For the record, I am no Trump hater and even called his first win as early as Jan 2016 & from the onset suggested 2024 was his election to lose. He’s what America views as a leader, a man capable of getting things done. Between two less-than-ideal candidates, he showed that he wasn’t merely the lesser of two evils, but the clear victor of both the popular and electoral votes – the people’s choice was clear.

Trump is Not Hitler

I have never particularly liked the Trump/Hitler analogy, though understand they share some character traits found in many leaders. And, while America today isn’t admittedly quite Germany in the 1930s, the parallels intensified when Trump’s threats of tariffs and outright annexation was a tactic out of Hitler’s Anschluss playbook, where the Austrian-born German leader envisioned a Greater Germany consisting of Germany and Austria. This, apocalyptically was the latest parallel between what Germany witnessed in the 1930s and what Americans are watching live today. Ready?

1/ Return to Power: Donald Trump reclaimed the White House after a four-year exodus, not dissimilar to how the Austrian artist otherwise known as Adolf returned to power to become chancellor in 1933 after a first taste of leadership a decade before.

2/ Hitler had been banished partly after his 1923 Putch landed him in hot water. But ten years later, he was chancellor. The comparisons between the 1923 Butch and January 6 Insurrection aside, the carbon copy nature of their symbolism and fallout are another stark coincidence, it would seem.

3/ In both Germany and USA, an aging politician’s decline (Hindenburg then, Biden now) paved the way for a tempestuous tyrant to steer the nation to his impulses and desires despite the potential impact on its citizens. The effect on Germany was severe, splintering the nation post-ruinous World War II and having a profound permanent effect on its psyche.

4/ Hitler became synonymous with racism & xenophobia, taking it to an unthinkable “final solution” by 1942. While Trump is very clearly not Hitler, racist language against Muslims, Hispanics and other groups is part of his Greatest Hits album and foreshadow what is no longer an impossibility.

5/ Art of the Deal: If minorities become a convenient target, both men pointed to certain agreements as the source of their resentment & hostilities. The Versailles Treaty is widely blamed for Germany’s growing frustration & rise of Hitler, while Trump had essentially viewed any deal not made by Trump as a warm bucket of spit.

6/ Of course, both nations suffered extensive periods of high inflation, in Germany the currency became worthless after prolonged periods of hyperinflation, fuelling the resentment and growing anger. Trump can blame Covid or the Biden administration, but some of his own policies to curtail immigration and constant threats of deporting illegal immigrants have a clear effect on job supply.

Where the two men diverge is their appetite and penchant for war.

Germany’s power scientifically, economically, industrially from 1850-1914 cannot be understated. Its scores of doctors, scientists, etc. – many Jewish – paved the way for Germany’s rise. But Hitler saw that as a vehicle for death and destruction, leveraging the motherland’s engineering & industrial might to rapidly militarize the country.

Trump was a no-show when he could have served, and has – to his credit – as POTUS pulled America out of wars and steered her clear of them (though Israel will certainly want to instigate Iran and jerk Trump in the subsequent mess). Trump seems tepid of the military industrial complex and ultimately cannot be told by anyone what to do (yes, even Putin and Musk, when said and done).

That being said, as someone born in Iran, I know all too well that foreign meddling and intervention is part of America’s modus operandi (though not its DNA, if you think of the founding fathers’ worldviews, supported by the fact that until 1917 when America entered World War I it was isolationist).

As a Canadian, this week I saw Trump ratchet the discourse even more to once unimaginable heights. Annexation and expansionism rhetoric is ringing alarm bells for it is eerily similar to Hitler’s 1938 Anschluss, where he sought to combine (and did) Austria and Germany in a “Greater Germany.”

There may be other comparisons, some more frivolous than others. But given Trump’s admiration for strongmen, it’s alarming that to Trump, these parallels may not even be red flags, but part of his nature and nurture.

While I expect Trump the businessman and genie to ultimately manage risk & somehow miraculously sweep back into the bottle whatever mess he created, I do worry if the forces he has unleashed – like the fuhrer a century before him – may represent more of a Pandora’s box than a mere can of worms.

One year after Hitler took over in 1933, Hindenburg passed away, clearing the way for him to do as he pleased. One year after Trump’s win makes America’s 250th anniversary – incidentally, the average age of empires.