Donald Trump is a convicted felon who blatantly supports Communist dictators Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping—and who tried to treasonously overturn the 2020 Presidential election.

So why do so many Republicans continue to support him?     

The answer lies in what happened almost 80 years ago in Berlin—when the “Thousand-Year” Third Reich collapsed after little more than 12 years.

While the Nazi Party ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, its influence over all aspects of Germans’ lives was suffocating.

“Censorship prevailed, education was undermined, family life was idealized, but children were encouraged to turn in disloyal parents,” reads the back cover of Richard Grunberger’s classic 1971 book, The 12-Year Reich. 

“‘Volk’ festivals, party rallies, awards, uniforms, pageantry all played a part in the massive effort to shape the mind of a nation.” 

And yet, after the Reich surrendered unconditionally to the Allies on May 8, 1945:  

• Countless Germans claimed to have hidden Jews in their attics—despite the fact that six million Jews died horrifically before the Reich fell.
• American and British soldiers couldn’t find any German veterans willing to admit they had ever fought against Western, democratic nations.
• All the once-proud legionaries of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS swore they had been fighting “the real enemy”—the Russians—on the Eastern front.

And almost universally, they blamed the conflict on the man they had embraced as their Fuhrer.

In short: Adolf Hitler had lost the war he started—making him a loser nobody wanted to be identified with.

In the decades since, the “loser” tag has continued to stick with those who once served the Third Reich. Mel Brooks has repeatedly turned German soldiers—once the pride of the battlefield—into idiotic comic foils.

Even the fearsome Gestapo was spoofed for laughs on the long-running TV comedy, “Hogan’s Heroes.”

“Hogan’s Heroes”

“Americans love a winner,” George C. Scott as George S. Patton says at the outset of the classic 1970 movie. “And will not tolerate a loser.” 

And that is why Republicans have stuck so closely with Donald J. Trump—as President, former President and now re-elected President.

During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Americans were repeatedly warned that Trump intended to embrace Project 2025, a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government.

Among these: 

• The DOJ must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
• The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.   

Seal of the Justice Department

• Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
• The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” would be abolished.
• Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished. 
• Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
• Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
• The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
• Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
• Abortion would be outlawed.
• Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.

Yet almost no Republican members of Congress dared to oppose this wholesale rejection of 248 years of American democracy.

Republicans don’t care that Trump has trashed the institutions that Americans have cherished for more than 200 years. Institutions like an independent judiciary, a free press, and an incorruptible Justice Department.

He has viciously attacked all of these—and Republicans have either said nothing or rushed to his defense. Many of them tried to short-circuit Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation and prosecution of Trump’s inciting a deadly riot against Congress on January 6, 2021.

What Congressional Republicans truly fear about Donald Trump is that if they dare to hold him accountable for his lifetime of criminality, his Fascistic base will turn on them—and turn them out of Congress.

Trump has been convicted of multiple crimes, but Republicans continue to slavishly support him. If they hadn’t, he would now be:

• A figure held up to ridicule and condemnation.
• Like Adolf Hitler.
• Like Richard Nixon.

And his Congressional supporters would be branded as losers along with him.

Republicans vividly remember what happened after Richard Nixon was forced to resign on August 9, 1974: Democrats, riding a wave of reform fever, swept Republicans out of the House and Senate—and Jimmy Carter into the White House.

If Republicans are conflicted—whether to continue supporting Trump or desert him—the reason is the same: How can I hold onto my power and all the privileges that go with it?