In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator.

“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims….

“If he answered their suppressed desires, it was not because he shared them, but because he could make use of them. He despised the German people, for they were merely the instruments of his will.”

What Payne wrote about pro-Hitler Germans holds equally true for the supporters of Donald Trump. 

On November 8, 2016, millions of ignorant, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans elected a man reflecting their own hate and ignorance to the Presidency.

Yet Americans had fewer excuses for turning to a Fascistic style of government than the Germans did.

Adolf Hitler joined the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in 1919—the year after World War 1 ended.

Adolf Hitler

In 1923, he staged a coup attempt in Bavaria—which was quickly and brutally put down by police. He was arrested and sentenced to less than a year in prison.

After that, Hitler decided that winning power through violence was no longer an option. He must win it through election—or appointment.

When the 1929 Depression struck Germany, the fortunes of Hitler’s Nazi party rose as the life savings of ordinary Germans fell. Streets echoed with bloody clashes between members of Hitler’s Nazi Stormtroopers and those of the German Communist Party.

Germans desperately looked for a leader—a Fuhrer—who could somehow deliver them from the threat of financial ruin and Communist takeover.

In early 1933, members of his own cabinet persuaded aging German president, Paul von Hindenburg, that only Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor could do this.

Paul von Hindenburg

Hindenburg was reluctant to do so. He considered Hitler a dangerous radical. But he let himself be convinced that he could “box in” and control Hitler by putting him in the Cabinet.

So, on January 30, 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor (the equivalent of Attorney General) of Germany.

On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg died. Hitler immediately assumed the titles—and duties—of the offices of Chancellor and President. His rise to total power was complete.

It had taken him 14 years to do so.

In 2015, when Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President:

• The country was technically at war in the Middle East—but the fate of the United States was not truly threatened, as it had been during the Civil War.
• There was no draft; if you didn’t know someone in the military, you didn’t care about the casualties taking place.
• Thanks to government loans from President Barack Obama, American capitalism had been saved from its own excesses during the George W. Bush administration.
• Employment was up. CEOs were doing extremely well.
• In contrast to the corruption that had plagued the administration of Ronald Reagan, whom Republicans idolize, there had been no such scandals during the Obama Presidency.
• Nor had there been any large-scale terrorist attacks on American soil—as there had on 9/11 under President George W. Bush.

Yet—not 17 months after announcing his candidacy for President—enough Americans fervently embraced Donald Trump to give him the most powerful position in the country and the world.

Donald Trump

The message of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign had been one of hope: “Yes, We Can!”

The message of Donald Trump’s campaign reflected hatred toward everyone who was not an avid Trump supporter: “No, You Can’t!”

Older whites comprised the majority of those at Trump rallies. Not all were racists, but many of those who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”

Birthrates among non-whites were rising. By 2045, whites would make up less than 50 percent of the American population.

The 2008 election of the first black President had shocked whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.

Then came 2016—and the possibility that a black President might actually be followed by a woman: Hillary Clinton.

Since Trump became President, he has:

• Allowed a deadly virus to ravage the country, infecting (to date) 9.2 million Americans and killing 230,000.
• Attacked medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves from COVID-19.
• Urged his followers to illegally vote twice for him in the 2020 Presidential election.
• Fired an FBI director for investigating Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
• Repeatedly and enthusiastically defended Vladimir Putin, the dictator of Russia, America’s mortal enemy.
• Attacked and alienated America’s oldest allies, such as Canada and Great Britain.
• Praised Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen.
• Shut down the United States Government, imperiling the lives of 800,000 Federal employees, to extort money from Congress for a worthless wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
• “Joked” that the United States—like China—should have a “President-for-Life.”
• Attacked the free press as “the enemy of the people.” 
• Used his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

On November 3, Americans will decide to continue this despicable legacy—or reclaim their nation’s status as a democracy.