By P. Gunasegaram
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Pastor Martin Niemoller
A casual examination of Donald Trump’s tactics to bully the rest of the world, not just through tariffs, but the use of excessive force and unbridled power on smaller, helpless countries is alarming – very reminiscent of the tactics used by Nazi Adolf Hitler who pushed the world into war in 1939.
When the leader of the most powerful country in the world goes berserk, the rest of the world needs to act and push back against bullying and dominance as one. Otherwise boundaries are stretched and eventually broken. Conflict is the result.
Here are some things that Trump does which parallels that of Hitler 80-90 years ago:
1. He uses hate to get support
Hitler systematically whipped up public sentiments against Jews, eventually leading to the detention and extermination of millions of them. Trump is targeting immigrants, using racial profiling to detain them without reason, spreading terror and even death across states. He has deported immigrants against court orders. Reports say hundreds of thousands of immigrants have been deported already without their cases being heard.
2. He uses excessive force
Hitler used the dreaded Gestapo to arrest and detain Jews, sympathisers and opponents. Trump uses ICE, the feared Immigration and Customs enforcement agency. ICE agents have the power to stop, detain and arrest people they suspect of being in the US illegally. They can use deadly force “if the person poses a serious danger to them or other people, or the person has committed a violent crime”, one expert told the BBC.
ICE has already killed people and videos show that there was little or no justification for what they have done. Their methods are over the top – hundreds of South Korean workers rushing to build a plant were manacled and marched humiliatingly when they did not pose a danger to anyone.
The acts against especially non-white immigrants showed such operations to be rather fascist in nature, executed by people who have been deliberately told to use force to inject fear into immigrants and force them to go back – inhumane to say the least.
3. He uses enforcement agencies to move against opponents
Hitler used the secret police and others to build cases against his opponents. Those who oppose Trump’s policies and are doing their job such as Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, a black, are facing problems.
Trump sacked Cook alleging that she made false statements on her mortgage statement. She is challenging the sacking. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is investigating Fed chairman Jerome Powell. Trump has criticised Powell for not lowering interest rates quickly.
Both actions are unprecedented. These and other acts have injected fear into those who might want to oppose Trump, especially those in public services, other politicians, past presidents, leaders of big business and the like.
4. Trump uses his influence with the courts.
Hitler did too, infamously revamping courts and putting sympathetic judges in place who were prepared to mete out heavy sentences. Republican nominations currently dominate the Supreme Court. The BBC reports that Republican presidents appointed six of the nine justices, including three when Donald Trump was in the White House. The other three were selected by Democratic presidents. With this kind of power, Trumpian policies have sympathy in the highest court, a fact Trump uses to the hilt.
5. He is using big business to back him.
Hitler soon after he achieved total power, got big business to back him, promising them profits from rebuilding and war efforts. Trump is doing the same. It was reported that last September he “hosted an exceptionally high‑profile dinner at the White House, bringing together the chief executives (and founders) of the companies often called the “Magnificent 7” — Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Google/Alphabet, OpenAI, Oracle, and AMD — along with other tech and business leaders.” He tried to align his own interests with those of the tech industry and its leaders, some of them are Trump’s financial backers.
6. He is supporting genocide in Gaza.
Hitler committed what was the worst instance of genocide in moden times.While Trump has not committed genocide, his actions against immigrants and supporters are fascist. Telling is his open support of Israel which has been committing open genocide in Gaza, unchecked by the Western powers.
7. He is ignoring the United Nations
According to history, Adolf Hitler completely ignored and actively dismantled the authority of the League of Nations by withdrawing Germany from the organization, violating the Treaty of Versailles through secret then open rearmament. Trump shows utter contempt for the United Nations, the League’s successor post World War Two, paving the way for international lawlessness and the notion that might is right, a position uttered by both Trump and his top brass.
8. He is becoming autocratic
With such powers at his disposal, Trump is becoming dangerously autocratic just as Hitler was after he gained control of enforcement and the courts, the pincers that gave him the power to pretty much squeeze anyone. He did not go to Congress for approval when he attacked Venezuela, watching the illegal abduction of that country’s president and wife on TV monitors and gloating about it after it happened in a stark exhibition of unbridled power.
9. He attacked Venezuela, a sovereign nation
Hitler attacked Poland without provocation and so did Trump when he attacked Venezuela, pretending at first that it was because of drugs being trafficked into the US when it was commonly known that the country accounted for only a tiny proportion of the US drug trade. He then took the masks off and said Venezuela was required for US strategic interests. The rest of the world made mute, token protests. The West was silent – until Greenland. The West long ago did nothing when Poland was taken by force by Hitler.
10. He threatened to take Greenland by force.
And now the West was alarmed and reacted. Trump retracted his military action statement. Hitler threatened Poland and did take it but the West baulked at action at that time. Then Hitler attacked France and World War was the result. What would happen if Trump attacked Greenland? The end of NATO? A new world order? And new alliances? World War even?
Trump wanted power, and now he has it – loads of it. In the hands of an irresponsible person like Trump it is a dangerous weapon and its use and abuse can only be checked if the rest of the world collectively refuses to allow its exercise and rises as one to fight against it.
This is so just as much for the unilateral imposition of unreasonable tariffs with no negotiation whatsoever and for the unprovoked attack and control of Venezuela, the threatened annexation of Greenland and perhaps even Canada, and bombing defenceless countries elsewhere.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
P Gunasegaram says Trump is bad news.
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