Could Donald Trump be the next Hitler?

[Destinysdaughter]

I pray to God he doesn't get elected as the next president but after just watching the C4 documentary about him, I fear for the future of the USA and consequently the world. Hitler was once a joke but then economic conditions changed and people wanted answers and Hitler was able to blame much of Germany's ills on the Jews much like Trump is doing with Mexicans, Muslims etc. His supporters seen equally fanatical and not open to any kind of rational debate. It really fucking scares me, the world seems to becoming much more intolerant and if economic conditions deteriorate further I worry about what will happen. Please do tell me IABU but I feel bloody uneasy about this...

[evilcherub]

What is it recently with people trying to compare people with Hitler. Sure, Trump is a dick but comparisons with Hitler just make you look stupid and comparisons with the holocaust are crude and vulgar and make you look ignorant about the industrial scale of what happened.

[Want2bSupermum]

The only reason Trump allowed Palin to share the same stage with him is for publicity. He already has the loony vote locked up and she isn't the darling of the Republican party. Quite frankly though the Republicans left Palin out to dry and she was forced into doing a lot of wacky TV stuff to pay off legal fees. It will be very interesting to see who is nominated by the GOP.

batshit Totally agree with you on Russia. If you go against Putin you have WW3. HC did an awful job as Secretary of State and her being in charge of foreign affairs as President scares me.

[CaveMum]

As pointed out in that documentary last night, his strongest support is in the poor white working class, a group that actually don't turn out in great numbers to vote. As it was put in the programme, if you can't afford to put gas in your car unless Trump is planning on putting on buses to pick people up to vote the support won't translate to much.

He might, repeat might, get the Republican nomination though the GOP hate him and will try to take him down before it gets that far, but he hasn't a hope of getting elected President. These days a President needs to get high support across the board - women, black, Hispanic, etc. He's alienated all of those groups.

If he, as threatens, runs as a 3rd party candidate he will just split the Right and hand victory to (presumably) Hillary Clinton.

[VoldysGoneMouldy]

Agree. The possibility of him being the next President of one of the most influential (rightly or wrongly) countries of the world is genuinely scary.

People thought Hitler was just a bit of a dick too at one point, with some crazy supporters.

The only advantage, and difference from Hitler, is that he's shown his extreme views before gaining any power. Hopefully with that already out in the open, there will be enough people who see him for what he is, and do what they can to stop him.

[BillSykesDog]

I agree with Misti, he's never going to be elected. However I think that he is very convenient for the left as a bogeyman for a bit of scaremongering. He also fits nicely into the left wing stereotype of anybody opposed to mass immigration being a swivel eyed racist loon.

They might pretend to be scared of Trump, but the left are more scared of people like Cruz, as an immigrant who opposes mass migration.

I reckon the democrats are probably secretly desperate for him to win the nomination, it's their best chance of retaining the presidency.

[Alisvolatpropiis]

He won't be the next president. He's openly atheist and that isn't going to fly in the Bible Belt of the US.

[Stratter5]

I don't think Channel 4 are anything for him to worry about, he's doing a grand job all by himself.

[Want2bSupermum]

Alis Him being not religious isn't the same issue that it was in the past. Also he has a way of answering questions with what seems like a lot of honesty. I thought this shows how he brilliantly handled questions about his own personal life while throwing rocks at others. He also answered questions about his faith in a very honest way that would not offend the bible belt.

[SenecaFalls]

There is a very big difference between the candidate's behavior and attitudes and those of a candidate's spouse. It's ludicrous that Hillary cannot call Trump out for sexism because her husband has a checkered past.

And whatever Bill Clinton's shortcomings are personally, he and his administration did a huge amount to advance women's rights and women's issues, including the monumental achievement of the Violence Against Women Act.

Also, I live in the Bible Belt. Trump's religious views, and his personal life, and the fact that he has gambling casinos (a big no no among religious conservatives) does matter to some people. We'll have an idea about how far this goes soon because in Iowa, though not part of the Bible Belt, evangelicals make up a high percentage of Republican caucus participants.

[GloriaSmellens]

I saw a thiing on FB, I have no idea if its true as it was just picture of trump with a 'quote' next to it, but it was basically trump a few years ago saying that if he were to ever run for president, he would run as a Republican as Republican voters are so stupid and will just eat up whatever he says.

It does sound like the kind of thing he would say!

[Tamponlady]

All we will need to Corbin to take power here and the world will really be in shot hard left here and hard right there happy days not

[celeste83]

Corbyn and Labour haven't got a chance in hell of being re-elected anytime soon, not until they make up some serious lost ground in Scotland.

[VertigoNun]

Corbyn knows he won't be leader at the next election. I think he has a year or so left.

[ComposHatComesBack]

Celeste Scotland's gone forever. The Labour party are finished here and are on track to lose all their constituency seats in the Holyrood elections.

[Tram10]

I really doubt he will be elected, god forbid, but when this is all over, I really believe he will have totally destroyed his Trump brand Internationally.

His brand is now synonymous with someone likened to Hitler.

[Leslieknope45]

The only advantage, and difference from Hitler, is that he's shown his extreme views before gaining any power.
No, Hitler had written mein Kampf before he had got into power. His views on the 'Jewish problem' were no secret.

[ComposHatComesBack]

knope thank you. Saved me from typing that out.

I wish people with a sub-gcse level understanding of history would stop pontificating as if they were experts.

[BillSykesDog]

He didn't actually publicise the holocaust though. The German population at large remained unaware of that.

[thelifeofamber]

Ridiculous.

He's say those things to get people talking about him. It's all publicity.

And people have the tools to do research, the media can report what they want and you can stand up and criticise him without fear of being killed.

[ComposHatComesBack]

Bill

The level of knowledge amongst ordinary Germans of the holocaust is a vexed one. The view that it was carried out in near complete secrecy that prevailed after the war itself has largely been discredited.


That view was largely based on testimonies of ordinary germans in the imediate aftermath of the conflict whilst under allied occupation. To paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davis 'well they would say that wouldn't they?'



More recent scholarship has suggested that the knowledge of the holocaust was rather more widespread.

www.timeshighereducation.com/books/up-in-smoke-goes-the-lie-that-the-holocaust-was-a-big-secret/203103.article

www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/feb/17/johnezard

[icanteven]

So, the article that was going around from the AP last week said that the GOP is going to support Trump because:

a) He is moderately intelligent and will be relatively easy to work with in a team. His personally held views have little to do with the things he is saying on the campaign trail, so he is unlikely to continue pushing for them were he to be elected.

b) He's a LOT less scary than Cruz, who IS a seasoned politician, and really DOES quite firmly hold highly objectionable views. He believes quite sincerely that women should not be able to access abortion and continually attacks Planned Parenthood, the only source of contraception for many women in the US. He is much less likely to work collaboratively with a moderate team.

c) The other moderate, relatively sensible candidates are refusing to back down, splitting the moderate vote between an unfeasibly large pool. Laughable as it might have seemed a year ago, Jeb Bush is actually a perfectly reasonable candidate. Moderate, experienced, bilingual etc. If the other candidates would sort themselves out and agree for one of them to step down in order to focus support on ONE moderate, the Trump thing wouldn't be an issue.


So yeah. I'm not that fussed about Trump. Deeply embarrassing for the US, of course, but I don't think that he actually holds any of these absurd hyper-conservative views. He is, at the end of the day, both urban and educated, two qualities which have little to do with the voters he is courting. He is highly unlikely to continue to champion their needs in office and is quite clearly playing to the crowd in order to maximise his chances of election. I don't think people in the UK necessarily appreciate the vast gulf between the urban/educated population of the US and the demographic that is supporting Trump.

[CrystalMcPistol]

'There is a very big difference between the candidate's behavior and attitudes and those of a candidate's spouse. It's ludicrous that Hillary cannot call Trump out for sexism because her husband has a checkered past.'

Completely agree.

[UnderTheGreenwoodTree]

I watched The Dead Zone the other week. It made me think of Donald Trump.

[icanteven]

(I think Cruz is more likely to get in, really - the polls are utterly unreliable and are heavily skewed towards the older population because of the mobile phone thing)

[Leslieknope45]

Sorry, I know this is about Trump but I have to take issue with:

He didn't actually publicise the holocaust though. The German population at large remained unaware of that.

That's a myth. They did know.