An essay by a longtime confidant and operative of Bill and Hillary Clinton compared former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric during his 2024 campaign to Nazi-era language echoing Hitler’s belief in racial hierarchy and purity.
A Monday piece published by The Guardian, titled “Donald Trump’s Hitlerian logic is no mistake,” draws parallels between Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric and the ideology of Nazi Germany.
The article, authored by Sidney Blumenthal, who served as senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton and is known for his underhanded political tactics, attacked Trump’s terminology when discussing immigration and national security, comparing it to language used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to promote racial purity and exclusionary policies during the Third Reich:
Trump, like Hitler, appears to classify people and countries by “blood” on a scale of their innate racial characteristics. Those features define the essence of nations, which are themselves delineated on a racial pyramid, with the purest and whitest, the most Aryan, at the pinnacle.
Blumenthal’s analysis highlighted remarks Trump made earlier this year in which he warned that America’s “blood” was being “poisoned” by immigrants from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, a narrative the article claims mirrors the Nazi concept of “Blut und Boden” (blood and soil).
“The historical lineage of poisonous ideas, rather than ‘poison in the blood,’ explains Trump’s doctrine of a master race, whether Trump is aware or not of the origins of his venom,” he writes, adding that “Trump has Hitler on the brain in unknowable ways until he lets his admiration seep out.”
Calling Trump’s terminology “the core of Hitler’s race doctrine,” the author insists “Hitler, too, believed it explained the rise and fall of civilizations.”
Claiming that “White supremacists, neo-fascists and neo-Nazis attach themselves to Trump,” the piece suggests that Trump “designates his blood as superior and the blood of those he chooses to demonize as inferior.”
According to Blumenthal, “Trump’s replacement theory” is rooted in the nativist ideas of eugenicist Madison Grant, whose 1916 book The Passing of the Great Race was later praised by Hitler as his “Bible.”
Furthermore, when the former president discusses immigration, crime, or the country’s decline, Blumenthal argues, he is ultimately referring to race and invoking that theory:
When Trump says immigration, he means race. When he says crime, he means race. When he says communism, socialism, or Democrat, he means race. When he says America is declining, he means race. When he says “American First”, he means race. When he says blood, he means race. When he says poison, he means race. When he says race, he means Black people. When he says race, he means Hispanics. When he says race, he means Muslims. And when he says race, he means other white people, too, some less white, less pure, less clean, less acceptable depending on their ancestral origin, than others. When he says race, he means the replacement theory.
The author also highlights the often repeated claim that Trump once called neo-Nazis in Charlottesville “very fine people,” a statement widely debunked as Trump explicitly condemned neo-Nazis and referred to peaceful protesters on both sides of the statue debate.
Comparisons to fascism and Nazism have been a frequent tactic used by Trump’s opponents, particularly in response to his immigration policies. Many, including Trump himself, argue that such rhetoric has contributed to an environment that has since led to two assassination attempts.
Last month, a left-wing Salon piece compared Trump’s immigration plans and rhetoric to Hitler’s, warning that the former president “plans to turn America into a type of Fourth Reich,” targeting immigrants and minorities with “white supremacy” and “racism.”
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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