Performative Hitlering

How Trump is grinding down his enemies who have wasted their "Hitler!" on him

I am old enough to remember when Hitler was truly evil. Maybe because he was actually evil, which we were taught in school, and especially in Jewish education. So using “Hitler” as some comparison to whatever was going on in the world was generally discouraged. There was even a rule about online discussions, called Godwin’s Law, that posited the longer a particular thread or argument continues online, the higher the probability it will end in a comparison to the Holocaust or Hitler. When that point was reached, the argument was essentially over, leaving nowhere else to go. As a society, I will argue that American politics has reached Godwin’s Law’s unity point: we’ve achieved peak performative Hitlering.

This image shows the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The event, organized by the German American Bund, was billed as a pro-”Americanism” rally and took place two days before George Washington’s birthday.

The running sewer of social media’s X runs deep with Hitler. Trumpian podcaster Tim Pool posted “They called Trump Hitler then claimed DeSantis was worse then walked it back when Trump won and now claim JD Vance is worse,” in response to “Chief Nerd”’s post of Jen Psaki saying Vice President J.D. Vance is “scarier” than President Donald Trump. This stuff is never-ending. Then again, in the real world, Vance is in many ways a more straightforward vision of what someone whose nose is anatomically attached to Trump’s rump, and what can result when a smart liar achieves the “heartbeat away” role, which is, to many Democrats, scarier than Trump himself. As Jonah Goldberg notes, Trump is a “bullsh*tter” while Vance is merely a liar in the long tradition of Bill Clinton and his ilk, and Vance is not nearly as accomplished a liar as the maestro, Clinton. But we know that the halo of reality distortion rarely passes from the president to the vice president, which makes Vance only a minor Hitler, in the universe of Hitlers.

Popular podcasters like Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson (among others—it’s a popular topic) regularly invoke Hitler, but in an almost awestruck way, bringing guests who “merely ask questions” about the Third Reich and its “purported” crimes, while lessening the evil of the Nazi Party’s leader. To clear the air, Hitler wrote a near-unreadable anti-Jew screed, forced the book on the public once he attained political power, misused the organs of the state to stay in power and consolidate his hold on Germany, purged the military of those who did not pledge personal fealty to him, made a treaty with the Soviet Union, knowing he was about to break it, conquered Czechoslovakia, attacked Poland, and assaulted the Western European powers. And that’s the least of his perfidy.

Hitler also ordered the state to buy copies of his book “Mein Kampf,” and give a copy to each newlywed couple. He kept the royalties from these book “sales.” Hitler famously promised to donate his salary to charity, while writing off his personal tax debts to the state. In 1934, without fanfare or announcement, Hitler had the government reinstate his salary and fringe benefits. Between his book royalties and other state enhancement to his wealth, he was earning over 2 million marks each year, while the average German worker earned around 1,200 marks. Hitler ordered the Postal Ministry to use his image on postage stamps, and collected 50 million marks for the rights to use it. Industrialists paid him upwards of 100 million marks for to earn his good favor.

While Germans were preparing for war, Hitler amassed a fortune. Yet we are surprised when Democrats defend Graham Platner, who is running against Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (who has had the seat for three decades), because Platner has a rather conspicuous “tottenkopf” tattoo on his chest; that’s the skull and crossbones used by the Nazi S.S. troops. In August, the New York Times ran a hagiographic piece about Platner, who seems to have emerged out of the progressive dream central casting to capture the “working class manly man” vote.

A competitive pistol shooter who worked as a bartender at the Tune Inn on Capitol Hill while attending George Washington University on the G.I. Bill, he said that “everyone knows we live in a system that is not built to represent working-class people.”

Yeah. People who get Nazi tattoos then try to cover them up, before claiming they didn’t know it was a Nazi tattoo: that’s the voter pool Platner seems to be going after. Then again, Tucker Carlson lives and podcasts from Maine. I’m sure if Platner decided to switch parties and run as a Republican, he could get Carlson’s endorsement, just on the basis of the tattoo.

For years, going back to Rush Limbaugh, conservative pundits and on-air talk masters have pounded Democrats for calling literally every Republican president since Gerald Ford, “Hitler.” They’ve cheapened the word to the point where even Mitt Romney earned Hitler posters in California in 2012. Now, I am sure many of those who threw Nazi comparisons around are regretting not keeping their Hitler powder dry.

Or not, because they would rather defend Virginia’s Democrats Attorney General candidate Jay Jones for twice texting a colleague regarding House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert.

Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot. Spoiler: Put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.

Though Jones apologized, from context and reports, it’s arguable that he meant what he texted at the time. Republicans aren’t just Hitler, they are worse than Hitler. These comparisons are not only not helpful, they are also potentially deadly. When James Hodgkinson went to the Congressional baseball practice in 2017, he had a list of Republicans with him, and then he began shooting. Death threats and assassination attempts have been made against Trump, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and others due to political hate.

There’s a lot Hitler and the Nazis did to make Germans happy (except the Jews) before World War II ended their reich. Germany’s economy was rebuilt. Some level of industrialization began. Of course, Germany’s industry was nothing (nothing!) compared to the United States of America, which they found out when we entered the war. But Germans were happy. Until they got clobbered, that is.

There’s plenty of American Hitler comparisons to throw around, and we don’t even need to say how national socialist policies will help America, or achieve the gauzy greatness we had during and after World War II. Both parties would love to dictate our economy and industrial policies, take credit for good markets and blame the bad ones on their political opponents. They’ll praise their own Hitlers while calling the other guy’s Hitlers evil. The name itself has lost its consequence, except to be hurled as an online epithet. You know, there was a real Hitler, and he really did evil things.

With all the Hitlering going on, you’d think Democrats would do more than just defend their own Hitler-lovers and fling Hitlerisms toward Republicans. But they are just fine in the Senate keeping the government shut down. Congressional Democratic leaders asked for a meeting with Trump, but he said he wouldn’t meet until they ended the shutdown. Meanwhile, Trump is building his ballroom, which will be named in his own honor. Trump said he would build it on White House grounds, and existing buildings would not be affected. Then he said they’ve to demolish part of the East Wing, but didn’t need approval from the National Capital Planning Commission because they were merely doing “site prep” and demolition. Now, well, the entire East Wing is coming down, and eventually, plans will be given to the NCPC.

Channeling Hillary Clinton, what difference, at this point, does it make? By the end of the week, the East Wing, which was built in 1905, will be no more. In its place will rise a thousand-person capacity ballroom, with better security and features to hold gilded galas on the White House grounds. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Trump promised no public funds would be used for the project, which will cost between $230 million and $250 million. He got donors to pledge money for it. Then he went to the Department of Justice and demanded payment of $230 million for the investigations conducted against him before this 47th presidential term in office. Will Trump use the $230 million from DOJ to pay for the ballroom? Maybe (meaning of course he will). Money is fungible in any case—$1 in your pocket is $1 to spend on whatever you want.

Oh, and yes, in case you wondered, the $230 million from DOJ is taxpayer money, which will not be…whatever.

As much as many people hate Trump—Rick Wilson posted on X “I hate him with the fire of a billions suns” over an image of the East Wing demolition—making changes to the White House is a longstanding tradition for presidents. The editors of National Review vigorously defended Trump’s project.

As a general matter, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a president making changes to the White House. Nor, for that matter, is there anything sinister about his approving complicated construction projects that involve the temporary removal of one of its walls.

Oh. Maybe they’ll reconsider, since it’s not just a wall and neither is it temporary. I’ll leave it up to the reader if it’s “sinister.” It’s a ballroom. Then again, if Trump names it after himself and then bills the government for using his name, I think we can see where he got the idea.

But we’ve wasted all our performative Hitlering on other things, haven’t we?

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