The MAGA principle tested: Trump grows "more and more radical with each passing day"

With the passage of the Enabling Law (March 23, 1933), the German parliament (Reichstag) transferred legislative power to Hitler's cabinet and thus lost its reason for being. By mid-July, the Nazi Party was the only political party left in Germany. The other parties had been either outlawed by the government or had dissolved themselves under pressure. The Reichstag became a rubber stamp for Hitler's dictatorship.

The Führer's will became the foundation for all legislation. Indeed, with the establishment of Hitler's dictatorship, the Führer principle (Führerprinzip) came to guide all facets of German life. According to this principle, authority—in government, the party, economy, family, and so on—flowed downward and was to be obeyed unquestioningly.

Upon Hindenburg's death in August 1934, Hitler had himself designated as both Führer and Reich Chancellor. Armed forces personnel swore an oath of loyalty to him in this function. While as Reich Chancellor Hitler's personal power remained limited by the laws of the German state, as Führer his personal power was unlimited and his will was equated with the destiny of the German nation.

There. He came out and said it. “I alone,” averred Donald Trump in his speech Thursday night accepting the Republican nomination for president, can save America, save the world, save you.

Rarely in modern political memory has a candidate so personalized a candidacy. Certainly, no other U.S. political figure comes to mind who dared make such an exclusive claim on truth and light.  A savior complex may have befallen some of them, but who was bold enough to voice it so plainly as Trump?

That does not mean there is no historical precedent for campaigning — and ruling — on a platform of messianic certainty, though. One man who did it was Adolf Hitler….

But to any serious student of Hitler’s frightening and unforeseen rise to power in Germany, the recurring echoes in Trump’s speeches, interviews and his underlying thinking have become too blatant to overlook….

Hitler was building the case for the “Führer principle” — a belief in the iron infallibility of the leader. It was an elaborate, historically wrought version of the “I alone” principle. With it, Hitler eventually won power in Germany and governed as an absolute despot.

Trump’s analog is: “Trust me.” Leading up to his “I alone” moment at last week’s convention was a long string of assertions by Trump that we just have to trust him — trust him to solve problems and implement even implausibly ambitious programs like rounding up 11 million undocumented immigrants. When challenged during the primaries for programs or plans on how he would carry out his extreme policy proposals, he habitually fell back on “trust me” or variations such as his “unbelievable ability” to “get things done.”

Trump’s been employing the language and imagery of Hitler to one degree or another since he took that trip down his golden escalator back in 2015 and described Mexicans in horribly racist terms. His endorsement of the George Soros/International Jew conspiracy theory inspired the deadliest mass killing of Jews in American history at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg in 2018 and a string of attempted pipe bombings of Soros and other “enemies.” His recent assertions that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America is pure racism that was common among radical nationalists, racists, and antisemites in both Germany and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century.

As with Hitler, these ideas are not in any way new. But what we’re seeing with Trump is that he is repeating them more and more frequently and the expressions are becoming more and more radical with each passing day. With more than half a year to go until the election—and considering the fact that his natural tendency is always and only in the direction of more extreme, more radical expressions—his resemblance to Hitler is only going to grow the closer we get. And that process is being helped along because of the way he reacts when the press brings up his most radical statements (to the limited extent that they actually do that). He doesn’t simply repeat his statements. He doubles (and even triples) down on them.

In 1934, Adolf Hitler’s acolyte Hermann Goering said, “We love Adolf Hitler because we believe, deeply and steadfastly, that he was sent to us by God to save Germany.” Such sentiments reverberated ninety years later, when “God Made Trump,” a three-minute MAGA Republican video-accolade went viral.

“And on June 14, 1946,” the script begins by invoking Donald Trump’s birthday, “God looked down on his planned paradise and said: ‘I need a caretaker.’ So, God gave us Trump.” From there, the narrative proceeds to depict Trump as an I-alone-can-do-it savior who will work tirelessly, day and night, to “fix this country.” Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist, would have loved the video and wished he could have made the prequel “God Made Hitler.”

Goebbels’s prequel would have emphasized that “God Made Hitler” to be the Führer (leader) of the German people. Accompanying that title, which officially became Hitler’s in August 1934, the Führerprinzip (leadership principle) underscored Hitler’s absolute authority and the duty of Germans to be unswervingly loyal and obedient to him. More than ready to join this cult of personality, Hitler’s followers enabled him to kill millions in World War II in Europe and to commit genocide against the Jewish people.

“God Made Trump” does not say that Trump admires Hitler. It does not say that he wants to be the American Führer. But Trump does say that Hitler did “good things.” He does imply that his version of the Führerprinzip will “make American great again.” The cult of personality that surrounds him stands ready to advance those aims. Its devotion and obedience to the twice-impeached and criminally-indicted ex-president could destroy American democracy.

The MAGA video does not say that “God Made Trump” so that he can “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country." Nor does the video say that “God Made Trump” to stop immigrants from “poisoning the blood of our country.” It didn’t have to. Trump mouths those Hitlerian tropes all the time. They define how cruel and violent this aspiring American Führer will be if he gets to put his Führerprinzip into practice.

I ran for president four years ago because I believed, and still do, that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was a stake, and that’s still the case.

America is an idea. An idea is stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant….

I’ve been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people. I hope you have some idea how grateful I am to all of you.

The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule. The people do.

History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith. Keep the faith and remember who we are. We’re the United States of America. And there is simply nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.

So let’s act together, preserve our democracy. God bless you all. And may God protect our troops. Thank you.