For quite a while now, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has drawn comparisons to Adolph Hitler. This site and many other news outlets have written about the similarities between the rise of the Nazi Party and the rise of Donald Trump.
Trump’s appeal to the most dangerous fringe elements of American society can been seen in the support he has received from neo-Nazi and White Supremacist groups.
Of course, comparing a politician to Hitler is an easy and sometimes glib move. Too many have compared Obama to the terrible German dictator of the 1930’s.
This time, though, the similarities are impossible to ignore and incredibly important to point out.
At a recent Trump rally in Cleveland, audience members shouted the word “LugenPresse!” They grinned at each other, high fived, practiced their prononciation.
“Lugenpresse!”
The word is German. It means, “the lying press.”
#Trump supporters yelled "Lugenpresse" at journalists. "Lying press" is the term Hitler used to discredit press in Nazi Germany. https://t.co/yuEEnJExJt
— ArianaGic/Аріянॳць (@GicAriana) October 23, 2016
It echoes exactly what Donald Trump has said to his followers at nearly every rally. He is on record as calling the press “dishonest,” “sleazy,” and “some of the worst people I’ve ever met.”
Attendees routinely boo and scream at the media, who Trump confines to a single roped off area at the back of every rally. Trump encourages people to mock the “dishonest scum” from the press.
Now we hear that his rabid hordes are using the word LugenPresse at his rallies. A word that was used by the Nazi’s to incite disrespect and distrust of the media during the rise of Adolph Hitler.
Hitler used the word to discredit critics from the press who called him out for his hateful and violent rhetoric during the rise of the Nazi Party. His followers picked it up and it became a part of the narrative of the 1930’s.
Hitler blamed a group of “outsiders” for the problems faced by average Germans. He promised to get them out of Germany.
Sound familiar?
The media published reports saying that his ideas were dangerous and immoral. They questioned his mental health.
Does THAT sound familiar, perhaps?
Hitler’s response was to demonize the press. To call them liars. To refer to them as the “LugenPresse.”
Sometimes comparisons to Hitler are ridiculous.
Sometimes they are the truth, just staring us in the face. In the current case, the similarities are too clear to misread and too dangerous to ignore.
This is where it all started. With the candidate. Watch.
Featured image via WikiMedia Commons.
