascist, or use fascism as a comparative factor, we must define fascism.
This work will utilize Roger Griffin’s definition of fascism, as it is the clearest definition available in fascist studies. Griffin asserts that while fascism can present itself in variations in terms of style and in the level of commitment from its supporters, it will always maintain the same basic ideological core based on palingenesis and populist ultra-nationalist ideology.7
Palingenesis, according to Griffin, is a mythic ideology that focuses on the rebirth of a nation (palin means again/new, genesis, means creation/rebirth).8
A fascist party uses a nostalgic golden era as an example of when their country was at their peak, and they then compare it to the current decline of their country in the present. Therefore, the fascist party attempts to use this nostalgic support to produce a rebirth of their once great nation.
However, claiming that fascist ideologies contain a palingenetic core is not specific enough. Yes, it would apply to fascism, but it would also relate to many other political
6 Sven Reichardt, “Violence and Consensus in Fascism,” Fascism (Leiden) 1, no. 1 (2012): 59.
7 Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), 26-27.
8 Ibid., 32.
ideologies as well. The second part of Griffin’s definition, his claim that fascism is populist and ultra-nationalist, is key in defining fascism as its own political ideology. Griffin defines populist ultra-nationalism as being populist in the sense of relying on the power of the people for legitimacy (at least initially). He goes on further to claim that the ultra-nationalist aspect of the ideology is anti-liberal and a rejection of Enlightenment ideals.9
A Short Historiography of Comparative History
History is inherently comparative. Even the terms historians often use convey comparative connotations. When we employ words like “depression” to signify an economic collapse, we naturally and innately compare that moment with a period of economic stability. When historians use terms like fascism or bolshevism, we often make comparisons between other ideologies as well.11
9 Ibid., 37. But again, this definition on its own can also describe several other movements and ideologies. In combining palingenesis with populist ultra-nationalism, we get a clearer and more precise concept that limits the scope of what fascism is and what it is not. Fascism has the palingenetic goal of the rebirth of the nation (often with a racist undertone, or sometimes explicitly racist messages) that follows a supposed state of decline or decadence, combined with populist ultra-nationalist ideals of antiEnlightenment and emotional appeal.10
10 Ibid., 44.
11 Benjamin Z. Kedar, Explorations in Comparative History (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2009), 50. If a historian claims one country is a great power, we compare it to
the other nations we believe are great powers or contrast it to countries that may be deemed lesser powers.12
Considering the concept that history is comparative, it is interesting how few historians today apply the comparative method to their research. Even though historians have discussed and practiced the comparative approach since at least the end of the nineteenth century, there are few scholars today who use this approach. There are many benefits to comparative history, but the field is not thriving today for various reasons. However, the historians who have taken on the challenge of writing comparative histories have produced exciting works in recent years.
Prominent French historian Charles-Victor Langlois claimed in 1890 that the comparative method of history allowed historians to establish crucial links between historical events. He believed that we can better understand the outcome of historical events after comparing two similar nations.13
After World War One, historians began to view the possibilities and weight of history in a new light. The huge loss of life in European countries made several prominent historians
12 Peter Kolchin, “Comparing American History,” Reviews in American History 10, no. 4 (1982): 65.
13 Kedar, Explorations in Comparative History, 1. Langlois also urged historians to only compare contemporary nations that were geographically close to one another. An example he believed would be appropriate for comparison was Medieval France and England.14
14 Ibid., 2. In 1907 Gustave Glotz, another prominent French historian, went even further by claiming comparisons should be limited to countries who had reached a similar level of development.15
15 Ibid., 3.
examine the methodologies typically used in their profession. Henrie Pirenne, a Belgian war hero and historian, believed that comparative history could help mitigate the issues of hypernationalism. He argued that the key was to compare different nations, instead of just focusing on one’s home nation. He held that one of the best qualities of the comparative method is that it illustrates similarities between different nations. Pirenne hoped that the comparative method could help dispel the nationalistic sentimentalities that became so prevalent in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century by showing similarities between nations.
In the interwar period, Marc Bloch became very influential in the field of comparative history. A prominent founder of the Annales School of History, in 1928 Bloch outlined different methods for conducting comparative history.16
In his framework, he discussed the differences between parallel and cross comparisons. A historian uses cross comparison when comparing two different nations. On the other hand, a parallel comparison is when one studies and compares events that occurred in only one nation. He claimed that parallel versions of comparison were superior to cross-national forms of comparison and argued that parallel comparisons typically offered more reliable results. However, he did not rule out the possible benefits of cross comparisons altogether.17
As World War Two ended, historians again looked at the way they crafted their research and also at the capabilities of their field. Many historians began to look for ways to discuss race and persecution after the appalling losses suffered in the Holocaust, the Siege of Leningrad, the
16 Ibid., 7.
17 William H. Sewell, "Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History," History and Theory 6, no. 2 (1967): 212.
dropping of the atomic bombs, and soldier casualties. Toward the end of 1945, American historian Carlton J.H. Hayes posited that comparative history would be very important in the future. He argued that the method could help minimize racial, religious, and political persecution, and claimed that showing the similarities between different cultures and nations could help ease global tensions.18
18 Ibid., 15. The comparative field of history continued to develop, albeit slowly after World War Two. In 1958 a new journal, Comparative Studies in Society was established and is still operating today. The founders of the journal claimed that a historian who only studies his or her own nation is limited, and therefore cannot understand that nation’s uniqueness.19
19 Kedar, Explorations in Comparative History, 15. They also fought against the idea that comparative history has the potential to be too superficial.
By the 1980s, comparative historians passionately debated the best methods for comparing nations. John H. Elliot and Marcel Detienne debated whether historical comparisons should be made in terms of differences or similarities. Detienne believed that it was pertinent to look at similarities rather than differences when comparing two societies. On the other hand, Elliot argued for applying both similarities and differences when using the comparative method. Elliot claimed that studying the similarities of two nations can help pull out their differences, and that differences can illuminate similarities as well.20
20 Ibid, 20-23. He described the comparative method as playing the accordion; pushing the two sides together through similarities helps the historian
pull out the differences.21
From the 1990s forward, Jürgen Kocka would be an extremely important historian in the comparative field. One component of Kocka’s work gave a much more solid and complete framework for comparative historians to follow.
Kocka narrowed the categories of comparative history into two basic types, generalizing and contrasting. The contrasting form focuses on differences between the entities being compared in the historian’s work and is helpful in gaining a sharper focus of individual cases. In order to provide a better understanding of how the contrasting style works in comparative history, Kocka uses the German workers’ movement as an example. Germany experienced an earlier workers’ rights movement than most other European countries. By comparing the workers movements in multiple countries, Kocka illustrates the importance of the Bildungsbürgertum (educated middle class) in establishing the workers’ movement in Germany.22
The generalizing type concentrates on similarities between the two societies under comparison. This method, Kocka claimed, is effective for revealing trends that may be prevalent in both nations. An example of the generalizing style of comparison that Kocka proposes comes from Marc Bloch’s study of the enclosure movement in England beginning in the sixteenth century. Bloch theorized that France would have likely experienced a similar movement of enclosure at roughly the same time; he postulated that agricultural issues that were prevalent
21 Sylvia L. Thrupp, “Editorial,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 1, no. 1 (1958): 3.
22 Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Jurgen Kocka, Comparative and Transnational History: Central European Approaches and New Perspectives (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 3.
in both countries would be solved in the same manner. Bloch’s theory was correct.23
Arguments Against Comparative History
Like most types of historical research, the comparative approach does not come without pitfalls. Despite the optimism Henri Pirenne expressed in the early twentieth century, some critics believe that the comparative method actually fuels nationalism. They argue that the practice is done primarily in order to establish a natural hierarchy of states in which the historian’s nation is naturally on the top.24
This is not necessarily a fair judgement of comparative history. First of all, this is one of the many reasons for academic peer reviews, so that poor scholarship will be dismissed. Nationalistic works in the comparative field are sparse and do not reflect the discipline as a whole.25
23 Haupt and Kocka, Comparative and Transnational History, 3. Kocka argues that Bloch may not have been able to come to this evidence had he not used the generalizing type of the comparative method.
24 Philippa Levine, "Is Comparative History Possible?" History and Theory 53, no. 3 (2014): 333.
25 Ibid., 334. When managed effectively, as noted earlier, comparative history can operate in a way that diminishes nationalism. This may be achieved by illustrating similarities between two nations.
Other critics, such as Donald Kelley, suggest that comparative works often lead to presentism. He argues that comparative historians search for present wisdom in the variations of historical events. Kelley’s argument focuses on the work of comparative historian François Guizot. Guizot’s research compared the development of Western European governments and
their respective paths toward representative governments. Kelley is correct in pointing out that Guizot’s research provides us with an example of presentism in comparative history. Guizot claimed it was impossible to truly study the past without the influence of the present, and the developments of the Western European governments should therefore be viewed by the historians of today approvingly.26
Kelley’s argument against comparative history as an entire field is lacking, however. He chose to point out the flaws of only one historian who produced his work in 1820. Presentism today is noticeable in but a small number of comparative histories.
Comparisons in history have also been made in the study of law, social insurance, and the subjectivity of memory. It is unlikely that these comparisons are also examples of presentism.27
Some have also argued that comparative histories can exhibit signs of exceptionalism. This is definitely the case in Niall Ferguson’s work. Ferguson used the comparative method to show differences between British imperialism and the forms of imperialism imposed by other countries. He attempted to show that the British form of imperialism was much gentler than the others, which is indeed a flimsy claim.28
26 Donald R. Kelley, “Grounds of Comparison,” Storia Della Storiografia 39 (2001), 4-6.
27 Levine, “Is Comparative History Possible,” 334.
28 Kelley, “Grounds of Comparison,” 342. Works like Ferguson’s in the comparative field are few and far between. Robert Gregg and George M. Fredrickson have separately studied race relations in South Africa and the United States. In both cases, the historians managed to produce a fair and unbiased history. The two refrained from producing histories that claim American exceptionalism, and their works offer a fair and balanced view of both of the
nations.29
Other comparative historians have attempted to draw comparisons that aim to villainize or demonize their enemies. A classic case is comparing a leader with Hitler or a nation to the Third Reich.30
This does not imply that a historian cannot draw useful comparisons to the Nazi regime. However, if one is to construct a comparison between a well-known villain like Hitler and another leader, it is imperative that the historian has concrete evidence to establish a sound argument.
Another issue that can arise from comparative studies is imposing one’s views onto the nations one is studying. Although this is not a concern that resides solely in the field of comparative history, it can be especially problematic in comparative studies. One example of projecting one’s world views into a comparative history could be comparing Eastern and Western cultures through a Western lens. It is important for comparative historians to refrain from Orientalizing in these studies.31
However, this claim does not intend to imply that comparisons between the West and East cannot be made whatsoever. What is crucial is that the historian is cautious in the way they construct their histories and understands that there are naturally cultural differences between the two.
The Case for Using Comparative History
Clearly, comparative history can be misused if not approached carefully and handled objectively. However, there are many benefits that come from employing the comparative
29 Ibid., 343.
30 Levine, “Is Comparative History Possible,” 343.
31 Ibid., 332-33.
method. The growth and establishment of history as a field in the nineteenth century coincided with the emergence of nation-sates, and it was thus used by many historians to promote and defend nationalism. Governments sought ways to prove that their nation was indeed the best, and this included historians as well. However, comparative histories can help mitigate nationalism. Cross-national comparisons force the historian beyond the scholarship of their nation, and it helps mitigate the amount of nationalistic work in the field.32
On top of the benefits listed above, comparative histories also make historians wellrounded scholars. Kocka argues that in order to properly compare two different nations, one is often forced to work within a field of scholarship less familiar to the historian.33
Comparative historians often have to rely on secondary sources as well, either due to a language barrier or because of the sheer quantity of work involved in the comparison. This also has the added benefit of scholars receiving attention outside of their own field.34
Comparative history often requires the historian to reach out of their comfort zone.
Another advantage in using the comparative method is that it can diminish exceptionalism inherent in certain countries and disciplines of history. American history, according to Carl Degler, is a field that could greatly benefit from the comparative approach.35
George M. Fredrickson goes even further when discussing the need for comparative history in America by claiming that followers of Fredrick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis” especially
32 Ibid., 332.
33 Kedar, Explorations in Comparative History, 31.
34 Jürgen Kocka, "Comparison and Beyond," History and Theory 42, no. 1 (2003): 41.
35 Carl Deger, “Comparative History: An Essay Review,” The Journal of Southern History 34, no. 3 (1968): 425.
need to use the comparative approach. He argues that the only way to prove the uniqueness of the frontier experience in forming the American style of democracy is to relate it with experiences of other nations. He proposes that Canada would be ideal for a study in frontier experiences.36
Only after comparison would we truly know if the frontier experience in America is totally unique.
Although comparative history has been a method of historical research since 1890, few historians practice it today. However, a few historians are putting forth great work in the comparative field. Impressive pieces have been produced by Jürgen Kocka, George M. Fredrickson, and Benjamin Z. Kedar. Also, interdisciplinary scholars such as Susan Neiman and Jared Diamond have released exciting books in the field as well.
Kocka’s work, Civil Society and Dictatorship in Modern German History examines the similarities between the dictatorships of the Third Reich and the East German GDR. He uses the generalizing style of comparative history in this book by focusing primarily on similarities between the two states. As noted earlier, this type of comparative work can show common themes between two entities. By using the comparative method, Kocka shows commonalities between the GDR and the Third Reich that might have been difficult to otherwise ascertain. Benjamin Kedar has also been highly influential in his comparative work. He focuses typically on the Crusades, but he has also written essays that focus on comparative methodology. He also
36 Michael G. Kammen, The Past Before Us: Contemporary Historical Writing in the United States, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1980), 471.
edited the book Explorations in Comparative History, upon which my own work has relied heavily.
Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed also offers an example of exciting and promising comparative history. Diamond’s work focuses on the ways in which societies either collapse or survive a myriad of issues, including environmental degradation, hostile or friendly neighbors, and cultural hindrances.37
37 Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Penguin Publishing, 2005), 10-15. His book shows similarities and differences between comparable societies that fail or succeed after facing similar hardships. Diamond looks closely at the different “inputs” societies implement that either stabilize or deteriorate their society, and he then examines the “outputs” of either survival or collapse.
38
38 Ibid., 18. He shows that relating the inputs and outputs of multiple similar societies makes it possible to build relations between the inputs that societies used and whether or not the society collapsed. The book contains many interesting findings, which Diamond argues would not have been possible without implementing the comparative method.39
39 Ibid., 19. One of his most interesting findings is the reason for the collapse of Easter Island. By comparing Easter Island with other similar islands, Diamond came to the conclusion that the population plummeted due to environmental degradation that stemmed from the building of the famous Easter Island
statues.40
Susan Neiman’s recent release of Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil, is another great example of recent comparative history. Her book serves as an example of cross-national comparative history by focusing on the similarities and differences between Germany and America. Although Neiman typically stays in her original field of philosophy, she branches out with this book by writing a comparative history.
Neiman’s book compares the way the Germans have faced their Nazi past with the way Americans have faced their past of slavery and is a successful piece of comparative history for a multitude of reasons. One aspect of the book that makes her argument effective is that she is clear about the terms she is using and how she will be using them. Her book focuses heavily on the idea of Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung (working off one’s past) 42
As discussed earlier, it is imperative when creating a comparative history that the historian clearly defines important terms. This is even more crucial in Neiman’s case, as she uses a German term as a means of comparing America and Germany. Having the word clearly defined in the first chapter of the book allows the reader to firmly grasp the historian’s comparisons. Another important method discussed earlier that Neiman applies to her work is clearly stating from the beginning of the book why she is attempting this comparison. In her chapter that discusses the benefits of the
40 Ibid., 108-111. He also showed that the island had a unique environment compared to other islands, and its uniqueness made it extremely fragile and susceptible to environmental degradation.41
41 Ibid., 118.
42 Susan Neiman, Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2019), 8.
comparative method, Neiman claims that similarities between the two cultures can teach us about “guilt and atonement, memory and oblivion.”43
Another issue that is apparent in the field of comparative history is that few historians are solely comparativists. Although some historians dabble in the field from time to time, few pursue it as their primary focus. One issue that stems from this is that few classes are taught that focus on the comparative approach, making it difficult to find new students interested in the method.45
Even in doing my own research for this project, I noticed how rarely the term “comparative history” surfaces as a category. Works by Kocka and Fredrickson typically had other signifiers before the term “comparative history” surfaced, such as American history, German history, etc. In fact, when viewing the types of subjects covered in Susan Neiman’s book, comparative history is not even indicated as a Library of Congress subject for this book.
43 Ibid., 37. Her book goes on to uncover the effect racist pasts had on collective memory and acceptance of guilt in both America and Germany. Although Neiman’s work, as well as the works of Fredrickson, Kedar, Kocka, and Diamond display the potential of comparative history, there is still a lack of a strong comparative academy. There are many reasons for this. As discussed earlier, the comparative approach typically requires a longer writing process than typical modes of history. Having to pour over a multitude of sources between two or more nations requires a vast amount of time.44
44 Kedar, Explorations in Comparative History, 51.
45 George M. Fredrickson, "From Exceptionalism to Variability: Recent Developments in CrossNational Comparative History," The Journal of American History 82, no. 2 (1995): 587.
The works of Neiman, Diamond, Fredrickson, Kocka, Kedar, and others show that this field has potential. Although I agree that this type of history can be strenuous, I believe it is well worth the extra work. At the very least, we should not be afraid of a methodology of history just because it might require more time and effort from us. I hope that more influential scholars will begin to apply the comparative approach to their studies. If more historians begin to use the comparative method, perhaps we will be able to make the field a well-established school of history. The comparative approach’s unique ability to quell nationalism and broaden one’s historical knowledge makes it a field worth investing time and resources into.
How this Work is Structured and Sourced
This study argues that Trump is a fascist, and he had been a fascist leader from the beginning of his 2016 presidential campaign. It also intends to contribute to the historical conversation on fascism, while also utilizing comparative history to analyze contemporary events. The thesis consists of four chapters and a conclusion, which all feature applications of comparative history. The first two chapters compare Hitler and Trump’s rhetoric, which establishes Trump’s ideology as fascist. These chapters heavily emphasize the use of primary sources, as they dissect speech transcripts from Trump and Hitler. The third chapter compares the rise of Hitler and Trump and their ascension to power, which illustrates how fascist movements come into power. The fourth chapter discusses the style of leadership Trump and Hitler exhibited once in power. This chapter elucidates the commonalities that can occur when fascists have power over their government. The third and fourth chapter rely more heavily on secondary sources, as the goal is to provide a comparison using narratives. While this work uses
Roger Griffin’s definition of fascism as a guiding source, it also applies the work of other historians. The works of fascism historians like Walter Laqueur, John Milfull, Stanley G. Payne, Noël O’Sullivan, and others will be consulted to produce a well-rounded piece of history.
CHAPTER TWO
MAGA AND PALINGENESIS
This chapter compares the rhetoric of Hitler and Trump to illustrate the similarities between the two leaders. Fascism relies on a charismatic style of leadership or a cult of personality to inspire loyalty and maintain order, and fascist governments or movements typically lack a concrete platform.
1
1 Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), 37. Therefore, analyzing a leader’s rhetoric and promises to his or her movement’s base is crucial in defining leaders or movements as fascist.
To analyze the rhetoric of Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, this work relies primarily on direct quotes from the two men. This research examines Trump’s campaign speeches and Twitter account alongside Hitler’s direct quotes and speeches. Original German will be used for the most part, but in some cases I was only able to locate English translatio ns of the speeches; the German will be quoted directly when it is used in this chapter, and I translate the German in the footnotes. The categories of analysis applied in this chapter are not all essential to each fascist movement, but they are typical com ponents.
Glorious Past/MAGA
According to Roger Griffin, when historians combine the terms populist ultranationalism and palingenesis to create a parameter for fascist movements, it alludes to movements that aim to bring a rebirth of their nation follow ing years of decline (or what is perceived to be decline).2
2 Ibid., 38. Hitler and the Nazi party perceived a distinct and tangible decline in German quality-of-life due to the global effects of the Great Depression. In 1932 the unemployment rate of insured German wo rkers was up to a staggering 40 percent.3
3 Benjamin Carter Hett, The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power (London: William Heinemann, 2019), 123. The deterioration of German life and the effects of the Great Depression on unemployment levels made it easier for Hitler to claim that Germany was in a state of decline and therefore needed to be reborn. The state of Germany in the 1930s also made it easy for Hitler to paint the Left and the SPD as the enemies of the German people. If they had not been in power, perhaps the Great Depression would have been handled better, and the German citizens would have received the aid they so desperately needed.
Trump, on the other hand, could not cite a poor economy (at least not legitimately) to claim America needed a rebirth. When Trump campaigned from 2015 to 2016, the American economy had mostly rebounded from the reces sion that began under George W. Bush’s administration. Although Trump would continue to tout his administration’s economic achievements as being a stark contrast to the economy under President Obama, the growth of the economy was nearly identical for both presidencies. Trump did carry a low unemployment
rate during his presidency (3.5 percent), but Obama added more jobs to the marketplace. Therefore, there Donald Trump could not make a substantial argument for a poor American economy under Barack Obama, at least not factually.4
Therefore, unlike Hitler, if Trump was going to argue that America needed a rebirth or needed to return to a glorious past, he would not be able to cite the American economy like Hitler could the German economy.
Instead, Trump would have to focus his attack on cultural changes in America. With the Trump campaign’s slogan Make America Great Again (MAGA), he pushed Americans to think back to a fictitious “simpler time.” According to fascist historian Mattias Gardell, Trump’s “MAGA campaign positioned the key fascist vision of national rebirth at the center of political attention.” 5
4 Reality Check Team, “US 2020 Election: The Economy under Trump in Six Charts, ” BBC News, November 03, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45827430.
5 Mattias Gardell, “Debate: Donald Trump and Fascism Studies,” edited by Paul Nicholas Jackson, Fascism 10, 1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.1163/22116257-10010009, 3.
Gardell goes on further to claim that one of the driving factors of MAGA was a politicized nostalgia. 6 6 Ibid. He urged Americans to yearn for an America like the 1950s, with the picturesque white-picket fence, but also with the patriarchy firmly in place and minorities being held in check. 7
7 Mike Luckovich, “A Very Stable Genius!” (Toronto, Ontario: ECW Press, 2018), 2. MAGA was used by the Trump campaign to signal that America was no longer great, as the “again” in the slogan implie s. If voters wanted a rebirth that would revert America to (or maintain it as) a country ruled by the white patriarchy, they would have to vote for Donald Trump.
Trump’s attacks on those who advocated for the removal of Confederate statues were often used in order to attract his base to the ideas of rebirth and America’s great past. Trump argued that the Confederate monuments were nothing but symbols of America’s history, and the removal of them would be an afront on America as a nation. In referring to t he removal of Confederate monuments, Trump claimed that it was “sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart.” 8
Many, including sociologist Dr. Wanda Rushing, view the fight to preserve Confederate monuments as a contemporary dog whistle. In response to the argument that the statues should be preserved as a part of American history, Rushing notes that most statues were built and erected decades after the Civil War. The fund -raising for the monuments took place during the Recon struction era of American history, when white Americans feared losing status due to the freedoms black citizens gained after the Civil War.9
The statues were therefore raised not to record history, but to enshrine white superiority in the American South.
Defining the argument for the preservation of Confederate Statues as a racist dog whistle carries implications for Trump’s vehement defense of their value to American society. Without explicitly saying it, Trump implied that these statues are valuable because of the connotations of white supremacy they convey. Not only do the monuments imply that white Americans should be on the top of society, but they also suggest that the patriarchy of America society should be held intact. As Rushing points out, the statues are almost entirely male
8 Ibid., 154.
9 Wanda Rushing, “Setting the Record Straight on Confederate Statues,” Contexts 17, no. 1 (2018): 18.
figures, and there is often an element in the statue showing their mastery over someone or something, whether it be a general’s superiority over his soldiers or a rider’s mastery of his horse.10
Therefore, when Trump rushed to the aid of these monuments, he showed that he condones the perseverance of white patriarchy. At the very least, he did not condemn the racist and patriarchal symbolism that the statues convey.
Hitler maintained a similar disposition to Trump in propag ating Germany’s glorious past and in passing on to the youth only the stories of German heroism. In describing the education system that would be put in place under Nazi leadership, Hitler was passionate about how the youth should be taught about the Germa n past. In March of 1933, Hitler claimed “Dieser Entschluss verpflichtet zur dankbaren Bewunderung unserer großen Vergangenheit. Auf allen Gebieten unseres geschichtlichen und kulturellen Lebens muss die Brücke von dieser Vergangenheit zur Zukunft geschlag en werden.”11
He went on further in this speech to argue that it was crucial for the German education system to instill into the German citizens the myth of the heroic German soldier from a young age. Hitler argued that “Die Ehrfurcht vor den großen Männern muss der deutschen Jugend wieder als heiliges Vermächtnis eingeprägt werden.”12
10 Ibid., 19.
11 Translation: “This decision obligates us to gratefully admir e our great past. In all areas of our historical and cultural life, the bridge from past to future must be built.” Adolf Hitler and Max Domarus, Reden und Proklamationen, 1932 -1945 vol.1 (München: Süddeutscher Verlag, 1965) , 232.
12 Translation: “Reverence for the great men must be instilled once again as a sacred legacy for German youth.” Ibid.
Hitler’s attachment to a mythic and heroic German past is evident in other speeches as well. In his first radio address, Hitler maintained a similar disposition. He claimed, “Sie [NSDAP] will die Ehrfurcht vor unserer großen Vergangenheit, den Stolz auf un sere alten Traditionen zur Grundlage machen fur die Erziehung der deutschen Jugend.” 13
Trump maintained a similar emphasis of American education as Hitler , in how Hitler emphasized that German educators and society as a whole should only teach the German y outh the positive aspects of their history. In an address given in September 2020, Trump argued that “o ur mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world. ” 14
Trump’s and Hitler’s insistence on teaching the glorious pasts of their respective countries is a component of the palingenetic core of their movements, which is a key to fascist movements. A persistence on a glorious past from both Hitler and Trump insist ed upon their supporters and voters that there was something great from the past that could be brought back and instilled into the youth of their generation; that there is something that their countries can return to, if only in part.
13 Translation: “It [ the National Government] wishes to make reverence of our great past and pride in our traditions the foundation for the education of German youth. ” Ibid., 192.
14 National Archives and Records Administration, September 17, 2020. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-whitehouse-conference-american-history/.
Outsiders of a Broken System
According to fascism historian Walter Laquer, fascism is often more palatable to people when the country is in a state of chaos or decline. He states that fascist sympathizers are “ready to support a movement that, unlike other parties, professed not to pursue narrow partisan or class interests but, rather, announced that it stood for the values of the whole community, that it strove for unity and order, and that this was the only way to save the country from chaos.”
15
15 Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, and Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 28-29. Typically, fascist leaders must be able to separate themselves from the machinery of the government, as the people view it as an extension of the issues they and their country are experiencing.16
16 Ibid. Therefore, one who can claim the status of an “outsider” to the government has more appeal to fa scist supporters.
One of the reasons Trump’s base found him to be an appealing candidate in the 2016 presidential election was his ability to place himself outside of the system of politicians and American bureaucracy. From the start of his presidential r un in 2015, he positioned himself as an outsider of a government that was broken and corrupt; it was a government that, according to Trump, could only be fixed by an untainted outsider. In a 2015 speech announcing his bid for United States President, Trump argued that “they [politicians] will never make America great again. They don’t even have a chance. They’re controlled fully – they’re controlled fully by the lobbyists, by the donors, and by the special interests, fully.” 17
17 Time Staff, “Donald Trump's Presidential Announcement Speech, ” Time, June 16, 2015, https://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/. He went further in the speech to
claim that his status as a billionaire enabled him to remain free from corruption, as he would not need their money in order to fund his campaign. On the issue of free trade policies for America, Trump argued that these could never function properly unless he was president because America has “people that are controlled by special interests.” He further claimed that “if it’s not me in the position, it’s one of these politicians that we’re running against, you know… I don’t need anybody’s money.” 18
Trump’s attack on the American government as a corrupt system that is controlled by special interests and lobbyists did not end with his speech announcing his candidacy. In his speech on immigration in 2016, Trump further enshrined himself as an outsider t hat could fix the broken system of American government. One of Trump’s strategies in his speeches was to not only declare himself free from corruption, but to count himself as someone who is not even a politician. He claimed that “because I am proudly not a politician, because I am not [beholden] to any special interest, I’ve spent a lot of money on my campaign, I’ll tell you. I write those checks. Nobody owns Trump.” 19
Trump’s attempt to place himself outside of the dirty world of politics continued in his other campaign speeches. In a speech he gave in Wisconsin in 2016, he claimed that “I’m not part of the corrupt system. In fact, the corrupt system is trying to stop me. I’ve been paying my own way. The voters in the Republican Party this year defied the donors, the consultants, the power brokers, and [chose] a nominee from outside our failed
18 Ibid.
19 “Transcript of Donald Trump's Immigration Speech, ” The New York Times , September 01, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/us/politics/transcript-trump-immigration-speech.html.
Before the downfall of the Weimar Republic in 1933, Adolf Hitler’s speeches often focused on, what he deemed, was a broken political system.21
Although Trump often used his speeches to claim that he alone was an outsider and would therefore be a strong leader, Hitler typically claimed that the entire Nazi Party were outsiders and systematically oppressed by the German government. Hitler used the SPD’s (Social Democratic Party of Germany) opposition to the Nazi Party to valorize his movement while placing the blame for the dire state of 1930s Germany on his rivals , as well as the signing of the Versailles Treaty after World War One . He also claimed that through the resistance and f ortitude of the Nazi Party, they were able to come to power and save the German people, even with the oppression they faced for years.
Hitler argued that “Angefangen von Plünderungen, Brandstiftungen, Eisenbahnschlägen, Attentaten und so fort, erhält alles in der kommunistischen Idee seine moralische Sanktion. Allein die Methode des individuellen Massenterrors hat die nationalsozialistische Bewegung im Laufe weniger Jahre uber 350 Tote und Zehntausende von Verletzten gekostet.” 22
and corrupt and broken system.” 20 20 Ibid. Clearly, it was important to Trump that his party and his base would view him as a candidate that owed nobody anything and would the refore be free from outside influence as the President of the United States.
21 Henry Ashby Turner, Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 (New Jersey: Castle Books, 2003), 56.
22 Translation: “Starting with looting, arson, railroad attacks, assassinations and so forth, everything is morally sanctioned by the Communist ideals. The method of individuals terrorizing the masses has by itself, in the course of the last few years, led to the deaths of 350 National Socialists and tens of thousands injured .” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen, vol.1 , 230. Not only
does he claim here that the Nazi Party was being attacked and killed by the opposition, but he implies that Communist beliefs are diametrically opposed to Nazi beliefs .
Hitler claimed multiple times that his party and its members had been attacked by other political parties and by the government itself due to their status as outsiders. When arguing with the SPD in 1933, Hitler claimed: “Ich glaube, es sind wenige nur unter uns hier, die nicht die Verfolgungen von Ihrer Seite im Gefängnis bußen mussten.” 23
Here again we see Hitler attempt to place himself and the Nazi movement as being forced to defend themselves, while also establishing that the party in power is the aggressor. Hitler further attempts to distance his party from the leading German Socialist Party, by attackin g the honor of the SPD. In responding to the SPD’s rebuttal for passing the Enabling Act, Hitler claimed “unsere Bewegung war dank der Unterdrückung durch Ihre Partei jahrelang wehrlos gemacht worden, ehrlos ist sie nie gewesen.”24
In this claim, Hitler attempts to valorize the Nazi Party while placing them in polar opposition to the SPD. His argument that the National Socialists never lost their honor is intended to show the fortitude of Hitler’s party, but it is also meant to underhandedly argue that the SPD was without honor.
Similarly, Donald Trump often insinuated the opposition party’s moral failings while positioning himself as a natural alternative. In the Wisconsin speech from August 2016, Trump went on to argue that “the other party – the Democratic Party – nominated the personification
23 Translation: “I believe that there are only a few among us here, that have not been persecuted and imprisoned by you.” Ibid., 243.
24 Translation: “Our movement was defenseless thanks to its suppression by your party, but it has never been without honor.” Ibid., 242.
of special interest and corruption. The Democratic Party rigged the nomination to give it to Hillary Clinton, thus giving the soul of their party this year to the special interests.” 25
Similar to Hitler’s speeches, Trump to claimed that the system is corrupt and that he is free from its shackles. He further claimed that his opponent is not only a part of the system, but also a stark example of its corruptive failings. Trump is his own man, while his opponent Hillary Clinton must answer to the lobbyists and special interests. In his September 2016 speech on immigration, Trump continued this argument, as it became a key piece to his campaign’s strategy. In describing Hillary Clinton’s tenure in American government, he claimed that “she is going to do nothing. And just look at the past. She’s done nothing. She’s been there for 35 years. She’s done nothing. And I say what do you have to lose? Choose me.” 26
The ending of Trump’s statement from his September 2016 speech on immigration is another key to both his and Hitler’s push for power. “What do you have to lose? Choose me.”
One component of being an outsider to the current system is that giving either of them an opportunity meant, or at least so they impl ied, that voters would be voting for a major change in politics. Another component similar to the “give us a chance” mentality was Trump’s allusion that only he could fix America’s issues. There are multiple examples of Trump claiming that
25 Politico staff and Shane Goldmacher, “Full Text: Donald Trump Campaign Speech in Wisconsin,” Politico , August 17, 2016, https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/full-textdonald-trumps-speech-on-227095.
26 “Trump’s Immigration Speech,” The New York Times . Trump was able to make Clinton’s long political career, an accolad e that could have been seen as a benefit by the voters, a reason to not elect her.
there was no pos sible replacement if America’s issues were to be fixed. In his speech announcing his candidacy, Trump claimed that “sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president, I will bring back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again.”
27
27 “Donald Trump's Presidential Announcement Speech .” Times. In the same speech he also claimed that “you need somebody, because politicians are all talk, no action. They will not bring us – believe me – to the promised land. They will not.” 28
28 Ibid. These quotes illustrate that Trump was not only placing himself outside of the broken system, but if the American people did not vote for him these issues could never be addressed and would repeat endlessly. In another speech he places himself even more squarely as the only person who can save America from itself. He claimed, “I am your voice.” “I will be a champion – your champion.” “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”29
29 Luckovich, “A Very Stable Genius!,” 1. Trump strove to enshrine himself as both the voice of the people and as the only person who can fix America’s broken system. In Trump’s understanding, America would be doomed to perpetuate its corruption.
Before Hitler became the German Chancellor in 19 33 and shortly thereafter, he often echoed sentiments similar to Trump’s “what do you have to lose” mentality. In Hitler’s first radio address in February of 1933, just days after he became Chancellor, he stated “die Parteien des Marxismus und seiner Mitlä ufer haben Vierzehn Jahre lang Zeit gehabt, ihr Können zu beweisen. Das Ergebnis ist ein Trümmerfeld. Nun, deutsches Volk, gib uns die Zeit von vier
Jahren, und dann urteile und richte uns!” 30
Hitler utilizes this plea to the German people to allude that the Left has led the German people to ruin. On the other hand, Hitler implies that if the German citizens just give the Nazi party a chance, perhaps they can fix the mess they inherited from the SPD.
Being able to claim outsider status was crucial for bot h Hitler and Trump. It afforded them both the opportunity to attack their systems of government while remaining unscathed and above the fray. They both argued that not only were they outsiders, but their opponents and those currently in power were symptoms and agents of government corruption. By placing themselves in direct opposition to a broken system and putting themselves entirely outside of it, they were able to delegitimize their opponents while still providing voters a potential alternative to the sy stem.
Anti-Press
According to Tamas Ziegler, the anti -Enlightenment ideals inherent in fascism and the emphasis the ideology places on action drive fascist movements to attack the free press. Furthermore, fascist leaders often disregard and rebuff the n eed for analysis, which is a main
30 Translation: “The parties of Marx and their followers have had fourteen long years to prove themselves. The result is a field of rubble. Now, German people, give us four years, and then judge us!” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 1, 194.
component of the media. 31
This often leads to media that is critical of fascist movements being labeled as “fake news” by fascist leaders.
Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump were staunchly anti-press in their quests for power. Trump came out early against the press, and as his campaign and eventually his presidency continued, he only continued to question the legitimacy of America’s media. Hitler’s attacks on the press took a somewhat different turn, because the Nazi party took over the news outlets once in power. Therefore, after 1933 there is a shift in Hitler’s critique of the way reporters covered German news. After Hitler became German Chancellor and the Nazi party effectively controlled the German press, Hitler focused his rage on the international media. 32
From the beginning of Trump’s campaign, he attempted (rather success fully) to sow distrust of the free press within his base. Although his initial attacks on media coverage were not as brazen and aggressive as the attacks he would make as President, his anti -press platform
31 Tamas Dezso Ziegler, “The Anti -Enlightenment Tradition as a Common Framework of Fascism and the Contemporary Far Right,” Fascism 10, no. 1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.1163/2211625710010001, 19.
32 Hitler’s speeches from the start of his campaigning until 1933 contain attacks on the press as a whole. Following his takeover in 1933, they shift toward attacking negative international coverage. See Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 1: 192, 232, and 243 for attacks on German press. See Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 2 : 1048-49 and 1055-56 for attacks on the international press. However, common to between both men is a propensity to discount any negative news about them as being a lie, or as Trump would call it, “fake news.” 33
33 Manuel Roig-Franzia and Sarah Ellison, “A History of the Trump War on Media: The Obsession Not Even Coronavirus Could Stop,” The Washington Post, March 29, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/a-history-of-the-trump-war-on-media theobsession-not-even-coronavirus-could-stop/2020/03/28/71bb21d0-f433-11e9-8cf04cc99f74d127_story.html.
began at the start of his campaign. In Trump’s cam paign announcement speech, he claimed that “our real unemployment is anywhere from 18 - 20 percent. Don’t believe the 5.6. Don’t believe it.”34
This claim is not an aggressive attack on the press, but it is nevertheless a critique of their unemployment repor ts. This shows that from the start of his presidential campaign, Trump was open to discrediting the American press whenever it would suit his needs.
Hitler’s initial attacks on the press were twofold: he attacked the German system for not printing what the Nazi newspaper was printing, and he claimed the liberal German press was lying. In Mein Kampf, Hitler harangues against the evils of the German press and argues that it aided in the deterioration of German society. Hitler questions:
Was the press not instrumental in bringing in a state of moral degradation among our people? Did the press not oppose with all its might every movement to give the state that which belongs to the state, and by means of constant criticism, inure the reputation of the army, sa botage general conscription and demand refusal of military credits, etc., until the success of this campaign was assured?35
It is evident that Hitler places the German press alongside the SPD as enemies of the German people and the Nazi movement. Hitler had every intention to either dismantle the press when he assumed power, or to take it over and publish only censored pieces.
Hitler did not attack the German press solely for what they wrote, but he also attacked them for what they, according to Hitler, withheld. In Hitler’s rebuttal against the SPD’s speech in 1933, Hitler argued that the Nazi press and their reports were being suppressed by the
34 “Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech,” Times.
35 Adolf Hitler and James Vincent Murphy, Mein Kampf Unexpurgated ed . (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1981), 139.
German government. He argued : “Damals sind Ihnen diese Zitate noch nicht zu Gesicht gekommen, sondern damals hat man unsere Presse verboten und verboten und wieder verboten.”36
Hitler insisted that not only did the German press cover the Nazi party unfairly, but they also suppressed the stories that the Nazi party attempted to release. This illustrates Hitler’s attack on the German press while also furthering the previous argument that Hitler situated himself and his party as being both outsiders and oppressed.
Furthermore, Hitler attached his anti -Semitic worldview to his attacks on the free press. He argued that the press was a mechanism for spreading disinformation, and it was the Jewish people who ran the media. Hitler states in Mein Kampf (1925) that he “now began to examine my beloved ‘world press’ from this point of view,” that European Jews created “artistic trash and ran the press. And the deeper I probed the more the object of my former admiration shriveled. The objectivity of expositi on now seemed to me more akin to lies than honest truth; and the writers were – Jews.”37
37 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 58. He further argues that the Jewish press published foreign accounts and was hostile to Germanism by nature. 38
Similarly, Donald Trump attacked the media not only for its coverage, but also for what they purportedly did not cover. In his 2016 speech on immigration, Trump attacked the media
36 Translation: “At the time you did not read the quotes, but at the time our press was forbidden and forbidden, and again forbidden.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol.1, 243.
38 Ibid., 59. Hitler’s anti-Semitism, combined with his attachment of Jews to the free press, made the media an enemy to the Nazi movement long before they took power in 1933.
multiple times for the stories that he believed were not being properly covered by reporters. Trump argued that “the truth is our immigration system is worse than anybody has ever realized. But the facts aren’t known because the media won’t report them. The politicians won’t talk about them, and the special interests spend a lot of money trying to cover them up because they are making an absolute fortune.” 39
Similar to Hitler’s attack on the SPD’s management of the German press, Trump argues here that the American media hides the real stories from the American citizens. In the same speech, Trump continues his discussion on illegal immigration by claiming that the true number of illegal immigrants “are never reported. Instead, the media and my opponent discuss one thing and one thing only, the needs of people living here illegally.”40
When Hitler and Trump took power of their respective governments, there was a pronounced shift in how they addressed the press . The two leaders went in somewhat different directions in how they handled the media once they were in power, but they still maintained an unfriendly disposition toward reporters. As noted earlier, Hitler and the Nazi party took over the German press, so there was no longer a need to attack the domestic media. Instead, Hitler
39 “Trump’s Immigration Speech,” The New York Times.
40 Ibid. Here again we see Trump handle the media in a similar way to Hitler. Not only does Trump claim that the media is covering up the truth, but he also ties them to Hil lary Clinton, and therefore to the “system.” It is not enough that the media is lying. Atta ching the media to his opponent further solidifies his argument that the system is broken and that only an outsider can fix it.
began to shift his anti-press rhetoric against the international media, which fit well with his isolationist approach, anti-Semitism, and anti-Marxist stance. Trump, on the other hand , amplified his attacks against the domestic media. Although he had already made his anti -press stance clear before he took office in 2017, his critiques of the media would only become louder once he became president.
Hitler’s shift in attacking the forei gn press can be observed in a 1939 Reichstag speech. The speech included multiple attacks on the foreign press, as he attempted to paint Germany as the victim of false and slanderous stories. Hitler’s handling of the international media often claimed that they were falsifying what had really happened. Towards the beginning of his 1939 speech, he argued that not only was Czechoslovakia at fault for the way the takeover was managed, but also the press should be blamed for the way they covered the incident. Hitler began by arguing:
The fictitious report of a German mobilization allegedly forcing Czechoslovakia to mobilize its armed forces was maintained and propagated, despite an official declaration twice conveyed at my bidding to the Czech State President Benes, stating that Germany had not mobilized even a single soldier, and in spite of identical assertions to representatives of foreign powers. Insistent demands called for Germany to countermand the fictitious mobilization order and to renounce its pretenses. Benes labored to spread the rumor that the determined nature of the steps he had taken had forced the German Reich back within its appropriate borders. Since the Reich had neither mobilized its forces nor entertained any intentions of attacking Czechoslovakia, this situation entailed without a doubt a serious loss of prestige for the Reich. 41
41 “Hitler Speech January 30, 1939 - Complete Text,” World Future Fund, http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Articles/Hitler/hitler1939.html.
Hitler attempted to discredit the Czech president and the reports that came out of Czechoslovakia, claiming that the German mobilization was misrepresented. Hitler goes on to further claim: “Für die Auseinandersetzung mit Herrn Benes s… Wenn gewisse Zeitungen und Politiker der übrigen Welt nun behaupten, dass damit Deutschland durch militärische
Erpressungen andere Völker bedroht habe, so beruht dies auf einer groben Verdrehung der Tataschen.” 42
It is here that Hitler truly attempts to discredit any foreign coverage of the German annexation of Czechoslovakia. Although he ties foreign politicians into the mix as well, he is more acutely focused on the foreign press’ co verage of the news. He argues that any attempt to paint the Germans and their military as aggressors in this instance is just a “gross distortion of the facts.”
In the same speech, Hitler continued to attack the international media for their coverage of Germany. Hitler later argued that National Socialist Germany held no ill-intentions against the rest of the world; if there were any reports alluding to an aggressive Germany, they were a lie. He claimed:
Die Völker werden in kurzer Zeit erkennen, dass das nationalsozialistische Deutschland keine Feindschaft mit anderen Völkern will, dass alle die Behauptungen über Angriffsabsichten unseres Volkes auf fremde Völker entweder aus krankhafter Hysterie ge borene oder aus der persönlichen Selbsterhaltungssucht einzelner Politiker entstandene Lügen sind, dass diese Lügen aber in gewissen Staaten gewissenlosen Geschäftemachern zur Rettung ihrer Finanzen dienen sollen, dass vor allem das internationale Judentum damit eine Befriedigung seiner Rachsucht und Profitgier erreichen zu hoffen mag, dass
42 Translation: “For the confrontation with Mr. Beness… I f certain newspapers and politicians around the world now claim that through military blackmail Germany has threatened other peoples, this is based on a gross distortion of the facts.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 2, 1049.
sie aber die ungeheuerlichste Verleumdung darstellen, die man einem großen und friedliebenden Volk antun kann. 43
Here again we see Hitler’s attempt to discredit the cr edibility of the international press.
Although he uses anti-Semitism to attack the media, attacking Jews was not the sole purpose of his claims. In this example, it is equally important to Hitler to attack the partiality and bias of the international press , which Hitler claims are affected by Jews. Again, we see Hitler attempt to argue that the German people and the German army are peaceful and hold no hostilities toward other nations, and that it is only the international press that paints them out to be a threat to world peace.
Whereas Hitler, following his appointment to German Chancellor by President Hindenburg, took a more international approach to his continued aggressive anti -press rhetoric, Trump continued to focus most of his attacks on the Americ an press. However, after Trump became president, his tirades were more pronounced and aggressive. Only a month after taking office, Trump used his Twitter account to attack any media outlets he viewed as “ fake news.” In all capitalized letters, Trump tweeted “FAKE NEWS,” and followed that by claiming that The New York Times, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, and CNN were all “enemies of the American
43 Translation: “In a short time , the people will recognize that the National Socialist Germany has no hostilities toward other people s, that all of the allegations about our intent to attack other peoples are lies either born of a sick hysteria or of the personal drive for self -preservation on the part of certain politicians, but that these lies are meant to save the finances of unscrupulous profiteers in certain countries, that above all the international Jewry can hope to achieve satisfaction of their vindictiveness and greed for profit, but that they represent the most monstrous slander that can be done to a great and peace -loving people.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol.2, 1055-56.
people.” 44
His attack against the press was not necessarily new, but this was more focused than his usual claims, as he not only called them an enemy of the people but also specifically named multiple outlets. While the claim brought criticism and shock from the media and his opponents, Trump’s base followed his lead and distrusted the media. It further solidified the growing belief among Trump’s base that the majority of news networks leaned too far left and could not be trusted.45
44 Donald Trump, President Trump’s Tweets, 2017: A Historical Archive of President Trump’s Tweets, collected by Anthony T. Michalisko (San Bernadino: 2020), February 17, 2017.
45 Ibid. Trump’s staff and his eventual 2020 campaign were well aware that Trump used his attacks on the media to rile up his already enthusiasti c base. Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s communications director in 2020, claimed that “the hostility of the mainstream media towards the president is something that gets the president’s supporters fired up.” 46
46 Ibid. Trump’s original press secretary Sean Spicer echoed similar sentiments when he claimed that although he did not “think it is good for democracy that we’re branding an entire industry as an enemy” it was nevertheless effective.47
47 Ibid. Trump made an enemy of the press not only to discredit any negative claims that may be said about Trump or his administration, but also to rouse enthusiasm and passion from his base.
45 Roig-Franzia “A History of the Trump War on Media: The Obsession Not Even Coronavirus Could Stop,” The Washington Post, March 29, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/a-history-of-the-trump-war-on-media theobsession-not-even-coronavirus-could-stop/2020/03/28/71bb21d0-f433-11e9-8cf04cc99f74d127_story.html.
Trump’s and Hitler’s insistence that a free press was always an imminent threat to both their movements and for the dissemination of truth did more than g ive themselves an alibi for bad press. Their insistence that the press was a public enemy aided them by perpetuating the myth that there was a constant lurking enemy. For fascist movements, this is paramount.
According to Roger Griffin, the fascist core’s reliance on the desire to replace an old broken system with something new and better leads to a key issue: fascist states are always in strong opposition to something. Therefore, for fascist movements to maintain their momentum and to avoid spinning out of control, they require a constant crisis or enemy that the leaders can point their people towards. Another way to think about this , is that fascist movements experience a “permanent revolution.”
48 If there is nothing for the party to rail against, then the base expects of what the revolution promised to deliver. Maintaining a constant crisis allows the base to stay enthusiastic and engaged while putting off the deliverance (which will never come) of the completed revolution.
Although there were other foes for both Hitler and Trump, the press was always an adversary to their movements. The media’s omnipresence was something that both men could point to in their speeches as an enemy to their bases, and they could therefore maintain a permanent mode of crisis. Even though the two leaders took somewhat different approaches in their diatribes against the free press, the anti-media rhetoric remained a focal point of their speeches throughout their time in power.
48 Griffin, Nature of Fascism, 40.
Racism, Xenophobia, and Isolationism
Racism is found in all generic forms of fascism, whether it is pronounced as it was in the Nazi movement, or less pronounced as in Italian fascism. Still, racism is common in all fascism.
As Ruth Wodak notes, fascism typically separates the fascist base from others with either explicit racism or through racist undertones. 49
In Roger Griffin’s analysis and framework of fascism, he clearly defines the racist characteristics of fascist movements:
The attempts to generate a sense of the uniqueness and common destiny of this community means that fascism is essentially racist ... An important rider to this is that fascism does not necessarily invoke the myth of a pure race or go beyond vague cultural and historical notions of nationhood to conceive it in biological and genetic terms. As such, varieties of it can well remain within the bounds of the common or garden racism which was so pervasive in European societies, ‘liberal’ or otherwise, at the turn of the twentieth century, and it is not intrinsic to fascism that particular groups (for example Jews, Slavs, Asians) should be picked out for persecution, let alone for systematic genocide. 50
Although fascism naturally carries a racist component, that does not mean that every fascist movement leads to the outright persecution or attempted annihilation of a group of people.
Just because a movement did not attempt to destroy a group of people does not mean that the movement cannot be defined as fascist.
Both Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler have proclaimed racist theories. This is not groundbreaking news in the coverage of Hitler’s theories, but in comparing him and Trump it is worth reinvestigating Hitler’s claims. Racism was a central component to Hitler’s rhetoric, and some comments he made are similar to the way Donald Trump has described illegal immigrants
49 Ruth Wodak, “Debate: Donald Trump and Fascism Studies,” edited by Paul Nicholas Jackson, Fascism 10, no. 1 (2021): https://doi.org/10.1163/22116257-10010009, 6.
50 Griffin, Nature of Fascism, 48.
in America. A common thread between Trump and Hitler’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric is the idea that only the worst immigrants come across the borders. For Trump, this type of sentiment began at the start of his 2016 campaign. Trump argued that, “they’re [Mexico] sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume are good people.” 51
Although Trump backtracks at the end of his xenophobic comments, claiming that perhaps some immigrants are good people, his entire statement suggested that primarily problematic immigrants are coming into the country.
Even when Trump did not make explicit comments that illegal immigrants are rapists and murderers, he still tried to show that immigration was hampering American society. In his speech that focused on South American immigration into America , he argued that “most illegal immigrants are lower ski lled workers with less education, who compete directly against vulnerable American workers, and that these illegal workers draw much more out from the system than they can ever possibly pay back.”52
Hitler made similar comments regarding the German Jewish population by alluding to the notion that only the worst of th em stayed in the country . Hitler’s infamous 1939
51 “Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech,” Times.
52 “Trump’s Immigration Speech,” The New York Times. Trump’s argument here is less explicitly racist, but his claim still attempts to foster xenophobia and racism in his base. Like the way Trump fashioned the press as an enemy, he attempts to make illegal immigrants and the immigration system an enemy of America
Nuremburg speech focused on why Jewish people did not fit in to German society and to the issues they were purportedly creating. He claimed that “Deutschland war allerdings
jahrhundertelang gut genug, diese Elemente aufzunehmen, obwohl sie außer ansteckenden politischen und sanitären Krankheiten nichts besaßen. Was dieses Volk heute besitzt, hat es sich auf Kosten des nicht so gerissenen d eutschen Volkes durch die übelsten Manipulationen erworben.” 53
He argued that even though Germany was for some time able to successfully absorb Jewish elements into German society, they were nevertheless providing a negative input for the country. Similar to Trump’s xenophobic comments, Hitler argued that German society would only be improved if the Jewish population were removed from the country . Clearly, the way that the two went about their prejudices is entirely different, but it is still worth noting t he xenophobia and racism that was key to both of their movements. Hitler’s xenophobic and racist rhetoric was not only effective in riling up his base, but it was also timely. The Nazi’s isolationist and anti-globalization stance fit well with the German atmosphere following the First World War. The instability of German borders following World War One fed hyper nationalism, as there became a fear of what would happen to the original German citizens. This hyper nationalism and xenophobia was exasperated by the unemployment crisis in the early 1930s. As noted earlier, approximately 40 percent of Germans were out of work in 1932, leading many to become hostile towards immigrants. 54
53 Translation: “Germany was good enough for centuries to absorb these elements, even though they had nothing except contagious political and sanitary diseases. What this people has today, it has acquired through the expense of the manipulations of the not so cunning German people through the worst manipulations.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol.2, 1056.
54 Hett, Death of Democracy, 106-123.
Another common component of Trump and Hitler’s rhetoric, which runs in a simil ar vein as xenophobia, is they both expressed isolationist ideals. Trump’s goal and campaign slogan of “America first” is naturally isolationist. When Trump’s promise of putting “America first” is read alongside other Trump quotes, we begin to see a theme of isolationist politics. In one speech, Trump says “are you ready for leadership that puts you, the American people, first? That puts your country first? That puts your family first?”55
55 “Donald Trump Campaign Speech in Wisconsin," Politico. This promise is not totally out of the ordinary for a president or le ader to give to voters. It is reasonable that voters would want their needs prioritized ahead of the needs of other country’s citizens. However we can see a trend. In Trump’s speech on immigration, he attempts to paint a picture of how new citizens would function in American society. He argues that “we also have to be honest about the fact that not everyone who seeks to join our country will be able to successfully assimilate.” 56
56 “Trump’s Immigr ation Speech,” The New York Times. Later on in the same speech, Trump argues that if Hilary Clinton and t he Democratic Party were in power, they would “open the borders and let everybody come in and destroy our country.” 57
57 Ibid. Donald sought in his speeches to show that America is best when it has as few immigrants as possible. Hitler and the Nazi Party’s anti -Marxist ideology made it easy for them to maintain an isolationist stance. Since Hitler’s party opposed Marxism, it followed that they were opposed to the goals of international communism. Therefore, Hitler often attacked the leftist parties for their goals of international diplomacy. In his response to the SPD following the Enabling Act,
Hitler claimed: “wer aber eine Internationale anbetet, der kann uns nicht kritisieren .”58
Similar to Trump’s slogan of “America first,” Hitler expressed isolationist ideals. According to Hitler, it was natural that Germany should want to guide its own policies with little international interference.
One last common aspect of Trump and Hitler’s racist, xenophobic, and isolationist rhetoric is that both men often used exaggerat ed fear mongering to persuade their base that isolation was the best strategy. Trump relied on scare tactics from the beginning of his presidential campaigning. As noted earlier, Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as drug peddlers, rapists, and criminals. 60
This alarmist rhetoric was used right at the beginning of his presidential campaign, and he would rely on the tactic throughout 2015 and 2016. In his September 2016 speech on immigration, Trump fear-mongered when discussing the loss of
58 Translation: “But whoever worships the International cannot criticize us.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 1, 243. His attack shows that not only do the leftist German parties focus too much on an i nternational agenda, but that the Nazi party would be taking a starkly different approach. In another speech, Hitler gave a similar isolationist plea, although in perhaps a less aggressive way. In discussing the League of Nations and international diplomac y, Hitler argued: “das deutsche Volk wunscht nicht, dass seine Belange von einem fremden Volk bestimmt und regiert werden. Frankreich den Franzosen, England den Engländern, Amerika den Amerikanern und Deutschland den Deutschen!”59
59 Translation: “The German people do not wish for their interests to be decided and govern ed by a foreign people. France for the French, England for the English, America for the Americans, and Germany for the Germans!” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 2, 1057.
60 “Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech,” Times.
American lives due to illegal immigration. He claimed that “countless American lives have been stolen because our politicians have failed in their duty to secure our borders and enforce our laws like they have to be enforced.”61
In the same speech, he used references to Greek mythology to both rile up and scare his base. He argue d that not only does America have a problem with illegal immigrants coming over in large numbers, “we have no idea who these people [illegal immigrants] are, where they come from. I always say Trojan horse. Watch what’s going to happen, folks. It’s not going to be pretty.” 62
Trump did not end with the proposition of Trojan -horse tactics from illegal immigrants
By the end of the speech, he used much more direct language to alarm his voters and base. In continuing to argue that illegal immigration will bring desolation to American society, Trump argued that “the result [of Hillary Clinton’s election as president ] will be millions more illegal immigrants; thousands of more violent, horrible crimes; and total chaos and lawlessness. That’s what’s going to happen, as sure as you’re standing here.” 63
61 “Trump’s Immigration Speech,” The New York Times.
62 Ibid. Trump apparently attempts to allude to the idea that not only will there be a large number of immigrants coming into America, but they will also be planning to attack us from within. If Trump understands the story of the Trojan horse and is referring to i t honestly, then he implies here that the immigrants that are coming into America illegally are doing so with violent intentions.
63 Ibid. Here, Trump abandons the metaphorical approach he used earlier in his speech and instead reverts to a direc t alarmist style of rhetoric. He tells his voters that not only will millions of illegal immigrants pour into
America following Hil lary Clinton’s election, but they will bring chaos and destruction with them as well.
Hitler also used isolationist-themed scare tactics as a mean to stir up support and enthusiasm from his base. During his 1924 trial that followed the attempted Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler claimed that, in the Versailles Treaty, “they talked of the right of self -determination for every nation, of the League of Nations, of self -government by the people. And what did we get? World peace, but world peace in exchange for the demise of our nation. Disarmament, but only the disarmament of Germany so that it could be plundered.” While this rhetoric is fea r rousing enough on its own, he finished his attack on the treaty by questioning “what are our organs of government today other than the means by which foreign power s tyrannize us?”64
64 “Hitler Speech at Munich Trial 1924 Excerpts,” World Future Fund, http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/reading/hitler speeches/Trial/hitletrial.htm). Hitler argued that Germany’s destitution was not caused by Germany alone, but by international diplomacy. Hitler insinuated that if Germany could find a way to run its state without international interference, then it would be free from tyranny.
Like Trump’s fearmongering, Hitler’s rhetoric also rested on racist ideals. In his 1939 speech to the Reichstag , Hitler uses alarmist tactics to stir an anti -Semitic resonance from his base. He introduced the topic by claiming that he believed it was time to addre ss the “Jewish Question.” He went on to claim: “Ich will heute wieder ein Prophet sein: Wenn es dem internationalen Finanzjudentum in und außerhalb Europas gelingen sollte, die Völker noch einmal in einen Weltkrieg zu stürzen, dann wird das Ergebnis nicht die Bolschewisierung der
Erde und damit der Sieg des Judentums sein, sondern die Vernichtung der jüdischen Rasse in Europa.” 65
Hitler sought to alarm German citizens about what would take place if the “Jewish Question” were not solved. He argue d that if another war befell Europe and possibly the rest of the world, it would certainly be the Jewish people’s fault. For most German citizens who were alive during World War One, this prospect would be terrifying. Not only did the war result in a catastrophic number of deaths, but it also led to multiple issues on the home front, from the British blockade to domestic riots. It is important to also point out that Hitler’s alarming claim also came with a solution to the problem: if the Jewish population attempted to Bolshevize the world, then their race would be destroyed. So not only does his “prophecy” regarding European Jews come with a harrowing future for Germany, but he also points his base toward the same anti-Semitic beliefs he had been purporting for years. 66
Trump and Hitler’s rhetoric often relied on racism, xenophobia, and consequently isolationist ideals. Sometimes their claims were less overtly racist, like Trump’s goal to put “America first.” But often, their arguments relied heavily on tapping into rac ist ideals that would otherwise make their arguments futile. Trump relied on American racism and exceptionalism, which places the status of Americans far above the status of illegal immigrants. Hitler relied on attacking Marxist ideals of the International , to which he also tied European Jews. Through their racist fearmongering and alarmist tactics, they were able to draw rousing
65 Translation: “I want to be a prophet today. If the international finance -Jewry in and outside Europe should succeed at plunging the people into another world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the world and therefore the victory of the Jews, but rather the destruction of the Jewish Race!” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 2, 1058.
66 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 150-152.
support from their bases, and they were also able to create another enemy that their movements could focus on.
The rhetoric of Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump focused on multiple similar aspects, many of which are outlined by fascist scholars as being key to fascist movements. Both leaders relied on speeches that positioned themselves as outsiders, and as outsiders only they could fix a broken government. They also offered a vision of rebirth for their countries, which Griffin names palingenesis and identifies as key to fascist movements. Hitler and Trump also used their speeches to discredit the press. For Hitler, it started as an attack on domestic press and moved to the international press. Trump’s anti -press rhetoric, however, primarily railed against the domestic news outlets. Trump and Hitler’s rhetoric also displayed racist and xenophobic ide als, which Griffin claims is essential to fascist movements. Although Trump’s racism, or at least the consequences of his racism, did not reach the same levels as Hitler’s, not all fascist movements contain explosions of racist violence.
CHAPTER THREE
APPEAL TO EMOTION
In many aspects, this chapter will serve as a continuation to the previous chapter. This section will again focus on the rhetoric of Trump and Hitler and will use their speeches as a means of comparison. This chapter focuses on the aspects of Trump’s and Hitler’s speeches that attempted to appeal to the emotion of their bases.
Law & Order/Fear of the Left
Although fearmongering can stir up a fascist’ s base, it is not nearly as useful if the movement cannot propose a solution. As Walter L aqueur notes, fascist movements are overtly militaristic in how they respond to crises. 1
Hitler and Trump both offered aggressive answers to the alarms they were rais ing. First, and most important, putting them in power, as opposed to the leftist parties, was vital if the citizens wanted to remain safe. The second component both Trump and Hitler offered to their citizens as a solution to the impending doom (that they insisted was coming) was to boost the power of the military and domestic law enforcement and then limit their regulations and oversight. This also meant that they had to draw on their bases’
1 Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, and Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 15.
affinity for law enforcement and the military. Finally, not only s hould the voters trust the leaders (Trump and Hitler in this case) to keep them safe, but they should also no longer trust the leftist parties; according to Hitler and Trump, if power is given to the Left, it could only lead to destruction for the nation. But it was important for them to not only paint the Left as the problem, but to allude to their movements being the solution. This disdain for and attack on leftist parties also encouraged more fearmongering from the two leaders, which further provided more enemies for their bases to rail against.
At the beginning of his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump’s advocacy for stronger law and order was mostly focused on the military. Trump argued that the United States military had become less potent and needed s trengthening. He advocated for a more aggressive military by claiming that it was vital that the United States be able to defend itself. He claimed, “I love the military, and I want to have the strongest military that we’ve ever had, and we need it now more than ever.”2
Trump not only glorified the United States military, but he also insinuated that the United States needs vigilant protection. In the same speech, he further implied that the United States military had been weakened and was being intimidated on a global scale. He promised that if he became president he would “find the guy that’s going to take [our] military and make it really work. Nobody, nobody will be pushing us around.” 3
2 Time Staff, “Donald Trump's Presidential Announcement Speech,” Time, June 16, 2015, https://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/.
3 Ibid. Here again we see Trump imply that not only is the military in need of a revamping, but also that the United States armed forces are being embarrassed globally.
Hitler was also keen on improving and growing Germany’s military strength, although the situation in 1930s Germany was far different than 2016 America. After Wor ld War One, Germany was forced to disarm their military, leaving them with a small army of 100,000 men. 4
4 William Carr, A History of Germany: 1815 -1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 261. The disarmament clause in the Versailles Treaty hurt the pride of German nationalists, as they saw the German military as a sign of Prussian and Germa n greatness. Hitler, who fought in the First World War, was especially keen on rebuilding the military once he took power. He often used alarmist rhetoric to argue that Germany’s rearmament was necessary. He claimed : “So groß unsere Liebe zu unseren Heeren als Träger unserer Waffen und Symbol unserer großen Vergangenheit ist, so wären wir doch beglückt, wenn die Welt durch eine Beschränkung ihrer Rüstungen eine Vermehrung unserer eigenen Waffen niemals mehr erforderlich machen wurde.” 5
Hitler not only advocated for Germany to rearm, but he also blamed the international dynamics as the reason it was necessary for Germany to do so. He placed Germany as the victim in this scenario and implied that other countries were the aggressors. Hitler also insisted that the German military needed to be improved upon in order to protect the German economy. He argued : “Letzten Endes steht und fällt die Wirtschaft des heutigen Reiches mit der außenpolitischen Sicherheit. Es ist besser, dies beizeiten, als zu spät einzusehen. Ich betrachte es daher als die höchste Aufgabe der nationalsozialistischen Staatsführung, auf dem Gebiet der Stärkung unserer Wehrkraft alles zu tun, was überhaupt
5 Translation: “So great is our love for our army as the bearer of our weapons and as a symbol of our great past, we would still be happy if the world would restrict its armaments and make unnecessary any increase in our own weapons.” Adolf Hitler and Max Domarus, Reden und Proklamationen, 1932-1945 vol.1 (München: Süddeutscher Verlag, 1965) , 193.
menschenmöglich ist.” 6
Even though Hitler’s claim that the economy would be in trouble without a strong military differs from his previous comment that Germany only needed to rearm because the other countries are so aggressive, his overall goal remained the same. Hitler wanted to build up the army as much as he could, and he used fearmongering as a reason for making this happen. So even though 1930s Germany and 2016 America were in starkly different situations both domestically and globally, Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler used alarmist language as an argument for building a stronger military force.
For both Hitler and Trump, it was not enough to have a strong international force; firm control of the domestic space was needed as well. Trump’s efforts to make the United States police forces stronger came mostly from speeches and his deployment of t he National Guard, and less so from actual policies. Trump showed his affinity for strong law enforcement, or as he often said “law and order,” by arguing that police needed less regulations. In 2017, he argued that “in the good old days, law enforcement a cted a lot quicker… in the good old days, they’d rip him [a protestor at a Trump rally] out of that seat so fast.” 7
7 Fabiola Cineas, "Donald Trump Is the Accelerant," Vox, October 09, 2020, https://www.vox.com/21506029/trump-violence-tweets-racist-hate-speech). He went on to argue that the police were too afraid to move quickly due to their fear of legal consequences . Trump claimed that “I love the police, they’re the greatest ,” but they were “afraid to move” for fear of losing
6 Translation: “Ultimately , the economy of today’s empire stands and falls with its foreign policy security. It is better to realize this earlier than later. I therefore consider it the highest work of the National Socialist state leadership, to do whatever is humanly possible to make our military stronger.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen, vol. 2, 1054.
their jobs or pensions. He concluded by stating that “we are really becoming a frightened country and it’s very, very sad. ”8
As his presidency proceeded, his dem and for police to be held less accountable became louder. In 2020, Trump often praised the police and attacked protestors. In September 2020, Trump applauded the Washington State Police for killing an antifa supporter. He claimed that “this guy was a viole nt criminal, and [they] killed him. And I'll tell you something that's the way it has to be. There has to be retribution." 9
Trump made this remark almost immediately after the man was killed by police, and before there was any investigation into the ki lling. Although law enforcement claimed that the antifa supporter raised and pointed a firearm at them, other eyewitnesses rebuked the statement. For Trump, it was more important to back law enforcement and shun police regulations than to wait until the st ory was thoroughly investigated.
It was not enough for Trump to position himself as a defender of the United States police forces. On top of that, he often depicted the L eft as being anti-police and pro-criminal, which he hoped would stoke enthusiasm from his base. There are multiple occasions that illustrate Trump’s insistence that he and the Republican party backed United States police
8 Ashley Parker, “In Good Old Days, Donald Trump Says, Campaign Protesters Got More Than Just an Escort Out,” The New York Times , February 27, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/27/in-good-old-days-donald-trumpsays-campaign-protesters-got-more-than-just-an-escort-out/.
9 Aaron Rupar, “‘There Has to Be Retribution’”: Trump's Chilling Comments about Extrajudicial Killings, Briefly Explained," Vox, September 14, 2020, https://www.vox.com/2020/9/14/21436216/trump-michael-reinoehl-protests-portlandshooting.
forces , while Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party were against them. In a speech Trump gave in Wisconsin in 2016, h e claimed that “just like Hillary Clinton is against the miners, she is against the police. You know it, and I know it.” 10
In the same speech, he went on to claim that “my opponent [Hillary Clinton] would rather protect the offender than the victim.” 11
It was also crucial to Hitler that Germany would have a strong police force once he took over as Chancellor. Before he took power in 1933, he relied on his para-military force, the Sturmabteilung (SA), to provide muscle. Once Chancellor Franz von Papen lifted the official ban on the SA in 1932, Hitler used them to attack left-wing opponents. 12
By some estimates, over seven hundred men and women were killed by the
10 Politico Staff and Shane Goldmacher, “Full Text: Donald Trump Campaign Speech in Wisconsin,” Politico , August 17, 2016, https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/full-textdonald-trumps-speech-on-227095.
11 Ibid. Trump not only claimed that he was an advocate for law enforcement, but that the Left and his opponent were against the police.
12 Carr, A History of Germany, 304. Before Hitler became Chancellor, the SA helped the Nazi party gain control of the streets, and historian William Carr argues that without their force Hitler would not have been able to maintain his movement and take power.13
When the SA, led by Ernst Röhm, became unwieldy and a threat to Hitler’s power, Hitler acted. On June 30th, Hitler ordered the execution of Röhm and his immediate subordinates, in what is now known as the “Night of the Long Knives.” There was also a purge of other Nazi members who Hitler and his closest advisors viewed as problematic to the party’s longevity.14
13 Ibid., 314.
14 Ibid., 316.
Schutzstaffel (SS), and Hitler claimed responsibility for the killings as the “supreme judge of Germany.” He also claimed that the murders were committed by the SS to thwart a coup from the SA.15
After the elimination of Röhm and the taming of the SA, the SS rose in power, giving Hitler a firmer control over Germany’s police system. Just two months after the Night of the Long Knives, the police and army swore allegiance to Hitler as the Leader of the German Reich, as opposed to swearing loyalty to the country. 16
Similar to earlier discussions regarding leftist parties in 2016 America and 1930s Germany, a key component for Hitler and Trump in promising they would maintain law was stoking fear in the chaos and lawlessness t hat would accompany rule from the Left. Trump’s attacks were typically much more direct than Hitler’s, as he primarily focused on his opponent in the 2016 election, Hil lary Clinton. When discussing Clinton, Trump argued that “Hil lary Clinton-backed policies are responsible for the problems in the inner cities today, and a vote for her is a vote for another generation of poverty, high crime, and lost opportunities.” 17
15 Ibid., 317.
16 Ibid., 318.
17 “Donald Trump Campaign Speech in Wisconsin," Politico. Most important to this discussion, Trump implied that maintaining Democratic Party power wo uld lead to or perpetuate higher crime in American cities. In contrast, Trump claimed that “we will accomplish all of the steps outlined above [Trump’s proposed immigration policy that aimed to reduce illegal immigration] . And, when we do, peace and law and justice and prosperity will prevail. Crime will go down. Border crossings will plummet. Gangs will disappear.” 18
18 “Transcript of Donald Trump's Immigration Speech,” The New York Times , September 01, 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/us/politics/transcript-trump-immigration-speech.html. Trump tied
Hillary Clinton to the establishment that brought America to so -called ruin. Only by voting for Trump could the American people be protected from the perils of crime, gangs, and illegal immigrants.
Hitler also attacked the Left in a way that offered Germans a bleak future for their country should the SPD or Communist Party take or remain in power. In Hitler’s first radio address, he argued:
Drohend künden die Erscheinungen um uns den Vollzug dieses Verfalls. In einem unerhörten Willen – und Gewaltansturm versucht die kommunistische Methode des Wahnsinns das in seinem Innersten erschütterte und entwurzelte Volk endgültig zu vergiften und zu zersetzen, um es einer Zeit entgegenzutreiben, die sich zu den Versprechungen der kommunistischen Wortführer von heute noch schlimmer verhalten würde als die Zeit hinter uns zu den Versprechungen derselben Apostel im November 1918. 19
According to Hitler, Communist methods would return Germany to a chaos worse than that of the years that immediately followed the conclusion of World War One. If it were not for Hitler and the Nazi party, Germany would fall into lawless chaos. Again, similar to Trump, Hitler alludes to he and his movement as being the opposite of the leftist parties that would bring ruin to Germany. The Left would bring only insanity to Germany, while Hitler and the Nazi party would bring its salvation.
19 Translation: “The apparitions all around us foreshadowing this breakdown. In an unprecedented surge of will and violence, the Communist method of insanity is trying as a last resort to poison and undermine an inwardly shaken and uprooted people, in order to drive them towards a time in which the promises of the communist spokesmen of today would be even worse than the time that resulted from the promises of the same emissaries in November 1918.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 1, 192.
It was important to both Hitler and Trump that they promised their respective bases that they would bring law and order into their countries. They asserted the need for a stronger and larger military, which they both argued was a defensive rather than an offensive measure. According to the two leaders, stronger militaries were only necessary due to global conflict. The two men also believed and argued that a stronger domestic force was vital in maintaining order. Trump defended shoot-now-ask-questions-later policing methods and advocated for a police force with less regulations. Hitler used his paramilitary to fight against the Communist party in Germany, and later consolidated his forces into an all -loyal police force. Lastly, they alluded to a world of chaos that would ensue if power wa s given to the opposition parties. Law and order was vital, but in their worldviews, it could only happen in America if Trump was president; and it could only happen in Germany if Hitler and the Nazis were in power.
Strength, Violence, and an Appeal to E motion
According to Roger Griffin, a key component of fascism is its promise to replace an old, tired, and broken system with one that is based on heroism, strength, action, youthfulness, and national pride. A caveat to this is that the fulfillment of these promises is not necessarily important to the movement, but rather the myth itself is what is vital.
20
Furthermore, the youth and virility with which the movements define themselves are not embodied solely in ideology. Stanley Payne furthers this claim i n his research and argues that fascists “made a perpetual fetish of the virility of their movement and its program and style, stemming no doubt from the
20 Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), 26.
fascist militarization of politics and need for constant struggle.”21
The energy often stems from and is displayed in rallies, symbols, and uniforms as well. 22
Trump’s rhetoric attempted to display strength through the threat or promise of violence and by placing himself opposite of what he deemed weak. Hitler’s rhetoric attempted to show his ideals of German strength by emphas izing the need for action and nationalistic heroism. Like Trump, he also tried to place himself and his movement as the antithesis of weakness. The stages in which the two men gave their speeches and hosted their political rallies can also be seen as an ex tension of the strength, youthfulness, and action that both movements sought to portray. As Stanley Payne notes, fascist movements place an “emphasis on aesthetic structure of meetings, symbols, and political liturgy, stressing emotional and mystical aspects.”24
Trump’s speeches often focused on the strength of him and his movement, either by pointing out the virility and power of his own movement or by citing the weakness of his opponents. His incessant quest to prove his manliness and the masculinity inherent in his movement validates Griffin’s claim about the misogyny inherent in fascist movements. Griffin
21 Stanley G. Payne, A Histo ry of Fascism: 1914-1945 (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 13.
22 Ibid., 39. Additionally, fascist rhetoric is most effective when delivering messages that focus on irrational drives and myths. Therefore, fascist speakers utilize their base’s susceptibility to emotional pleas as opposed to appeals to reason. 23
23 Ibid., 26.
24 Ibid., 7. Trump’s and Hitler’s speeches were constructed in a way that would appeal to their respective audience’s emotions instead of their rationality.
claims that the fascist’s reality is a “radical misogyny or flight from the feminine, manifesting itself in a pathological fear of being engulfed in external reality associated with softness, with dissolution, or the uncontrollable.” 25
Trump’s most utilized method of displaying strength to his base was through appeals to violence. Through his Twitter account and during his 2016 campaign speeches, Trump often condoned and encouraged violence. When protestors interrupted a Trump rally in 2015, he argued if the issue persisted, he would “be a little more violent.” 26
Trump often positioned himself and his movement as strong by claiming weakness of the opposing party. In his campaign announcement speech, he argued that due to the leadership of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, our country was becoming “weaker and weaker.” 28
According to Trump, the vulnerability of the country stemmed from the f eebleness of those in charge. Trump argued there would be no weakness from the presidency if he were elected. Trump also pounced on any perceived moments of weakness (or at least what he could argue was weakness) from opposing campaigns. When Hil lary Clinton suffered from pneumonia and
25 Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, 198.
26 Cineas, “Donald Trump Is the Accelerant. ” The threat was met with applause from his viewers and the cheering was only amplified when the protestors were dragged out of the event by security. At another rally in 2016, Trump was forced to deal with yet another protestor. This time, he told his crowd that he wished he could assault the man, and if it were like the “good ole days,” it would be totally acceptable. 27
27 Ibid.
28 Time Staff, “Donald Trump's Presidential Announcement Speech.”
was recorded by reporters struggling to get into her car, the Trump administration mocked her, claiming that she was too weak and feeble to be president. They continuously questioned the state of her health, and in one Trump ad, the narrator claims “Hillary Clinton doesn't have the fortitude, strength or stamina to lead in our world .” 29
Similarly, the Trump campaign also attacked Bernie Sanders for moments they argued showed Sanders’ weakness. After Bernie Sanders had his micr ophone taken by Black Lives Matter protestors in 2015, Trump argued that this showed Sanders’ limitations. He argued that not only did this moment show the weakness of his potential opponent, but that it “will never happen with me. I don’t know if I’ll do the fighting myself or if other people will. But that was a disgrace… I felt badly for him, but it showed he’s weak.” 30
The similarities in how he attacked the Clinton campaign and the Sanders campaign show that he placed strength as a hallmark of his movement.
Trump did more than promise his own acts of violence in order to show his strength; he condoned and encouraged his base to act violently as well. At a rally in 2016, Trump told the crowd that his security team had warned him that a protestor might t hrow tomatoes during his speech. He told them that if they witnessed someone aiming to throw a tomato, they should “knock the crap out of them.” 31
29 David Weigel, “New Trump Ad Revives - and Mainstreams - 'Sick Hillary' Attack, ” The Washington Post , April 28, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/postpolitics/wp/2016/10/11/new-trump-ad-revives-and-mainstreams-sick-hillary-attack/.
30 Cineas, “Donald Trump is the Accelerant . ”
31 Ibid. He even offered to pay the legal fees if the aggressor should be taken to court. And of course, there is the example of January 6, 2021. After years of condoning
violence from his base, the military, and United States police, Trump pleaded for the Republican party and his base to help in overthrowing the 2020 election results. He warned them that they would “never take back our country with weakness.” 32
Hitler’s speeches also endeavored to show the str ength of himself and the Nazis by claiming his party defended and furthered German heroism, by arguing that his party was youthful and courageous, and by describing his enemies as unheroic weaklings. From the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power, he attempt ed to connect his party to the heroism of German soldiers. Following his attempted putsch in 1923, he argued that the SPD “had the impertinence to put German heroes on trial, to parade them in chains, men whose only crime was that they fought for their fat herland, and who were made the object of the scorn of the entire world.” 34
He cites the heroism of German soldiers, while placing his opposition as the antithesis of heroic Germans.
Hitler also tried to display the strength of his movement by arguing that his movement was youthful and heroic. In describing a potential opposition to the Nazi party, Hitler claimed : “Ich habe kein Verständnis für das Bestreben absterbender Gesellschaftsschichten Wenn man
32 Ibid. After his encouragement, and due to his encouragement, Trump’s supporters stormed the United States Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the election. 33
33 Peter Baker and Sabrina Tavernise, “One Legacy of Impeachment: The Most Complete Account So Far of Jan. 6,” The New York Times , February 13, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/politics/capitol-riots-impeachment-trial.html.
34 “Hitler Speech at Munich Trial 1924 Excerpts,” World Future Fund , http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/reading/hitler speeches/Trial/hitletrial.htm.
aber damit dem fortschreitenden Leben eine Barriere vo rlegen will, dann wird der Sturm einer vorwärtsbrausenden Jugend dieses alte Gestrupp kurzerhand beseitigen.” 35
Hitler argued that due to the youth, energy, and strength of his movement, the weak opposition could do nothing to stop their progress. In anoth er instance, he uses the example of the Japanese military to show that the Nazi party favors and allies with only strength and heroism. He claimed that “Das japanische Volk, das uns in diesen zwei letzten Jahren so viele Beispiele eines glänzenden
Heldentums gegeben hat, ist an einem Ende der Welt ohne Zweifel ein Fechter im Dienste der menschlichen Zivilisation.” 36
By citing the heroism of the Japanese military, Hitler attaches his movement to these ideals.
Similar to Trump, Hitler often attacked opposing parties as weak in order to show that he and his party were strong. A common tactic Hitler used in claiming his opponents were feeble was to argue that they favored rationality over passion, courage, and strength. In describing the importance of placing c ourage and action above knowledge, Hitler claimed: “Denn uberall dort, wo gefuhrt werden muss, entscheidet nicht das abstrakte Wissen, sondern die angeborene Befähigung zum Führen und mithin ein hohes Maß von Verantwortungsfreudigkeit und damit von Entschl ossenheit, Mut und Beharrlichkeit.” 37
35 Translation: “I have no understanding f or the dying social classes. But if one therefore wants to make a barrier against moving ahead life, then a storm of forward rushing youth will remove the old undergrowth.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 2, 1051.
36 Translation: “The Japanese nation, that in the last two years has given so many examples of brilliant heroism, is without a doubt a fencer at the end of the world in service of human civilization.” Ibid., 1064.
37 Translation: “Because wherever there is a need to lead, it is not abstract knowledge that decides, but rather the natural ability to lead and also a high degree of responsibility and determination, courage and perseverance.” Ibid., 1051.
According to Hitler, the leftist parties could not effectively lead because of their over reliance on weak intellectualism. In the same speech, Hitler argued that “Grundsätzlich muss die
Erkenntnis gelten, dass der Mangel an Verantwortungsfreude niemals aufgewogen werden kann durch eine angenommene erstklassige, durch Zeugnisse belegte wissenschaftliche Bildung.” 38
Again, Hitler furthers the notion that he and his party do not solely rely on book knowledge, but they are also strong and heroic. In another example, Hitler argued that Germany’s loss in World War One taught him to value strength, passion, and heroism above knowledge. He claimed
Wenn ich dieses vor Ihnen, meine Abgeordneten, ausspreche, dann tue ich es unter dem Eindruck des einen Jahres deutscher Geschichte, das mich mehr als mein ganzes bisheriges Leben darüber belehrt hat, wie wichtig und unersetzbar gerade diese Tugenden sind und wie in den kritischen Stunden ein einziger tatkräftiger Mann immer mehr wiegt als 1000 geistreiche Schwächlinge! 39
According to Hitler, men who are strong and passionate are the ones who can and will prevail for Germany in its most dire times. If Germany were to rely on the feeble o pposition and their ideals it would succumb to the same weakness that forced them to lose World War One.
In dissecting the rhetoric of Trump and Hitler, it is worth investigating not only the words they used but also the style in which they delivered them. Both Hitler and Trump held their political rallies in starkly different manners than their opponents. Trump’s rallies were
38 Translation: “Basically, it must be recognized that the sense of a lack of responsibility can never be offset by a supposed first-class education with good grades .” Ibid., 1051.
39 Translation: “When I say this to you, my Members of Parliament, I do so under the influence of one year in German history that to me has taught me more than in the whole rest of my life, how important and irreplaceable these virtues are, and how in the critical hours a single energetic man weighs more than 1000 witty weaklings!” Ibid.
distinct from those of his Republican competitors when he started his campaign in 2015. As his campaign proceeded and as Hillary Clinton became his only opponent, the rallies became livelier, and the crowd was more directly involved. By July 2016, Trump’s events often incorporated a passionate and emotionally stimulating call-and-response between Trump and his base. Whenever Donald Trump would introduce Hillary Clinton’s name into his speeches, the crowd would respond with a chant of “lock her up!” 40
The passion and excitement Trump drew from his base at political rallies can also be seen in other forms of engagement. Trump’s events were much more interactive than typical political speeches given by presidential candidates. His crowd was highly reactive and responsive to his appeals to emotion. There were often drawn-out applauses, cheers, and boos throughout the entirety of his speeches.41
Attendees of Trump’s rallies could also be riled up by witnessing the spectacle of Trump’s security detail removing protestors. During a political rally on February 23, 2016, Trump witnessed the removal of a protestor and asserted, “I’d like to pun ch him in the face.”42
The crowd was only further enthralled by Trump’s remarks towards the protestor, who remained peaceful as he was escorted by security. In other rallies, Trump assured his base that it would be acceptable for them to attack any protest ors as well.43
40 Cineas, “Donald Trump is the Accelerant . ”
41 Martin Montgomery, “Populism in Performance?: Trump on the Stump and His Audience,” Journal of Language and Politics 19, no. 5 (2020): 746.
42 Cineas, “Donald Trump is the Accelerant . ”
43 Ibid. The dynamics between Trump, the crowd, and potential protestors only made the rallies more exciting for his base, and his followers often gave way to emotional fervor.
Hitler also used his speeches to appeal to the emotions of his audience . Hitler had argued since 1924 that audiences were far more receptive to emotional appeals than rational ones, and he crafted and delivered his speeches with this in mind. 44
Another witness to Hitler’s speeches claimed that it seemed like Hitler had a psychic connection with his audience and was able to focus on and pinpoint the audience’s fears or hatred with perfection. 47
44 Frederic Spotts, Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics (New York: Overlook Press, 2003), 43 -44. He often focused little on delivering answers for concrete issues, but instead focused on how to rouse and captivate his audience. 45
45 Ibid., 46. Hitler appealed to his audience’s emotion, and he was quite successful at it. One man claimed that when witnessing Hitler speak his “critical faculty was swept away… I experienced an exaltation that could only be likened to religious conversion. I had found myself, my leader, and my cause.” 46
The settings in which Hitler gave his speeches play ed a key role in how he appealed to his base emotionally. Hitler was a man who was captivated by art and opera, and to whom Wagner was a personal hero. He understood well that speeches alone were not enough to sway his audience’s passions, but the settings in which they were delivered and the speaking style he utilized also mattered greatly. When Hitler would deliver a speech, he would often make his audience wait an extremely long time, building up the excitement and tension. He was also careful to book rooms or venues which he knew would be too small, making the event seem like it was in huge demand. When he finally gave his speeches, he would begin in a quiet tone,
46 Ibid., 44.
47 Ibid., 45.
almost too quiet for the audience to hear. As the speech bore on, he would crescendo louder and louder, until he spoke and shouted in an almost screeching pitch. And, although Hitler’s speeches are often depicted by popular media as maintaining a constant fever pitch, his speeches were much more systematic. Like a Wagnerian opera, Hitler wanted the speech to have ups and downs, believing that this would further captivate his audience. 48
Hitler drew his audience into his speeches with other aesthetic manipulations as well. Hitler took great care to involve himself in all aspects of Nazi artistry, as he understood the emotions that uniforms and flags could stimulate. Although he often borrowed or nearly copied pictures and artwork from the past for the use of his movement, he knew how to manipulate them in order to provide a greater emotional response from his base. He slightly altered the swastika and chose the colors in which it would be displayed at Nazi rallies, and many felt that the swastika banners displayed at rallies produced an effect like a burning torch.
49
The rhetoric of Hitler and Trump illustrate that they believed it was vital to their paths to power that strength was a main feature in their platform. Trump and Hitler advertised the strength of their movements in somewhat different ways. From the beginning of Hitler’s
48 Ibid., 46-47.
49 Ibid., 50-51. When Hitler applied his oratory tools and symbolism to nighttime rallies, it had an even greater effect on the senses. Historian Frederic Spotts claims that “the flickering of torches, the rolling of drums and the fanfares of trumpets drew the participants into a mystical realm in which the individual surrendered entirely.”50
50 Ibid., 52-53.
campaigning, he attached the Nazi movement to the heroism of German soldiers who fought in World War One. He also preached the need for Germans to be strong and passionate, and that these qualities were preferable to intelligence alone. Trump attempted to display his movement’s strength through the advocacy and glorification of violence. He insinuated, and even promised that he would respond violently to adverse situations. On top of that, he also beckoned his followers to act violently against his opponents. Although they both touted the strengths of their parties in somewhat different manners, Hitler and Trump both attacked the opposition as weak in an effort to show their own movement’s strength. Fu rthermore, the two leaders used their rallies to appeal to the emotions of their followers. Hitler did so by using symbolism, oratory style, and building anticipation among his viewers. Trump appealed to the emotions of his base by making his speeches interactive and engaging with the audience. His crowds responded often throughout Trump’s speeches, and this was encouraged by the speaker.
Misinformation
According to Griffin’s framework, fascism’s “affective power is rooted in irrational drives and mythical assumptions.” 51
51 Griffin, Nature of Fascism, 26. Due to fascism’s reliance on irrationality, lies are naturally permitted by its followers and are therefore often used as a tool by fascist leaders.
Furthermore, Walter Laqueur notes that fascism typically relies on a profusion of propag anda,
which repeats the same lies continuously to the fascist base. 52
So long as the energy of the movement and the myth perpetuated by the leaders persists, lies are typically tolerated and accepted by fascist movements. On top of this, fascism places a charismatic leader at the center of its movement. The leader portrays himself as infallible, and this is reinforced by the leader’s charismatic qualities. Therefore, the lies of a fascist leader are rarely if ever questioned by the base of the movement.53
Trump and Hitler’s movements both relied heavily on the use of misinformation. Both leaders lied essentially from the beginning of their movements, and their anti -press position made the lies more palatable to their bases. Any bad press was a lie from outs ide agitators, according to Trump and Hitler. Trump lied at a steady rate at the beginning of his 2016 campaign, but his lies increased in frequency as his presidency went on. Hitler’s misinformation also flowed steadily from the beginning of his campaigni ng. Both men utilized certain deceptions repeatedly, making them more and more believable to their base. Furthermore, their lies were a continuation of their appeals to emotion, as the misinformation was often used by both men to rile up their followers an d to foment hate.
Trump used disinformation from the beginning of his campaigning, and as soon as he took office in 2017, he perpetuated the lie that he had in fact won the popular vote. 54
Whatever his reason may have been, Trump persisted in lying about the election results, even
52 Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, and Future, 57.
53 Francis L. Carsten, “Interpretations of Fascism,” found in Fascism, A Reader’s Guide: Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography edited by Walter Laqueur ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 424-425.
54 Luckovich, “A Very Stable Genius!,” 27.
though he was the winner. Although he often lied in his press conferences or in speeches, he also used his Twitter feed to spread misinformation to his base. In March of 2017, just two months after entering the White House, Trump falsely claimed on Twitter that President Obama had spied on Trump and his campaign during the 2016 presidential election. Trump tweeted “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”55
Later that same night, Trump continued to tweet lies about Obama by claiming that Obama’s actions were on a level similar to Nixon’s Watergate scandal. According to Trump, “a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that Pres ident Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” 56
However, the FBI and NSA both confirmed that these rumors were absolutely false; but Trump never revoked his lies.57
Daniel Dale, a reporter for CNN, began monitoring Trump’s misinfo rmation from September 2016 and continued throughout Trump’s presidency. According to Dale, Trump’s lies occurred far less frequently at the beginning of his campaigning and at the beginning of his presidency than they did towards the end of his term. He c laims that Trump averaged about 2.9 lies a day in 2017, but by 2018 the lies were already up to 8.3 a day. 58
Perhaps more interesting,
55 Donald Trump, President Trump’s Tweets, 2017: A Historical Archive of President Trump’s Tweets, collected by Anthony T. Michalisko ( San Bernadino: 2020), tweeted March 4, 2017.
56 Ibid.
57 Matthew Nussbaum, "Justice Department: No Evidence Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower," Politico, September 02, 2017, https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/02/obama-trumptower-wiretap-no-evidence-242284.
58 Daniel Dale, “Dale: Reflections on Four Weird Years Fact Checking Every Word from Donald Trump,” CNN, January 19, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/fact-check-danieldale-reflections-fact-checking-trump/index.html.
however, is that in 2018 Trump’s misinformation went from an ad -lib style to more scripted and targeted. According to Dale, scripted lies became a key strategy for Trump in the 2018 midterm elections, for defending his actions in his first impeachment, and for misleading the public during his COVID-19 briefings.59
Although Trump began to have a “greatest hits” of lies by t he end of his presidency, I would like to focus directly on the lies he touted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The misinformation Trump spread throughout the pandemic was not only repeated often by the president, but he even held briefings so he could spread the lies daily. One of the deceptions that Trump repeated often during the COVID briefings was that America was doing better than other countries in keeping its citizens healthy and alive. 60
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid. When Trump claimed in October 2020 that America was better off than Europe in terms of COVID cases, this was entirely false. America had more cases and deaths in proportion to its population than all of Europe except just Spain and Belgium.61
61 Ibid. Trump continued to lie about the state of the pandemic during his 2020 campai gn. As noted earlier, by 2020 Trump was lying far more often and was repeating the same lies over and over. One falsehood that Trump relied on throughout his 2020 campaign was that the only reason there were so many COVID cases in America was because Ameri ca was performing so many tests. Although it is true that America was performing many COVID tests late in 2020, the increase in hospitalizations shows that the test results were accurate in depicting the severity
of the pandemic in America. 62
Trump also repeated the lie that scientists claimed 2.2 million Americans were projected to die from COVID, and therefore his administration was handling the pandemic admirably. Trump used this study to make it seem as though the 2.2 million deaths was a given, but this is inaccurate. The estimation was intended to show the number of Americans that would die if the Trump administration took absolutely no restrictive and preventative measures. In other words, 2.2 million American deaths was the absolute worstcase scenario.63
Hitler relied on misinformation from the beginning of his campaigning until the end of his life. As German historian Benjamin Carter Hett puts it, “Hitler lied all the time.” 64
Hitler’s Mein Kampf, released in 1925, argue d that international Jewry instigated the munitions strike in 1918. He further claim ed that this strike was the beginning of Germany’s
62 Daniel Dale, "Fact-checking Trump's Massively Dishonest Weekend: The President Made at Least 66 False or Misleading Claims in Three Days," CNN, October 21, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/19/politics/fact-check-trump-dishonest-weekend-floridamichigan-georgia-wisconsin/index.html).
63 Ibid.
64 Hett, The Death of Democracy, 38. Although Trump and Hitler both relied on disinformation throughout their political careers, Hitler used targeted and repeated lies from the beginning of his political career. A lie that Hitler propagated from 1918 throughout the rest of his life is the idea that the German military lost the First World War only because of diss ent from within the army and on the home front by liberals and Jews.
downfall in the First World War, as it deteriorated the morale of the German soldiers. 65
When Hitler cited the guilt of the “November Criminals” in 1933, he had a more defined
65 Adolf Hitler and James Vincent Murphy, Mein Kampf Unexpurgated ed . (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1981), 290. He also argued that the German soldiers who fought in the war were courageous heroes, who willingly volunteered to fight on the front lines. On the other hand, Jews, according to Hitler, would shirk any possibility of open combat, as their desire for self-preservation outweighed their nationalism. 66
66 Ibid., 288-289. Hitler believed that these factors led to the German military’s demise in World War One. The “stab in the back” theory, which was first spread by Paul von Hindenburg, became key misinformation for Hitler. 67
67 Hett, The Death of Democracy , 38. This lie touched on many aspects that proved advantageous to the Nazi movement. It fomented German hatred of the Left and of German Jews, and it fueled the belief that Germany should have won the war. It supported Hitler’s argument that leftist parties should have no position in the ruling of Germany.
As Hitler continued his political career following his imprisonment and wri ting of Mein Kampf, he continued to claim that the “November Criminals” were to be blamed for Germany’s loss of the war. He claimed : “Im November 1918 rissen marxistische Organisationen durch eine Revolution die vollziehende Gewalt an sich… Die moralische Legitimierung suchten sie in der Behauptung, Deutschland bzw. seine Regierung trugen die Schuld am Ausbruch des Krieges.” 68
68 Translation: “In November 1918 the Marxist organizations took over through a revolution and seized the executive power. They sought moral justification in the assertion that Germany and its government carried the guilt for the outbreak of the war.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 1, 229.
concept of what their crimes were than he did in 1924. He claimed that they not only s owed discontent and destroyed soldier morale by striking in 1918, but they also were traitors due to the treaty they signed to end the war.
Both Hitler’s and Trump’s use of misinformation is part of their targeted appeals to emotions. Their lies, whether it be Trump’s claims that Obama had spied on his campaign, or Hitler’s attacks on the “November Criminals,” often intended to produce hatred of the opposition. Furthermore, lies had always been an intentional compon ent of Hitler’s campaigning, and he said so from the beginning. Hitler claimed that people were more easily persuaded by appeals to emotion rather than to their intellect, and this made it even more appealing to sensationalize stories or to outright lie.
69
Although there is no record of Trump making similar claims about lying as a strong campaign strategy, it appears that by 2020 he strongly believed this to be true. His lies flowed
69 Hett, The Death of Democracy, 40. He even argued that if one were to lie, they should tell a large lie. Hitler argued in Mein Kampf that “in the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more readily fall victim to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves sometimes lie about small things but would be too ashamed of lies that were too big.” 70
70 Hitler, Mein Kampf, 231. On top of this, Hitler used the “big lies” to provoke anger and hatred from his base towards his opponents. Hitler argued that ideological platforms and concepts were not the way to build a movement. He asserted “comprehension is a shaky platform for the masses. The only stable emotion is hate.” 71
71 Ian Kershaw, Hitler (London: Longman, 1991), 51.
profusely by the end of his campaign, and the manner in which he repeated th e same lies again and again alludes to his belief that lying could lead to his reelection. Furthermore, his misinformation continued to sow discontent and anger among his base, which is evidenced in their storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump may not have come out and directly stated that lies were key to his campaigning, but it is clear that this is so.
With the number of lies told by both Hitler and Trump, it leads one to question: why did their base believe the lies? Or, even, did their followers actually believe the misinformation?
Trump fact-checker Daniel Dale argues that his interviews with Trump’s base in 2017 were extremely telling. Dale claims that when he pointed out Trump’s lies to his supporters and questioned if they knew Trump had been lying, some said they did not realize he had not been truthful. However, what is more interesting is Dale’s statement that many of them were aware of his reliance on misinformation but seemed not to care. According to Dale, they asserte d that they “liked the lying because it was agitating Washington insiders.” 72
Dale also notes that it was quite telling that the Trump administration never attempted to rebuff his fact checks, which were claiming that the President had been incessantly lying for years. Dale claims that the only action the Trump administration took against him was to block him on Twitter. This alludes to two key factors when it comes to Trump’s misinformation tactics: the Trump administration was clearly not ashamed of his lying nor were they overtly concerned with being caught in his lies; and perhaps more important for understanding the effect of Trump’s lying to his base, it means that Dale’s corrections of the President were either
72 Dale, “Dale: Reflections on Four Weird Years .”
not reaching Trump’s base or they just did not care about the lies. Trump’s misinformation largely went unchallenged and were amplified by social media platforms and right-wing news outlets, and Dale’s fact checking of the President went largely unnoticed by Trump’s base. Hitler’s lies were often accepted by his followers because he relied on the emotional state of Germany following their loss in the First World War, and he strategically deployed hateful lies in repetition.73
73 Hett, The Death of Democracy, 40. Furthermore, following the First World War, there was a much greater reception to the ideas from a cult of irrationality. While philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and psychologist Sigmund Freud helped fuel ideas of human irrationality through their works, World War One had a profound effect on making these ideas palatable to 1920s and 1930s Germans. 74
74 Ibid., 195. The massive number of casualties was extremely difficult for Germans to swallow, and it was challenging for many to make sense of the Great War.75
Both Trump and Hitler relied on lies and misinformation throughout their campaigns and throughout their time in power. Hitler’s claims were targeted and precise, and he used the same repeated lies, such as his attack on the “November Criminals,” throughout his political
75 Ibid., 195-96. The acceptability of concepts of irrationality by Germans combined with Hit ler’s acting proficiency, oratory skills, and inclination for lying made it much easier for Germans to willingly accept the misinformation that Hitler and the Nazi propaganda machine spread. So even though Hitler’s lies were often plainly false and could be easily debunked, his claims stuck in the minds of many Germans. 76
76 Ibid., 198-99.
career. Trump’s lies, conversely, began in an ad -libbed fashion. As his presidency continued, he began to rely on the repetition of certain lies and hoped that they would deliver him wins in the midterm elections, during COVID-19 briefings, and during his two impeachments. Although the lies of both men could be easily exposed, this was not of grave importance to either Trump or Hitler’s movements. Fascist ideology’s cult of i rrationality enabled them to utilize deception more often and effectively than a liberal politician could. 77
Some of Trump’s base did not know he was lying, but many did and were not overly concerned about the misinformation.
Furthermore, the work done by fact checkers like Daniel Dale often landed on deaf ears, as the right-wing news outlets did little to stop the propagation of Trump’s deceit. The power in the cult of irrationality in 1920s and 1930s Germany was strong enough to make Hitler’s lying more acceptable to German citizens. He utilized his great acting and speaking skills to spread hateful lies, and his base devoured them.
Populism and Anti-Intellectualism
Roger Griffin’s framework of fascism claims that the core of fascism is populist ultranationalism. 78
To define a movement as fascist, there must be a populist component present. 79
77 Griffin, Nature of Fascism, 26.
78 Ibid., 37.
79 This work focuses on the fascist style of populism, but it is worth noting that populism has many variations. Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser point out that populism consists of three main concepts : the people, the elites, and the general will. This gives the ideology a malleability that makes it suitable to both right -wing and left-wing politics.
See Elena Negrea-Busuioc, “Populism: A Very Short Introduction ,” Central European Journal of Communication 12, no. 2 (March 2, 2019): 264– 66.
There are appeals to populist id eals in both Hitler’s and Trump’s rhetoric which both of their bases found appealing. Similar to his comments about the broken system discussed above,
Trump’s populist message often focused on “draining the swamp” of the elite politicians and replacing them with leaders who cared about the plight of the common man. Furthermore, Trump steered away from overly intellectual speeches and maintained a folksy approach in how he spoke to his audience.
Hitler also relied on a populist message, and the bulk of his populism focused on the anger many Germans felt from the loss of World War One and due to the economic crises in the 1920s and 1930s. Hitler also focused many of his speeches on the need to strengthen the Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community), which was clearly a populist message. Also, the racist and xenophobic rhetoric of both Hitler and Trump can be seen as populist in spirit. To Hitler, German and non-German Jews were somehow both the Jewish financiers who hurt the everyday German farmer, and they were also the Bolshevists that were going to bring Germany to its demise. For Trump, “illegal” immigrants were leeching off the American taxpayers and were taking jobs from hard-working Americans. For both Hitler and Trump, the populist message was key to gaining support and mobilization from the masses.
Trump’s attack on the “System” was a populist message to his base, and it was a message that they found to be engaging. As discussed earlier, Trump argued that he was not a part of the broken system of America n government, which gave him the best opportunity to fix its issues. Furthermore, not only was he outside of the broken system, but his opponent was a key and longtime cog in the machine. The component of this argument from Trump that makes
it a strong populist message to his base was that he was offering to dismantle elitist politics in order to help the common American citizen. He often remarked, especially when discussing Hillary Clinton, that it was “time for rule by the people, not by the special inter ests.”80
80 “Donald Trump Campaign Speech in Wisconsin," Politico. His populist message relied on the notion that the American people had lost their power and say to the elitist politicians and lobbyists. He further argued that “we are going to make this government of the people once again. This is our chance to take back power from all the people who’ve taken it from you.”81
81 Ibid. Trump would also use the proclaimed elitism of his opponent to argue that she was against the common working American, while Trump of course supported them. He would often make these comments in short jabs, like his previously mentioned claim that “just like Hillary Clinton is against the miners, she is against the police.” 82
82 Ibid. According to Trump, Clinton and her elitist position kept her from supporting the workers, whereas Trump’s position outside of the system made him answerable to only the American people.
The way Trump spoke to his base can also be seen as an effort to maintain a populist movement. Trump was careful to present his speeches in a way that was not overly intellectual or elitist. He often kept his messages short and simple and would repeat short phrases multiple times for effect. When he would claim something that was self -evident, such as “winners are winners,” he would still list those who he believed to be winners. As Martin Montgomery puts it, his short and repetitive sentence structure relied on a sort of “vernacular folksiness.” 83
83 Martin Montgomery, 2020, “Populism in Performance?: Trump on the Stump and His Audience,” Journal of Language & Politics 19 (5): 748.
Hitler’s speeches often focused on the need for Germany to move towards a community-driven country, which would focus more on the needs of everyday Germans instead of the elite. Similar to Trump, Hitler’s outsider status was key for his argument that the system was not beneficial to the working class. Often, Hitler kept his points about preserving the Volksgemeinschaft simple and straightforward. He would argue that “Unser Rechtwesen muss in erste Linie der Erhaltung dieser Volksgemeinschaft dienen. ” 84
Hitler argued that not only would he and the Nazi party shape laws to be community driven, but that the laws of the Weimar Republic were not helpful to the German citizen. In other claims, he was more direct about the need of the economy to help the German citizen instead of the elitists. He claimed that “all action shall be governed by one law: the Volk does not live for the economy, and the economy does not exist for capital, but capital serves the economy , and the economy serves the Volk! 85
He made a similar argument during his 1924 trial for his attempted putsch, claiming that “the state, however, is not an economic organization. It is a ‘volkic’ organization.” 86
Trump and Hitler propagated another similar populist message, and it harnessed the racism and xenophobia within their bases. From the beginning of Trump’s campaigning in 2015,
84 Translation: “Our laws must primarily serve in the preservation of the national community.” Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen vol. 1, 237.
85 “Hitler Speech on Enabling Act , ” World Future Fund, http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports2013/hitlerenablingact.h tm
86 “Hitler Speech at Munich Trial 1924 Excerpts,” World Future Fund . The populist message that Hitler wished to present to his base was put the Nazi party in charge of Germany, and they will shape the laws and economy in a way that is beneficial to the workers, not the elite.
he used fearmongering to argue that other countries were coming after America. But there was also a populist element in his racist claims. Although Trump often focused on the crime that would accompany illegal immigrants, he also argued that immigration was hurting America by taking valuable jobs away from working -class America. As noted above, Trump argued “most illegal immigrants are lower skilled workers with less education, who compete directly against vulnerable American workers, and that these illegal workers draw much more out from the system than they can ever possibly pay back.”87
Trump argues that not only are illegal immigrants making it difficult for Americans to find work, but they are also leeching off the American taxpayer through welfare programs. Both claims offer a populist message, with a racist element, which argues that the structure of American society places the common American worker’s status below illegal immigrants.
Hitler was especially proficient at reaching toward the anger felt by the German working class and giving it a focused message.88
There were multiple paths Hitler could take, and did take, to prey on the frustration of the German people. Germans were angry about losing the war and were disenchanted with politicians, they were fearful and weary of a potential Bolshevik uprising, and they were affected by the multiple economic crises that occurred in Germany from the 1920s through the 1930s. 89
Due to working -class disenchantment of German politicians, anti-elitist messaging became more engaging to Germans following the First World War. The Nazis were the party most apt at recruiting the populist Germans for several reasons.
87 “Trump’s Immigration Speech,” The New York Times.
88 Kershaw, Hitler, 50.
89 Hett, The Death of Democracy, 104-105.
While it seems the SPD’s message could pull in the anti-elitist working class, their ties to Bolshevism, although often exaggerated by the right, made them less appealing to populist Germans. The German Nationalist party was able to absorb some of the populist voters initially, but their elitist makeup made it difficult to maintain their support. 90
90 Ibid., 104. The Nazis, however, were able to absorb and hold onto the populist working-class Germans. They were able to do so because many Nazis fought in the war, they were anti-Bolshevist, and most Nazi leaders came from a moderate background, which made them more appealing to the anti-elite voters.91
Hitler steered an angry population toward anti-Semitism. One component that made racism such a powerful tool in Hitler’s populist messaging was how he made anti-Semitism malleable. According to Hitler, Jews could somehow be both the symbol of international finance and of Bolshevism. Therefore, Hitler could argue that the Jewish population in Germany was hurting both the everyday farmer by owning the banks and, they could also bring an end to Germany through a Bolshevist uprising. 92
91 Ibid., 104-105.
92 Ibid., 72. Furthermore, Hitler’s racist messaging became so profuse and was absorbed by such a strong component of the German right that anti-Semitic dog whistles were often a component of his speeches. He could claim that international financiers were an enemy to the German people, and Hitler’s base understood that he was referring to German Jews. 93
93 Ibid., 73.
One crucial caveat to both Hitler and Trump’s populist messaging is that neither leader followed through on their promises . Trump’s tax cut, which was one of the few major policy moves of his administration, was a corporate tax break that helped the rich and did little for poor and working-class Americans.94
Hitler was also elitist at heart, even if he offered a populist message to his base. By the time he was Chancellor, he had secured millionaire status thanks to the sales of Mein Kampf. After the death of Hindenburg, Hitler lived an especially lavish life that was a direct contradictory to his anti-elitist rhetoric. He had magnificent apartments, traveled via a private train with eleven coaches for his entire entourage, and had no qualms about using public funds to support his new lifestyle. 95
Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler effectively used populist rhetoric to build and fortify their bases. Both men relied on populism that attacked an elite system, claimi ng that elitist politicians would never take care of the working class. Furthermore, both Hitler and Trump also relied on rhetoric that fueled racism and xenophobia in a populist style. Trump used racist dog
94 Scott Horsley, “After 2 Years, Trump Tax Cuts Have Failed to Deliver on GOP's Promises, ” NPR, December 20, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/12/20/789540931/2-years-later-trumptax-cuts-have-failed-to-deliver-on-gops-promises).
95 Ian Kershaw, Hitler: 1889-19 36 Hubris (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998), 536 - 37.
But, according to Stanley G. Payne, offering a populist message while remaining el itist at heart is a typical component of fascism. Payne’s description of fascism shows that because the movement’s leadership requires a cult of personality, fascist is populist solely in rhetoric and elitist at heart. 96 96 Payne, A History of Fascism, 14. Therefore, we can make sense of both Trump and Hitler’s elitist lifestyles, even though they both preached populist messages.
whistles of illegal immigrants stealing American jobs to grow his number of followers, while Hitler relied on a malleable form of anti-Semitism to fortify his base. Even though Trump and Hitler both remained elitist at heart, their populist message was key in securing a strong and energetic base, who fe lt like they had been disregarded by their respective governments. Hitler and Trump also relied on rhetoric that argued people needed protection from leftist policies, and that law and order was key in maintaining a proper society. The rhet oric of both leaders also relied on the argument that their movements were stronger than those of their weak counterparts. Trump’s speeches attempted to show strength through threatening and condoning violence, while Hitler’s showed strength by connecting his movement to the glory of German soldiers. Furthermore, both movements appealed to the emotion of their bases in the way they crafted their speeches. This reliance on proving the virility of their movements is another typical component of fascism, accor ding to Griffin. Hitler and Trump also lied profusely to their bases. Trump’s lies began as an ad -libbed component to his speeches but became directed and predictable toward the end of his term in 2020. Hitler’s misinformation was direct from the beginning , which is evidenced by his reliance on the “stab in the back” myth. Finally, both Hitler and Trump relied on populist rhetoric in their speeches. Their populism stemmed from anti-elitist rhetoric, which was used to steer the people away from current politicians and towards their own movements. The racism both leaders relied on was also inherently populist. Both Hitler and Trump claimed that outsiders were hurting the working class, and that their governments had forgotten them .