In the past few years, leaders ranging from Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin have been compared to Adolf Hitler. I think the comparisons are valid. But Hitler had more than a decade-long career as the leader of Germany, and it might be useful to sharpen the comparisons by specifying to what point in Hitler's career the comparisons apply.
Hitler at his worst was responsible for the murder of six million Jewish people and tens of thousands of Roma. Putin has certainly not come close to that number as yet, and it is not clear at this point that Trump has been responsible for murder. Where, then, do they currently correlate to Hitler's horrendous career?
Shortly before and leading to the onset of World War II, Hitler annexed pieces of the other countries around him. In 1938, Hitler convinced Neville Chamberlain (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) to allow Germany to annex the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia. A year later, Hitler and Stalin's conquest of Poland ignited the Second World War. Clearly, Putin's attempt to annex Ukraine is somewhere between Hitler's annexation of Sudetenland and Poland. In that undeniable, tragic way, Putin is indeed like Hitler.
Trump's similarity to Hitler comes at a much earlier time. Hitler rose to power condemning the press that truthfully reported on his activities as the Lugenpresse -- the lying press -- just as Trump labeled and still continues to call news organizations that truthfully report on his activities as fake news. By 1932, Hitler's Nazi party received enough votes in the general election that the German President, von Hindenburg, appointed Hitler as Chancellor. Successive elections resulted in Hitler going out of and back into power. By 1933, Hitler was back as Chancellor, and before that year ended all political parties other than the Nazis were banned in Germany. I would say Trump most accurately compares to Hitler circa 1932 to 1933.
The point of these comparisons, and the hope that resides in them, is that there is still time to prevent the further rise of Trump and Putin. With the current and immensely destructive attack on Ukraine, Putin is the one who needs to be stopped most immediately. The Ukrainian people are doing an heroic job of this, but they need even more help from U.S., NATO, and the free world, as Ukraine has repeatedly requested and experts ranging from U. S. Army lieutenant colonel (ret.) Alexander Vindman and former U. S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul have repeatedly made clear. Trump is not an immediate danger right now, but the Republicans need to nominate someone else for the 2024 election -- or, if they nominate Trump again, he needs to be soundly defeated again.
We the people in this world who believe in freedom have our work cut out for us.
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