# Why Hitler “succeeded” and Trump has already failed **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [June 12, 2025, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533 "2025-06-12T17:24:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/61 "2025-06-12T22:50:07Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > One thing the OP seems to have left out is that Germany in the 30s was reeling from the aftermath of WWI. Would #7 be that Hitler fought in WWI, while the other guy bought a bone spurs certificate? ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/62 "2025-06-12T22:52:29Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > The Christian right is one of the biggest problems this country faces, and their toxicity will not end with Trump. The fight against them will be decades long. PRRI poll says that 10% of Americans call themselves Christian Nationalists, but another 20% are sympathizers. Two thirds of Americans do not so identify. Still, that’s a lot of people. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/63 "2025-06-12T22:55:51Z")
We’re going to find out in the next day or two whether Trump succeeded. If he faces real, meaningful consequences for having a Senator handcuffed and dragged away, then he hasn’t succeeded. If he doesn’t, then he has. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/64 "2025-06-12T23:00:24Z")
I wish it was true that Trump has failed in his terms but do not see it. Yes he has weaknesses as identified in the OP. One strength Trump has is that he is able to gain true loyalty from political figures who previously criticized him in an extremely insulting manner. Hitler wasn’t a zero in that area, but Trump is better. Trump quickly backs down when a bold move doesn’t work well, as seen with tariffs. And then he comes back with something more politically palatable. That’s why his [approval polling has risen since April lows](https://polls.decisiondeskhq.com/averages/presidential-approval/donald-trump-150479/national/lv-rv-adults). Trump expansionism only targets weak powers. No Stalingrad for him. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/65 "2025-06-12T23:03:04Z")
How about one had Internet, one didn’t? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/66 "2025-06-12T23:06:54Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > We’re going to find out in the next day or two whether Trump succeeded. If he faces real, meaningful consequences for having a Senator handcuffed and dragged away, then he hasn’t succeeded. If he doesn’t, then he has. What does “succeeded” mean here? Trump has indeed succeeded in getting away with a lot of shit in his life, and if he succeeds in evading consequences in this instance, then he will have succeeded again to that degree. Would that help his chances of taking total power? I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/67 "2025-06-12T23:11:54Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > I wish it was true that Trump has failed in his terms but do not see it. He has as yet failed to take total power and will, in my opinion, continue to fail. He has certainly succeeded in doing a lot of the shit he’s wanted to do. > [@](#): > > One strength Trump has is that he is able to gain true loyalty from political figures who previously criticized him in an extremely insulting manner. Hitler wasn’t a zero in that area, but Trump is better. Trump is indeed very good at that (corollary: Republicans are very good at being spineless traitors to their country). I’m not sure the comparison with Hitler is all that pertinent, however: after the Night of Long Knives, Hitler didn’t have too many people left who needed convincing. > [@](#): > > Trump quickly backs down when a bold move doesn’t work well, as seen with tariffs. And then he comes back with something more politically palatable. That’s why his [approval polling has risen since April lows](https://polls.decisiondeskhq.com/averages/presidential-approval/donald-trump-150479/national/lv-rv-adults). True. And now he’s backing down on his immigration crackdown. This, however, is more evidence that he doesn’t have what it takes to obtain total power (if that was his intention in the first place). > [@](#): > > Trump expansionism only targets weak powers. No Stalingrad for him. Indeed. And no takeover of Greenland or Canada either. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/68 "2025-06-12T23:36:37Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I actually think a GOP implosion would be a good thing. 100%. We must let the chips fall where they may. We CANNOT risk this again. Let the MAGA’s run amok and see how well that works out for them. They can educate themselves or crawl back under their rocks. Don’t really care. Rip the band-aid off. Sadly, we will need more guardrails. Not that I know what the hell the might be. Congress for one needs to be held accountable for doing their damn job in getting rid of a wanna be dictator. The other reason Trump wants power (besides bullying people) is to stay out of prison. He should have been impeached of course a couple of times, and the senate should have held him accountable. It’s inexcusable that the republican senators looked the other way. I do not want to associate with people that ignore their responsibilities. That needs cleaned up as well, if not first. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/69 "2025-06-12T23:40:05Z")
Yeah, Trump has shown everyone what happens when a lawless president sets out to hack government for his own benefit and amusement. I see the need for about ten different constitutional amendments, but we’ve talked about this kind of thing in other threads. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/70 "2025-06-12T23:45:07Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I also saw her go from living by herself but falling a bit at the end of 2022 to being in “independent living” in May 2023 to being dead in February 2024 at the age of almost-but-not-quite-82. So not even a year and a half. My point, which might not have been clear, was that my mother was showing significant symptoms for five years or more before she died; although she wasn’t officially diagnosed until a few months before the end. Those symptoms were denied by doctors – who had no ulterior reasons for doing so – until the last few months; and by some of them during those last few months. I believe that even from a distance over video I’m seeing symptoms of dementia in Trump – but that doesn’t mean he’ll be dead in a year and a half, or in four years and a half; or even that people who do have lots of ulterior motives for doing so won’t manage to keep denying that he’s ill at all. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2025, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/71 "2025-06-12T23:51:56Z")
Your point was very clear and I understood it, but my response to it elided a bunch of stuff that should have been in there. Something like this: “I get what you’re saying, and that makes sense. Sorry you had such a tough time with your mother. I had my own thing to go through. And, as a separate but related point, at my mother’s age when she started having problems, which was pretty close to Trump’s age now, someone can go downhill very quickly.” So, apologies for that! ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/72 "2025-06-13T01:12:39Z")
I’m sorry about your mother also! and that I didn’t say so at first. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/73 "2025-06-13T01:19:24Z")
Not a problem at all! ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/74 "2025-06-13T01:27:13Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Sadly, we will need more guardrails. Not that I know what the hell the might be. Congress for one needs to be held accountable for doing their damn job in getting rid of a wanna be dictator. The GOP _wants_ dictators. Rules for thee, not for me. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/75 "2025-06-13T02:34:39Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > What does “succeeded” mean here? Trump has indeed succeeded in getting away with a lot of shit in his life, and if he succeeds in evading consequences in this instance, then he will have succeeded again to that degree. If he can drag off one senator in handcuffs without consequence, then he can do the same for another. Or all of them. And a man who can drag off his country’s entire legislature in handcuffs without consequence isn’t working on becoming a dictator; he already is one. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/76 "2025-06-13T04:10:59Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I believe that even from a distance over video I’m seeing symptoms of dementia in Trump – but that doesn’t mean he’ll be dead in a year and a half, or in four years and a half; or even that people who do have lots of ulterior motives for doing so won’t manage to keep denying that he’s ill at all. Yeah. Given his usefulness as a focus for his cult, he could be reduced to outright incapacity and they’d just look at that as a convenient excuse to keep him officially in charge while “interpreting” his mumbles to mean whatever they want. Most of the people around him would probably _prefer_ him as a passive figurehead. Heck, if they thought it would work they’d probably try to pull a _“Weekend at Bernie’s”_ after he died and keep his corpse around for the benefit of his cult, pretending it was in charge. A thousand years ago they’d have just mummified his body, stuck it on a throne and priests would have interpreted various “messages from the spirit of the King.” ---
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/77 "2025-06-13T06:06:46Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > … the economy just doesn’t work very well for people any more, and we don’t know how to fix that. In my opinion, it’s more like we know how to fix things, but we, collectively, don’t like the answers. It’s pretty clear that the hyper individualistic approach to economics and social issues (for they are too intertwined to address separately) has run its course. A successful modern economy, even one which wishes to isolate itself, needs a well educated and healthy population, with excellent infrastructure. Physical infrastructure and institutional infrastructure. All of this needs communal solutions, and even the most individualistic and inegalitarian societies do make some token effort to act communally. (Or at least they did, up until one particular powerful nation carelessly elected a deranged sociopath into its most powerful office with a mandate to destroy all public goods. There are many threads here about that). At a global level, none of this might matter. We are in a climate catastrophe, albeit in the lull before our past actions have come back to bite us, but horrific consequences are now baked in. We might have a few years to mitigate the worst. How well we do mitigate this depends on how well we can act communally on a global scale. The interesting question is therefore how well (and how quickly) literally everyone on earth can become “communalist”, and how quickly this translates into communalist governments cooperating together to apply communalist solutions. We live in interesting times, and we will meet interesting people. TL;DR the future is (and will be) socialist, whether you like it or not. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/78 "2025-06-13T06:14:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If he can drag off one senator in handcuffs without consequence, then he can do the same for another. Or all of them. And a man who can drag off his country’s entire legislature in handcuffs without consequence isn’t working on becoming a dictator; he already is one This is what I came here to say. If you think Hitler had more power you haven’t been paying attention. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/79 "2025-06-13T09:48:25Z")
> [@Sandwich](#): > > The interesting question is therefore how well (and how quickly) literally everyone on earth can become “communalist”, and how quickly this translates into communalist governments cooperating together to apply communalist solutions. We live in interesting times, and we will meet interesting people. 100%. “Communalism” is a word that has been going through my head lately. “Syndicalism” as well, though I don’t think classical syndicalism is the way (there might be some ideas there). I think the issue is that we don’t really know how to execute on that yet (i.e., best practices are unknown). The “communist” countries were state capitalism at best, genocidal dictatorships at worst. Nor is there a modern democratic-socialist country that can balance the books yet. Meanwhile, the cultural and aesthetic weight of “capitalism” will cause people to oppose anything new for generations (viz, Trumpism and the global rightwing backlash). We have a long road ahead of us, we humans! ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533/80 "2025-06-13T09:49:12Z")
So you’re suggesting that Trump has more power now than Hitler did at his peak? I would be very curious to see the justification for such a statement! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hitler-succeeded-and-trump-has-already-failed/1019533.md?page=5)