Trump Dreams of an American Fourth Reich

As we approach the holiday season less than a year out from the 2024 election, many Americans - far, far too many - seem to be sleep walking and oblivious to the clear and present danger that Donald Trump and his MAGA followers pose to American democracy and literally the lives and safety of millions of Americans Der Trumpenfuhrer increasingly labels as "enemies" and, more recently, "vermin" as he channels Adolph Hitler.  Shockingly, much of the mainstream media remains blind to the danger if not aiding the growing fascism of the far right by pretending Trump and his imitators are   simply routine political candidates.  As for much of the public, they remain oblivious of the historical antecedents Trump draws on that ought to be setting off alarm bells and sirens.  Yes, one needs to address daily obligations and responsibilities, but as citizens all of have a responsibility to educate ourselves - or at least pay some measure of attention to - and work to uphold democracy and oppose efforts to demonize and dehumanize large swaths of the population.  The MAGA movement is defined by hatred of others and grievances whether real or imagined and Trump continues to make it clear that he wants to burn down democracy and set himself up as a Hitler style dictator.  Despite this, the current crop of Republican presidential candidates remain silent and fail to condemn him.  A piece in Salon looks at the growing signs of danger that too many are ignoring.  Here are highlights:

Donald Trump’s hate sermons are becoming even more intense and combustible. As he comes ever closer to openly quoting Adolf Hitler and the other 20th-century fascists, his behavior is clearly intentional and strategic.

Trump publicly admires and praises tyrants and demagogues and views them as role models. If he returns to power in 2025, he intends to create an American Fourth Reich. Consider Trump's speeches, interviews and social media posts over the last few weeks.

At a rally in Hialeah, Florida, last Wednesday, Trump painted a picture of a hellish (predominantly white) America overrun by serial killers and other human monsters from foreign (and predominantly nonwhite) countries, insisting that only he could save (white) America from the death and contamination caused by Democrats and “the left.”

The Atlantic’s John Hendrickson continues from there: . . . . This was a dystopian, at times gothic speech. It droned on for nearly 90 minutes. Trump attacked the “liars and leeches” who have been “sucking the life and blood” out of the country. Those unnamed people were similar to, yet different from, the “rotten, corrupt, and tyrannical establishment” of Washington, D.C. — a place Trump famously despises, and to which he nonetheless longs to return.

Over the past seven or years or s, I have watched many of Trump’s speeches. This was one of the most frightening and most disturbing I have seen. It was fascinating in much the same way as witnessing the aftermath of a horrible car accident or watching a horror movie.

On Friday, in an interview with Univision, Trump threatened to use the Department of Justice to put his political enemies in prison: “They have done something that allows the next party … if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.” Trump also defended his regime’s cruel family separation policy (and by implication concentration camp system) that targeted millions of brown and Black migrants and refugees.  

These white supremacist plans are part of a larger project to revoke birthright citizenship, invoke the Alien Enemies Act to imprison or deport (or worse) the Trump regime’s perceived enemies, and using the law more generally as a weapon to crush dissent and resistance.

Last weekend, on Veterans Day, Trump escalated his Nazi-style threats by declaring that his political enemies to be "vermin" or human poison to be purged from the system. That came at a MAGA rally in New Hampshire and also in a post on his Truth Social platform . . .

At a fundraising event in San Francisco last Tuesday, President Biden spoke out against Trump’s antisemitism and white supremacy: “In just the last few days, Trump has said, if he returns office, he’s gonna go after all those who oppose him and wipe out what he called ... the vermin in America — a specific phrase with a specific meaning…. It echoes language you heard in Nazi Germany in the '30s.”

Declaring that the enemies of the regime and the Great Leader are mentally ill and then imprisoning them for "treatment" is a common practice in authoritarian states.

Predictably, the mainstream news media and responsible political class responded with performative shock and surprise at Trump’s week-long channeling of Hitler and Nazism. In fact, Trump’s hateful behavior and language are no surprise.

For at least the last seven years (and for decades before that), Trump has shown himself to be a casual antisemite. He reportedly once slept with a copy of Hitler’s speeches in a cabinet next to his bed. It is no coincidence that professed Nazis, white supremacists and other hate-mongers are among Trump’s strongest supporters, or that he refuses to publicly disavow or condemn them.

It appears that the American news media and political class, and by implication the mass public, have already forgotten that since at least September Trump has publicly spread conspiracy theories about being “stabbed in the back,” suggesting that the country is being “poisoned” by immigrants and that “good Jews” should support him while “bad Jews” will be punished for their “betrayals.”

But the mainstream media is bored with Trump's rhetoric and has now largely moved on. That irresponsible choice further normalizes Trump’s evil and the larger neofascist assault on the country’s democracy and civil society.

It is nearly incredible that the presumed nominee of one of the country’s two institutional political parties is explicitly channeling Hitler and the Nazis. That should be dominating the news. Trump's Fourth Reich aspirations constitute a national emergency. But America is an unhealthy society where all this will likely be normalized as just "culture war" tactics or political "polarization."

If Donald Trump's American neofascist movement did not have tens of millions of followers, it would not pose an existential threat to democracy. History is full of examples of “good people” who become capable of doing horrible things to others once they are given permission and encouraged by fascist leaders, fake populists and demagogues.

Trump’s Fourth Reich will not be an exact copy of its German counterpart from nearly a century ago. Instead, Trump’s Fourth Reich (or that of his successors) will be adapted to fit contemporary America’s cultural norms, values and institutions. The final horror is still evolving, but the threat and dangers are very clear. The American people are running out of time.