Trump is not Hitler.
A lot of comparisons have been made between the Trump Campaign, and Trump's successful political campaign, and Hitler's rise to power. But while some of these comparison's are fairly legitimate, Trump is NOT a Hitler, and the United States is not the same sort of country that Germany was in the 1930's.
First off, Trump was pretty clearly a draft dodger. Hitler enlisted to fight in World War I, and was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class, and the Iron Cross First Class during the war. Hitler had been wounded in battle at least once. As an aside, that little mustache of his was apparently common for soldiers, because a fuller mustache made wearing a gas mask more difficult. Hitler had served as a "runner" which basically meant he was a dude that ran from command locations to field locations with messages. Odds are good that Hitler, like pretty much anyone that served in the German Army in WWI, had killed me, and had known many comrades who were killed in action. Trump on the other hand believes that going to a military academy is like being in the military
Another big one here is that Hitler pretty much stayed on message during his political career. There was clearly a core message and idea that Hitler made central to his political career. Trump on the other hand is pretty much all over the map on things. The whole "build a wall" business is fairly recent, and he stuck with it because it resonated with his voters. The "Crooked Hillary" business was another fan favorite for Trump voters, but while there was plenty of chanting "Lock Her Up," it seems pretty clear now that Trump is in power, he's not going to pursue any legal action against the Clintons. It will be interesting to see what happens with the "Wall" and Mexico paying for it. My prediction, fwiw, is that there may be some progress in something like a wall, and Mexico paying for it will be spun from some sort of minor taxation scheme, but I don't know that he can push that sort of thing through, I expect an attempt to tax money transfers to Mexico (i.e. remittances).
Bottom line is that Hitler had it tough, and Trump was a rich kid whose parents couldn't handle him, so they sent him to boarding school / a military academy. Hitler had been imprisoned when he led a failed coup, and he came back from that.Hitler didn't have a ghost writer, he wrote his manifesto (Mein Kampf). The closest thing Trump has to a manifesto is "The Art of the Deal," which was ghost written for him (by a guy named Tony Schwartz).
As for America today being like Germany in the 30's, that comparison is even tougher to make. Yes, there are racists and bigots in America, but Germany was pretty homogeneous in the 30's, and it was easier to target a minority group for the Germans. For all of the "angry, uneducated white men," rhetoric, the fact is that anger isn't well focused against anyone. Yes, there is anti-semitism. Islamophobia is a little newer, but it has come to the fore since 9/11. Anti-Mexican sentiment is tossed in there as well. What's interesting, and different about that is that there isn't a real focus on any particular group, and certainly not by a majority of citizens. I doubt that even a majority of Trump voters have any real visceral bigotry. There is a sense of resentment, and it is probably focused most on "elites," basically the banking and political class, and then trickling to media types, particularly celebrities who may be talented, and certainly have an audience, but who far too often seem to think that they have the duty to scold people that disagree with them,. and paint them with a pretty broad brush, generally calling them intolerant and stupid. Unfortunately, there do seem to be a pretty vocal segment of Trump supporters that are in fact basically angry bigots. Fortunately, that isn't the hart of the matter though. It's not like this is an either or proposition. It's also not like the media can control the message the way it did in the 30's and 40's. Opposition to a fascist totalitarian state can get its message out, and while there will be those that ignore that message, and underlying truths about it, the sort of atrocities that happened under Hitler seem highly unlikely. Of course, the sort of atrocities that happened under Roosevelt are probably still on the table, and that's not good either. But it's not like people are talking about Trump being like Roosevelt.
