The Atlantic compares Donald Trump to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini
The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum penned an article comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Benito Mussolini. Her thesis involved taking the language they used and compared them to what Trump used. For example, Applebaum compared Stalin’s “enemy of the people” comment with Trump’s “enemy of the people” comment. A look at the full text of their speeches presents different context and intentions. However, the article does not include the broader context supporting the use of these words. However, to many on the left, the article provides an “air tight” case that Trump “is like” the men she compared them to.
From The Atlantic:
Stalin used the same kind of language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and that they enjoyed no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to ongoing purification,” and he inspired his fellow communists to employ similar rhetoric. In my files, I have the notes from a 1955 meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, during which one of them called for a struggle against “vermin activities” (there is, inevitably, a German word for this: Schädlingstätigkeiten), by which he meant the purge and arrest of the regime’s critics. In this same era, the Stasi forcibly moved suspicious people away from the border with West Germany, a project nicknamed “Operation Vermin.”
This kind of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his compatriots so that Cambodia would be “purified.”
In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them. If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind. And if you squash them, you won’t be held accountable.
Until recently, this kind of language was not a normal part of American presidential politics. Even George Wallace’s notorious, racist, neo-Confederate 1963 speech, his inaugural speech as Alabama governor and the prelude to his first presidential campaign, avoided such language. Wallace called for “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” But he did not speak of his political opponents as “vermin” or talk about them poisoning the nation’s blood. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps following the outbreak of World War II, spoke of “alien enemies” but not parasites.
Additional Reading:
Applebaum, A. (2024, October 18). Trump is speaking like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. The Atlantic. Link.
Category: 2024 Election, Donald Trump, Editorial, Media, Op-Ed
Hitler – National Socialism
Mussolini – Fascism
Stalin – Communism
The democrats are unhinged lunatics and the biggest threat to freedom since Pol Pot.
You don’t mean to tell me USSR stood for United Soviet Socialist Republics, do you? How dare you teach me history, and show me to be a fool! /s
Although this is a Wikipedia reference, one would assume she knew the difference…..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Applebaum
^^^^^Fancy degrees doesn’t mean you’re smart it just means she just swallowed their narrative hook line and sinker. DJT speaks hyperbolically, and she “matches” what he said instead versus what he did/does/or plans to do? The entire Left acts like he was NEVER the POTUS. Did he terminate the Constitution? Build concentration camps? Turn the military against citizens? <This my favorite TDS claim from Whoopi> End interracial marriages? Ect, ect, ect…No, not one single fucking terrible thing they claimed he would he actually did. She should analyze Democratic policy goals with those famous despots, but she won’t because she knows the similarities are damaging to the Democrats attempt to seize power.
Probably not all she swallowed to get the degree…
“Anne Elizabeth Applebaum[2][3] (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian.”
She seems to have trouble connecting the dots of history. She’s connecting dots that aren’t even on the puzzle.
“Anne Elizabeth Applebaum[2][3] (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian.”
When she was screaming for more pablum, I was
screaming for more ice cream on the ships second deck Gedunk stand.
How can 1 man be attached to 3 different diametrically opposed ideologies? Hmm, they don’t teach world history any more. Of course, the writer ignored the fact all totalitarian regimes are in favor of censorship and disarming the citizens like the Democrats want, no demand.
I guess this writer and the entire Left is blind as well because look the many people under the MAGA tent: blacks, Latinos (not Latinx), Muslims & Jews, Gays (not the alphabet mafia just plain gay), and legal immigrants/naturalized citizens…I mean talk about inclusive, and diverse.
I was reading an article about the MSG rally and some imagined antisemitism there. A quote from an attendee had me cracking up: “As an openly orthodox Jew, I have to say it was absolutely the most welcoming Nazi rally in history”.
Well, they’re not really diametrically opposed, other than the fact that the three leaders mentioned all wanted to be the man in charge.. Most of the supposed differences are just bullshit definitions that Marx came up with. The fact that he was a lazy power hungry grifter kinda explains the current crop..
I posted that the other day, it is hilarious. She is an idiot. When Trump was elected last time she predicted that the West would fall. Still here bitch!
She spent 2016-2020 preaching the Russia/ Trump Conspiracy Hoax. Not waiting on an apology.
Wait a sec. Didn’t we all die during the reign of Orange Heet-lars? Because I feel dead….
Nope, nope. It’s just allergies.
I died 18 times on J6. Died laughing at the idiots I mean.
That’s almost equal to the number of police killed.
“… if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them.”
WTF does this imbecile think that the Demonrats have been doing to Trump for the last 8 years? Does she even hear herself speak?
That’s a rhetorical question)
Would calling them “deplorables” fall into the same category?? Ooh, that’s right, it’s different when ACTUAL socialists do it..
“Garbage” is the new “deplorable”, do try to keep up.
Sorry, I’ll try to do better
Comey used ‘secret police “powers'” to violate the civil rights of many private citizens, to include the opposition candidate Donald J Trump, for reasons.
I find this, and your psyop called Covid which was intended, or used to, get Dims okay with “locking up/out” and abusing the unvaxxxed, repugnant as a M F.
We are not the same.
Unrestricted lawfare and using the IRS and FBI to target political enemies. That all (re)started under Obama.
You know Democrats:
Anne Applebaum’s education seems to only allow her to see what she wants to see. Or what she was told to see.
Sounds like my fathers middle daughter.. She just posted that because Calirado has become a “safe” state for libtards, she’s not voting for Kameltoe and Tampon Timmie because they haven’t completely thrown Israel under the bus…
It’s hard o decide if these people are just completely delusional, or truly evil.. (in her case, a LOOOONG history of untreated mental illness is a big factor, as well as FAR too many years spent in liberal colleges)
Hirler’s fuehrer principle stated he was always right and national socialism was the only way for the people to think and act. Liberals state the government is the solution to every problem. I can’t see any difference between the two.
Liberals allow you to vote for your dictator of choice. The choices are all roughly the same, but you retain the illusion of democracy.
Sure, I mean a NORK can vote for someone other than Kim; however, three generations of the voter’s family will wish the voter hadn’t. They don’t call it the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea because it sounds nice.
Da, comrade, is always whole plan!
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but the bodies of domestic enemies will go a long way towards shoring up The North Wall.
Another (un)educated idiot thinking that her opinion matters.
How many will it take to shore up the South Wall? Asking for a friend.
If you (your friend) are asking in re The South Wall of Fire Base Magnolia, I gots that covered with a semi heavy weapons emplacement, spanning a 270 degree field of fire…if the inquiry is in re of the USA’s South Wall. I would suggest doing the same…with a “weapons free” standing order. As far as a number? I believe that the 20-30 million illegal invaders that we have here would be a good start. Instead of drinking from cups made of the skulls of the enemy we could make a wall, you know…kinda like the picket fence that Vlad made. Jus’ sayin’.
Only problem is that this stupid bitch was reading from stuff the socialist democrats have been saying about Trump, and about us real Americans.
George Wallace was a Democrat.
If communism and socialism always fail because “we aren’t doing them right,” then maybe Trump’s brand will work????
“In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them.”
She sounds like she’s describing the democrat party. More specifically Hitlery Clinton, Cotton Eyed Joe, Bernie Sandman, Kameltoe, and Tampon Tim.