Let’s tear the Band-Aid off right now: comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler is not only justified—it’s necessary. Not because they are identical in every action or historical outcome, but because they are two figures who followed—and are following—the same blueprint.
The idea that Trump isn’t “as bad” as Hitler in terms of body count is a lazy, cowardly dodge. That’s not the bar.
The bar is whether a leader is dismantling democracy, weaponizing lies, persecuting vulnerable groups, and stoking the flames of fascism. On that front, Trump isn’t just following in Hitler’s footsteps—he’s updating the software.
Let’s start with scapegoating. Hitler had Jews, Roma people, disabled people, and dissidents. Trump has immigrants, Black voters, LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, and now even the military and civil servants who refuse to bow to his narrative. He paints anyone who opposes him as an enemy of the state, a traitor, or a “deep state” actor. He demonizes the media as “the enemy of the people,” a phrase lifted straight from authoritarian regimes. This is not hyperbole—this is historical pattern recognition. Fascism doesn’t announce itself with a swastika on Day One. It seeps in, smiling, flag-draped, and disguised as salvation.
And let’s talk about the cult of personality. Hitler was adored by a loyalist base who believed he alone could restore Germany to glory. Sound familiar? Trump literally said, “I alone can fix it.” His supporters chant his name like a prayer. They wave his flag in place of the American flag. They attack the Capitol to keep him in power. The MAGA movement is not a political ideology—it’s a cult built around a man who demands absolute loyalty, punishes dissent, and believes laws don’t apply to him. That’s not democracy. That’s dictatorship with a Fox News sponsorship.
Then there’s disinformation. Hitler had Goebbels and state-controlled media. Trump has Truth Social, Fox, and a right-wing disinformation machine that spews conspiracy theories faster than you can fact-check them. He lies so relentlessly that truth itself becomes fractured, subjective, irrelevant. It’s all part of the same authoritarian tactic: destroy the public’s ability to agree on reality, then install your version by brute force. Sound dramatic? Good. It should. Because we are watching it happen in real-time.
And yes, Hitler waged a world war and orchestrated the Holocaust—monstrous, unparalleled evil. But Trump isn’t done. His power is growing again. He’s promising to round up immigrants en masse, suspend the Constitution, and jail political opponents. He has already overseen child internment camps, a government purge, and the attempted overturning of an election. And now he wants a second term, not to lead, but to settle scores. In some ways, Hitler destroyed from without. Trump is destroying from within, armed with the flag and the Constitution he pretends to defend.
The most dangerous thing we can do is sanitize the moment. To say, “It’s not that bad.” That’s what people said in Germany in the early 1930s. That’s what they told themselves right up until the arrests began. Until the books burned. Until the trains left. Fascism doesn’t arrive all at once—it creeps, cloaked in slogans like “Make America Great Again” or “America First.” And if we’re too afraid to call it what it is because of some misplaced sense of decorum or historical purity, then we are complicit in letting it happen again.
So no, comparing Trump to Hitler isn’t over-the-top. It’s necessary. Because we don’t compare to equate—we compare to warn. And if you can look at the authoritarianism, the propaganda, the dehumanization, the cultism, and still say, “Let’s not make that comparison,” then you’ve already failed the test history gave you.
Trump killed countless Americans during his first term. Whether it was intentional or not, I suppose that’s up for debate. But it doesn’t really matter. And right now the most important thing is that he’s doing it again.
