Jon Chait, writing about similarities between Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, takes pains to explain he is not saying Trump is Hitler.
To be perfectly clear, Trump is not Hitler or a Nazi. Trump’s racism is not of the genocidal variety, and he is committed neither to a program of Darwinian racial conquest nor the principled imposition of one-party rule.
No, Trump has not committed explicitly to a “program of Darwinian racial conquest.” Granted.
But he has blamed ethnic and religious minorities for the economic and social anxieties being felt by members of the white majority. And he has explicitly promised a program of ethnic cleansing to rid the country of millions of people belonging to one ethnic minority group; and a program of banning all 1.6 billion members of a religious faith that constitutes another minority group in the United States.
And Hitler’s “final solution” did not begin with concentration camps, ovens and mass graves. It came about in stages, beginning with blaming ethic and religious minorities for the economic and social anxieties being felt by members of the white majority.