Donald Trump parrots Adolf Hitler's rhetoric, but that's NOT the problem

Some years back, during a family vacation to Italy, we stopped for a visit at the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial, an immaculately kept 70-acre site with row upon row of white crosses on a sloping hillside marking the graves of 4,392 Americans killed in action around Rome during World War II.

Also there are monuments called the Tablets of the Missing upon which are listed the names of 1,409 Americans.

I thought of that beautiful, mournful place this week when Donald Trump littered a speech and online remarks with the vile rhetoric of Adolf Hitler.

Particularly since those who blindly follow Trump seem, unbelievably, to be OK with it.

Trump spewed venom on Veterans Day

If a Democratic politician these days were to mimic the New Deal rhetoric of World War II President Franklin D. Roosevelt, MAGA loyalists in places like Arizona — Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, for example — would probably lose their minds with outrage.

Right-wing media would provide endless, 24/7 coverage. Online platforms would explode with rage and Trump himself would no doubt spend hours on a mind-numbing rant at one of his campaign lovefests.

But Trump spits the poisonous venom of Hitler — Hitler — and members of the cult of Dear Leader are … silent.

Of all days, Trump chose Veterans Day to spew der Führer’s filth, referring to his perceived enemies as “vermin,” among other things.

He said in part, “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections. They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.”

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Exactly what does “root out” mean? Arrest? Imprison? Kill?

He also said that “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us.”

Many, many people have pointed out the correlation between Trump’s language and what was said during the dark days of the Third Reich.

It is not a stretch. The words are the words.

President Joe Biden commented on it, saying, “Trump also recently talked about blood of America has been poisoned. The blood in America has been poisoned. Again, echoes the same phrases used in Nazi Germany.”

Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney pointed out the lack of moral outrage being expressed by Republicans, specifically saying that when Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel “refuses to condemn the GOP’s leading candidate for using the same Nazi propaganda that mobilized 1930s-40s Germany to evil, it’s fair to assume she’s collaborating.”

Hitler called people 'vermin'

Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, said of Trump’s comments, “The language is the language that dictators use to instill fear. When you dehumanize an opponent, you strip them of their constitutional rights to participate securely in a democracy because you’re saying they’re not human. That’s what dictators do.”

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Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, said in an email to The Washington Post that “calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”

She added, “Trump is also using projection: note that he mentions all kinds of authoritarians ‘communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left’ to set himself up as the deliverer of freedom. Mussolini promised freedom to his people too and then declared dictatorship.”

Thousands died fighting this scourge

My father served in the army during World War II. He spent most of that time in Europe.

According to the American Battle Monuments Commission there are 13 American cemeteries in Europe, honoring soldiers who died trying to free the continent of Hitler’s scourge.

They are found in France, Belgium, Italy, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Nearly 90,000 Americans are buried there, with about 16,000 memorialized as missing.

I’d guess there isn’t an American family that does not have some connection to those who served, and those who were lost, during World War II.

Growing up within the safe confines of that generation’s sacrifice, I could not imagine an American politician ever, even vaguely, using Hitler as a speechifying role model.

Until now.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump parrots Hitler's rhetoric, but that's not the problem