Today I was challenged on social media about comparing Trump to Hitler--the individual felt that it was not a good analogy, yet over the past four years, I do believe Trump has demonstrated dangerous, inhumane behaviors, the kind of behaviors that we associate with Hiter's evil torture and murder of so many innocent people.
Racist, prejudiced language
Day after day throughout his presidency, President Trump has subtly and overtly, ridiculted people for their looks, religious/cultural affiliations, geography, actions and race. His hateful rhetoric has inspired, in part, people to act with violence and threats against others. In El Paso, Texas, a vulnerable young man, massacred a large number of individuals, in part, because of Trump's words. The same happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin and in Charlottesville too. Trump's words have a lot of power and might since he is President of the United States, and when he uses words to inspire prejudice, hate, and harm--some people follow those words. That births death and destruction and that is how Hitler's carnage began.
Acts against humanity
At the border, the Trump team mistreated poor immigrants including their young children. They spoke harshly against these immigrants, put them in cages, and separated children from their parents. Rather than seek humane ways to deal with this situation, they resorted to these inhumane ways, which in some cases resulted in undue deaths and long term family separations. I know it is a complex issue, but I believe that what his team did in this situation was Hiter-like. They had a chance to change this situation, and they didn't do enough.
Time and again, Trump has had the chance to work for greater unity, respect, and nonviolence in our country, and time and again he has spoken out, acted, or stayed dangerously passive in ways that exasperated hate, prejudice, and harm amongst people--this is how Hitler's life-ending, violent rampage began, and if not stopped, we know this can continue and become worse.
The more people realize that that this prejudice and violence takes root, the more they speak up about it--the chants for change echo. If we don't speak up and name behavior like Trump's Hiter-like, that behavior may become far more prevalent and far more dangerous. For example, right now, Trump has an order he would like to forward that allows him to fire public workers who he disagrees with without any respectful course of action--this too is Hitler-like.
Hitler-like?
After a brief review of this topic, I do think that Trump demonstrates Hitler-like ideas, actions, and words. His activity has led to grave violence and human rights violations, and could get worse if not stopped. Hitler's autrocities viciously ended so many innocent, good lives--we don't want that to happen again, and must work as well as we can to name this kind of behavior early on and work against it.