Even though you can’t compare Trump to Hitler on every single point, there are some revealing points of comparison. To say they are NOTHING alike and shut down the discussion is one of those things about this board that I commented on elsewhere:
No, Trump is not an “orator” as such, like Hitler, but crowds today do not respond to oratory as they did in the early part of the 20th century. People today don’t have the attention span to sit through a three-hour speech. However, Trump certainly has proved that he can rally crowds. And that the crowds believe his lies. He’s a bully and a “strong man” like Hitler and weak, stupid, uneducated people respond to that. (So do smart, educated people who want to use his agenda for their own purposes.) And he has an advantage over Hitler with a channel Hitler would have *killed *(as it were) to have: Twitter. This instantly reaches millions of people with sound bites that satisfy with flavor and no real content (just as any bite of a snack does) and don’t require (and in fact, discourage) critical thought. He’s feeding the crowds pablum and mental anesthesia and they are eating it up happily, like crack babies.
I think the following is a very smart reply:
Things that Trump did only a few months ago are now taken in stride as “business as usual.” The heat is being turned up under the pot of water and sadly, we’re getting used to it. How far will Trump go, and how far will Ryan, McConnell, et al., let him go? A year ago we would never have believed it would go this far.
I think it’s appropriate to keep making the comparisons to Hitler and to be very, very worried.