Republicans and their Rightist allies have repeatedly compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. But their propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.

“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas.  These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”

Adolf Hitler

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:

“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”

In recent years, the GOP has targeted gays and lesbians as America’s subversive enemies: 

These attacks have come as thinly disguised as efforts to “restore religious freedom.” 

On March 26, 2015, Michigan Governor Mike Pence signed into law the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This allows public agencies and private businesses to refuse service to anyone under the claim that their “religious beliefs” have been affronted.

Religious beliefs can be cited as a defense when sued by a private party. And the State government is legally prevented from intervening if a person claims that his/her “deeply-held religious beliefs” was the reason for acting—or not acting—in a certain way.

Republicans have introduced similar “right-to-discriminate” legislation in other states as well:

• In Kansas, lawmakers voted to exempt individuals from providing any service that was “contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
• That bill passed the state’s House chamber on February 11, 2014, triggering national backlash.  It stalled in the Senate and didn’t advance beyond that body.
• In January, 2014, South Dakota Republicans introduced a bill to let businesses refuse to serve same-sex couples on the grounds that “businesses are private and that their views on sexual orientation are protected to the same extent as the views of private citizens.”
• The South Dakota bill–which was killed in February, 2014–would have made it illegal for a gay person to file a lawsuit charging discrimination.

“Uppity” women—those seeking control over their own bodies—have also become targets for Republicans.  Since 2011 alone, Republican state legislatures have passed more than 400 restrictive laws against abortion.

At the outset of the Coronavirus crisis in the United States, 11 Republican governors excluded abortion care from the essential services that were allowed to operate amid shutdowns.

Another favorite target of Republicans: Muslims.

Since 9/11, Republicans have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America. 

Ironically, adherents of Sharia and Right-wing legislators share many of the same goals:

• Women should have fewer rights than men.
• Abortion should be illegal.
• There should be no separation between church and state.
• Religion should be taught in school.
• Religious doctrine trumps science.
• Government should be based on religious doctrine.
• Homosexuality should be outlawed.

Republicans often claim their opposition to homosexuality stems from a desire to protect children.

But the Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute states that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends, and the majority are men married to women. 

At the same time, Republicans have refused to condemn such heterosexual—and Right-wing—child molesters as Dennis Hastert and Josh Duggar.

Josh Duggar, the “all-American” child molester

On May 21, 2015, responding to press leaks, Duggar resigned as director of the Family Research Council, a Right-wing organization dedicated to fighting sexually-oriented issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion and pornography.

In 2002-3, as a 14-15 year-old, Duggar had fondled the breasts and vaginas of five underage girls–four of whom were his own sisters.

And on October 28, 2015, Hastert—Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007—pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.

Dennis Hastert

The reason: To conceal the truth about his past as a child molester. Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their high school wrestling coach. One was only 14 years old.

Despite such setbacks, the politics of “smear and fear” have been good to Republicans—and their Right-wing allies. 

It was the “politics of hate,” more than anything else—at a time when the United States was at peace and generally prosperous—that brought Donald Trump to the White House in 2016.

And it was only the spread of Coronavirus—which Trump ignored—that turned him out of the White House in 2020.

The Republican “base” refuses to learn that those who portray themselves as morally superior are:

1. Hypocrites, who are in effect saying: “Do as I say, not as I do,” or
2. Fanatics, who intend to force their version of morality on others.

So long as millions of hate-filled Right-wingers support the endless succession of “two minute hates,” Republicans will continue to target an endless series of victims.

The good news: As blacks, Hispanics, women, gays and others become a significant political force, Republicans will stop attacking them and court them for votes.

The bad news: Republicans will move on to find other still-helpless scapegoats for America’s troubles.