Jane Fonda: Trump-Era has ‘Parallels’ to ‘Hitler and the Third Reich’

Actress and left-wing activist Jane Fonda on Thursday compared President Donald Trump’s passionate defense against false reportage by the establishment media to Adolf Hitler’s attacks on the German press.

“It has never been more important. Our democracy is fragile and it’s under attack. Civility is under attack,” Fonda said in an interview with Variety on Thursday while attending the Women’s Media Center Awards in New York City. “We don’t have to take it anymore. Voting is the way to stop it. Everybody has to vote and I think they will.”

Turning her attention to the president, the Academy Award-winning actress lambasted Trump for fighting back against bias media coverage, saying “If you have read anything about the rise of the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler you will see the parallels.”

“Attacking the media is the first step and move toward fascism,” she continued. “The cornerstone of democracy is an independent, democratic media. And it’s under attack in a major way because bad guys are running it all. We have to make sure it doesn’t continue.”

President Trump has long assailed much of the media for propagating “fake news” about him and his administration, frequently referring to some media outlets as the “enemy of the people.”

During a Wednesday campaign rally in Fort Myers, Florida, President Trump lambasted the media for blaming him and his supporters for the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, where 11 Jewish worshipers were killed. “After this day of unity and togetherness, I came home and, sadly, turned on the news and watched as the far-left media once again used tragedy to sow anger and division,” the president said. “Sadly, they took a small group of protesters far away from where we were. We could not have been treated better, the first lady and myself.”

Fonda, among Hollywood’s most outspoken critics of the administration, told film festival-goers in France last week that it’s “hard for me to breathe’ in President Trump’s America. “The elections on Nov. 6 are the most important elections of my lifetime. So much depends on what happens,” Fonda told the crowd, The Hollywood Reporter reported. “It’s hard for me to breathe right now,” she added.

The Barbarella star in September urged American to “shut down the country” if President Trump fires special counsel Robert Mueller.

“People always say, ‘Was it worse in the ’60s and ’70s?’ It was not! This is the worst! This is an existential crisis,” Fonda said. “And if we don’t do what needs to be done–in terms of making our voices heard, and our votes heard–that’s it! We don’t have time.”