Stop Comparing Trump to Hitler
Be it feminist pride, SU elections or ‘Brexit’, my Facebook newsfeed has become increasingly politicised lately. But amongst the appeals for my signature on petitions and the criticisms of SU politics, what has struck me most is the countless comparisons between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler.
Not just limited to social media, such comparisons have also been prevalent in the news recently as politicians and celebrities alike have commented on Trump. Just days ago, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto blasted Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric and suggested that he is emulating the campaign tactics of Hitler and Mussolini. Similarly, comedian Louis C.K. has drawn the Hitler-Trump comparison, going as far as to say ‘the guy is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the 30s’.
Trump rally in Orlando, Florida on 5th March 2016
In a recent rally in Orlando, Florida, Trump instigated further comparisons to Hitler when he asked his supporters to raise their right hand in a pledge that they would vote for him, a gesture which many have suggested resembled the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute.
When asked about such criticisms, Trump’s response that ‘it’s a terrible comparison’ is perhaps the one thing he is right about. Likening the pair is misleading, unhelpful and incredibly problematic.
Undeniably some parallels can be drawn between the two figures, not least in their racist, bigoted attitudes and scapegoating of particular groups within society. However, such similarities are not enough to warrant the prevalent suggestions that Trump is an American version of Hitler. In fact, such assertions not only oversimplify the subject and ignore the major differences between the figures, they are also ignorant of history and incredibly offensive to those who were victims of (or whose family were victims of) the Nazi persecution. Such poor comparisons simply trivialise the Holocaust.
The misplaced apostrophes are the least problematic thing about this Facebook post
Facebook posts such as this one seemingly convey that Trump and Hitler are identical in everything except the group they target, that if you simply replace the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Muslim’ or ‘Immigrant’ then their rhetoric is indistinguishable. This is simply not the case.
Firstly, there are clear differences in ideology. For Hitler, Jews were perceived as inherently evil and damaging for Germany simply because of their religion and ethnicity. In contrast, Trump’s concerns are with illegal immigrants rather than being focused upon a particular religious or ethnic group. I am not in any way condoning Trump’s proposals on how to deal with such people or his scapegoating of such a group, however his concerns are based on the issue of assimilation, unlike Hitler’s view of Jewish people who were targeted by the Nazi regime regardless of whether or not they embraced German culture.
Secondly, whilst Trump undoubtedly has a racist and xenophobic attitude, he has not openly called for the annihilation of any particular group, unlike Hitler. As early as 1925, he outlined his anti-Semitic views in Mein Kampf explaining that ‘it is the inexorable Jew who struggles for his domination over the nations. No nation can remove this hand from its throat except by the sword […] Such a process is and remains a bloody one’. Such a notion of physically fighting the Jews in order to ‘remove’ them was then later reinforced in his 1939 Reichstag speech where he openly called for the ‘annihilation’ of Jews. It is not to say that Trump’s attitude isn’t wrong, but it’s just not on the same level as that of Hitler.
Another factor which sets Trump and Hitler apart is the use of the SA (Sturmabteilung) the paramilitary organisation associated with the Nazi party. They played a significant role in Hitler’s rise to power, initiating violence, creating fear and terror, and fighting paramilitary organisations of opposing parties. Trump, in contrast, has no such organisation affiliated with him or his campaign, highlighting how tenuous comparisons can be as they ignore major factors such as this one and overlook the differences between 1930s Germany and contemporary US society.
Certainly, such differences in society mean that Trump is operating within a very different context to that of Hitler. Not only are we living in a world where we have the precedent of the Holocaust having happened, something which can perhaps be seen to make the international community more cautious of something similar occurring again (although there have been and still are genocides which have occurred since), there are also significant constitutional differences. Not only did Proportional Representation enable the representation of more radical parties in the Reichstag, Hitler was also able to take advantage of other weaknesses in the Weimar constitution in order to secure his position and establish a dictatorship. Article 48 could be used by the President to rule by decree and was used shortly after the Reichstag fire to limit freedoms of expression and to implement press censorship. Similarly, the passing of the Enabling Act in 1933 gave Hitler plenary powers and removed his accountability to the Reichstag. For Trump however, the differing structure of the US constitution makes it near impossible for him to create a dictatorship, due to the checks and balances in place. There is no mechanism with which he could suspend the constitution, but rather he would have to amend it, an incredibly difficult task and one which has rarely been achieved.
Clearly there are many differences between Trump and Hitler, in their ideology, their campaigns and the context of their respective societies. Not only are there many innacuracies with comparisons between the two, but any suggestion that Trump’s actions, policies or rhetoric are in any way equal to that of Hitler trivialises the Holocaust and Nazi persecution. I am not in any way condoning Trump and his racist, xenophobic beliefs, but I’m saying that these are simply not on the same level as Hitler’s. Undoubtedly the lessons of the Holocaust are relevant here and we must ensure that we don’t accept Trump’s claims or propositions, but ultimately this is not a repetition of the Holocaust, the US is not Germany in the 1930s and Donald Trump is not Hitler. Any suggestion otherwise is incredibly offensive to those who suffered under the Nazi regime therefore we really need to stop comparing Trump to Hitler.
Yorumlar
Yorum Gönder