It may be the oldest meme in American politics: Everyone I don’t like is Hitler! As everyone knows, if an online argument stretches long enough, eventually, some idiot will bring up Hitler. Hell, even America’s first black president, Barack Obama, was compared to Hitler for maliciously giving us, the poor and struggling masses of this nation, access to affordable healthcare, because, you know, helping people pay for their cancer treatments is pretty much the same thing as murdering them in gas chambers.

So when Trump came along in 2016, it was a lot like ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf.’ We were so accustomed to false and hyperbolic accusations of ‘so and so being just like Hitler,’ the claim lost all its power to alarm or sway voters. We were too blinded by past hyperbole to recognize—or too few of us were, anyway—the many, many parallels staring in the face between the Nazi dictator and the celebrity real estate mogul running for the highest office in the land. Historians cautioned us, and pundits tried to warn us, that the very worst of history was repeating itself. And yet, a majority of voters simply shrugged their shoulders, stressing over the only thing that seems to matter these days: our pocketbooks.

Now, if you’re sitting on the other side of the political aisle, you’re probably thinking, ‘This Nick guy is such a libtard. He’s got the Woke Mind Virus. He’s got Trump Derangement Syndrome. Obviously, he’s been watching too much fake news. Comparing Trump to Hitler is as silly as comparing Obama to Hitler.’ And you know what, Mr. MAGA guy? You may be right! After all, outside of my graduate studies in history and a few documentaries and YouTube videos I’ve watched, what do I know about the Nazi party, really? Surely, any comparison between then and now is just left-wing propaganda.

So I decided to do my homework — real homework, not, like, I watched some more left-wing YouTube videos. Nor did I bother with the political section of my local Barnes & Noble. Instead, I went straight to the source, picking up a real history book written by a genuine, respected historian, Laurence Rees, in an effort to honestly answer the question: Is Trump really anything like Hitler, or am I just being like that protester holding the poster with Obama in the Hitler mustache?

The book is The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History by Laurence Rees, and it was a real eye-opener. Hitler was an artist, an author, a war hero, a far better speaker, and a much deeper thinker than Trump. He also genuinely believed his own rhetoric. Comparing Trump to Hitler is almost (I said almost) an insult to Hitler! But all joking aside, my concerns over the dangers posed by Trump, I learned, are largely justified. Make no mistake, we are living in some of the darkest days in American history. This is a time when the very institutions safeguarding our freedoms are being eroded, a time when we, as citizens and immigrants alike, fear walking the streets lest we be rounded up and imprisoned for being born the wrong color, a time when we risk getting murdered by government thugs for exercising our constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. That being said, Rees’s book has given me a glimmer of hope, because America today is a far different place than Germany was 80 years ago.

In the section below, I’ve listed 52 similarities between Hitler and Trump, with direct quotes taken from The Nazi Mind. Some of these are eerily coincidental, like the fact that both men attempted and failed in a coup against their governments, both men were arrested, and both men barely served jail time. Other similarities are incidental, while still others point to a disturbing variety of behaviors commonly shared by most dictators. Lastly, I share four key differences between Hitler and Trump and their respective movements, and why these differences may give us reasons to hope for a better future.

Fifty-Two Similarities between Trump and Hitler / The Nazis and MAGA

Both Trump and Hitler came from non-political backgrounds. Hitler pursued a career in art. Trump was a TV personality.
Other politicians didn’t take Hitler or Trump seriously during their political campaigns, believing they were a joke, uneducated, and unintelligent. As Rees writes,

They felt the Nazi leader was beneath them – in social hierarchy, in education, in manners, in style, in intelligence, in almost every variable save one.
Both were admired for their speeches and their ability to sway the uneducated masses. As Rees writes,

He [Hitler] had the support of millions of voters and they [the mainstream politicians] did not.
Both appealed to emotion to garner support. Pro-Trump slogans like “Make America Great Again” are simple and direct without any need for specifics. Everything Trump promises, in fact, is empty: from his nonexistent healthcare plan to his lowering grocery prices. It’s all slogans without substance. As Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, wrote:

‘The people are much more primitive than we imagine. Therefore, the essence of propaganda is constant simplicity and repetition.
Both hated debate and avoided it when possible.
Socialism was very popular before Hitler, and Germany almost became socialist, in the same way Bernie Sanders, a socialist, nearly beat out Hillary to run against Trump.
Both MAGA and the Nazis attended speaking rallies, “shouting down” their opponents by loudly chanting their leaders’ names.
Both gained power due to concerns over inflation.
Both heavily demonized their predecessors. Hitler accused the old German government of capitulating to the West after World War I. Trump blamed Biden for a failed economy, the war in Afghanistan, and the failure to secure peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Both blamed socialists and communists for their problems. The Jews were often called ‘socialist Jews.’ As Rees writes,

Many Germans clearly believed the violence of the Nazis might be necessary to protect them from a communist uprising.
Both promised to rid their nations of unwanted immigrants and a return to a time of racial purity.
Both relied on conspiracy theories to bolster their positions, claiming their governments were being secretly controlled by greedy elites and foreign interest groups run by the Jews. For members of Q-Anon, the “real” threat to America is the “Deep State.”
Both the Nazis and MAGA were made up of young, angry men, by what is today called the “man-o-sphere” or the anti-woke right. As Rees writes

Before their mid-twenties, the parts of the brain which long for novelty and excitement are already shaped […] If you’re going to join some hateful ideology, that’s the time.
Both used Christianity to garner support while not actually being Christian. As Rees writes,

Hitler recognized that the vast majority of the electorate – and many politicians – were Christians, he even said that his government would ‘strongly protect Christianity as the basis of our entire morality.’ He said this even though he wasn’t a practising Christian.
Both were pro-police and pro-military, and were endorsed by both.
Both failed to overthrow their governments through violent insurrection, and in both instances, only a handful of people were killed, while the insurgents were treated with extreme leniency, spending little to no time in jail.
Both were arrested, but only Hitler spent time in jail.
Both used photos taken from jail for propaganda purposes.
Both were uninterested in the details of everyday governance, refusing to attend meetings or review legal documents.
Both framed things in terms of “us vs. them.” For Hitler, it was the Germans vs. the Jews and communists, and for Trump, it’s white Christian males vs. the woke left and Hispanic immigrants.
Both were elected democratically while promising/threatening to end all future elections.
Both the Nazis and MAGA won the vote by narrow margins. In the case of the Nazis, it was 51%, while Trump-led Republicans hold a 53% majority in Congress as of 2026.
Opportunists who hated Hitler quickly switched sides to support the Nazis, in the same way D.J. Vance went from calling Trump “Hitler” to supporting him as vice president.
Both opposed anti-war films, stating, paradoxically, that such films were in opposition to “freedom of speech” and unpatriotic.
Both hated higher education, viewing intellectuals and the educated as a threat to their power. Trump gutted the Department of Education and threatens to sue universities like Harvard. In the same way, the Nazis, Rees writes, believed that:

Only those who are able to reduce problems to the simplest formula and who have the courage to repeat them eternally in this simplified form, even against the objections of intellectuals, will achieve fundamental success in influencing public opinion.
Both repeatedly attempted to rewrite history. As Rees writes,

Every dictator wants to ensure that children and adolescents are taught only their approved version of history.
Both wanted to expand their nations’ territory through force. Hitler planned to seize parts of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Croatia, while Trump threatened to annex Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela. At the same time, both men claimed they were anti-war and advocates for peace.
Both used the excuse of ‘bettering the economy’ to erode civil rights. For the Nazis, Rees writes, the fundamental belief was that:

The average worker is first and foremost interested in work and not in democracy. […] politics is of secondary importance and then only when they hope to get something out of it.
Both used fighting crime as an excuse to curtail civil rights. In the case of Hitler, it was the Reishtag fire, and with Trump, it was the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Both allied themselves and were greatly supported by wealthy businessmen. As Rees writes,

The Nazi Party had proclaimed itself the party of small businesses and farmers. Yet Hitler’s commitment to rearmament meant that the focus had to be on large industrial concerns and […] mega-companies like Krupp.
Both demonized communists (specifically) due to the actions of a few extremists.
Both used fear of others to maintain support. Trump warned of immigrants killing, raping, and drug-trafficking Americans, and that asylum seekers were “eating the dogs.” Similarly, Rees writes how Hitler warned that the German people should:

‘Be frightened, they are coming for your homes and children.’ It was a central part of Hitler’s message to the German population in the final days of the war.
Both attacked the free press. Hitler called journalists “the enemies of the people,” while Trump consistently attacks the press, calling them liars, “fake news,” threatening to jail them, sue them, or have them terminated.
Both appointed sycophantic judges to help support their illegal actions. As Rees writes,

Even if you’re just a would-be dictator who has been elected by a popular vote, it is still sometimes possible to cripple the legal system by altering the appointment procedure for judges and removing any judges that don’t support the new regime.
Both demanded personal oaths of loyalty from top government officials. FBI agent James Comey was terminated for refusing to swear allegiance to Trump in 2016. As Rees writes,

Now that Hitler was proclaimed the new head of state, every member of the armed forces was ordered to swear an oath of allegiance to him personally.
Both claimed that protesters against them were violent criminals.
Both accused radical extremist parties of organizing protests against them. For Hitler, it was the Jews and communists. For Trump, it is “Antifa.”
Both executed innocent dissenters by “mistake.” In the case of Trump, ICE agents murdered Renee Goode and Alex Pretti. As Rees writes,

The phrases ‘resisting arrest’ and ‘attempting to escape’ were to be used as all-purpose justifications for murder throughout the twelve years of Nazi rule.
Both parties, when arresting citizens and immigrants alike, didn’t give people time to prove their identities, and many innocent people were mistakenly sent to the camps.
Both accused their enemies of drinking children’s blood. For Hitler, it was the Jews, and for MAGA, it’s Democrats and adrenochrome. As Rees writes,

The ‘Jewish Murder Plot’ […] featured caricatures of Jewish men collecting the blood of German children to make unleavened bread.
Both made either/or hyperbolic and alarmist declarations. Hitler told the Germans that if they did not go to war, “Bolsheviks” from Russia would destroy them, whereas Trump has repeatedly stated that immigrants threaten violence, rape, and drug-trafficking. Rees writes,

[Hitler] he often posed dramatic either/ors. Either we win or we are destroyed.
Both were condemned by the majority of the world, and in each case, Hitler and Trump feigned ignorance, believing they were heroes to their people.
While this was more common under Stalin, both created propaganda imagery and had imagery made for them, depicting themselves as physically fitter than they actually were.
Both liked to play the victim card. Remarkably, in a speech, Hitler stated that he never did anything to upset Europeans in the West.
The Nazis showed no empathy for those they murdered, but great empathy for friends and family. Today, we are expected to ignore the plight of immigrants abused in concentration camps, while sympathizing with the difficulties faced by ICE agents. MAGA spokespeople like Charlie Kirk regard empathy as a weakness. As psychology professor Zygmunt Bauman remarked:

‘The most poignant point, it seems, is the easiness with which most people slip into the role requiring cruelty or at least moral blindness – if only the role has been duly fortified and legitimized by superior authority.”
Nazis called their victims “animals” and “dogs.” ICE agents call immigrants “bodies.”
Both the Nazis and ICE bragged about the atrocities they committed.
Both parties use “whataboutisms” to defend their actions. MAGA supporters claim Biden was worse than Trump, while Hitler argued that the atrocities committed by the English in India and China and by Americans against the Indians were comparable to the Holocaust. Remarkably, both Hitler and Trump looked to America’s past (not Germany’s) for inspiration and justification. As Rees writes,

Goebbels decided to launch a gigantic campaign based on a technique popularized today as ‘whataboutism’.

The focus should be ‘on English atrocities in India, in the Near East, in Iran, Egypt, etc.,’ wherever the English are located.

In the early 1930s, the Jews of Germany were hounded, beaten, and sometimes murdered by mobs and by the state alike. In the same years, the blacks of the American South were hounded, beaten, and sometimes murdered as well. The Nazis even looked to American racial laws in the mid-193os for inspiration in the creation of their own anti-Semitic legislation.
Both spoke nostalgically of a mythical golden age, and of a desire to return things to the way they used to be. In other words, they promised to make Germany/America “great again.” As Rees writes,

In offering their utopian visions, dictators often create a false version of the past as an imaginary reference point.
Both survived repeated assassination attempts, and those failed attempts were then used as propaganda to bolster support.
Both the Nazis and MAGA elevated their leaders to godhood. If anything went wrong in Germany during the war, the blame never fell on Hitler but on his subordinates. Similarly, Trump never accepts blame for his mistakes (rejecting even that mistakes were made) and is consequently deified by his followers, going so far as to erect a golden statue of him for display at the RNC convention.
Both the Nazis and MAGA were obsessed with gratuitous displays of loyalty. In 1930s Germany, swastika flags were flown from every household, while in modern America, shortly before the 2024 election, oversized Trump flags flew from homes and vehicles, and Trump’s name appeared on countless bumper stickers.

Four Key Differences between Then and Now

Hitler was far more intelligent and a better speaker. Compare Trump’s fourth-grade rambling to a letter written by Hitler:

I do not consider it the duty of a political leader to attempt to improve, let alone unify, the human material which he has at his disposal, wrote Hitler in a revealing article in the Völlischer Beobachter on 26 February 1925, the day before he refounded the Nazi Party. The temperaments, characters and abilities of individual people are so various that it is impossible to merge together a large number of similar people. It is also not the duty of a political leader to try and remove these shortcomings by “educating” people to be united. All such attempts are doomed to failure. Human nature is pre-existing – a phenomenon which cannot be changed in the individual, but can only be transformed through a process of development lasting for centuries… If a political leader deviates from this insight and instead only wants to seek people who come up to his ideal, he will not only fail, but also very quickly leave behind him chaos instead of an organization.
Hitler was a true idealist. He genuinely believed the world was better served by eliminating the Jews, whereas Trump only cares about his own legacy and ego.
Hitler was an actual soldier who fought in the First World War. Trump was a spoiled rich kid who dodged the draft and failed at every business venture.
America is NOT 1930s Germany. We are a far more diverse nation, populated by immigrants, founded by rebels who rejected authoritarian rule. While similarities between Hitler and Trump are too numerous to ignore, our country is unlikely to succumb to the same levels of authoritarianism due to these key differences.

In the podcast (below), I discuss all of these points in greater detail, so please give it a listen and, if you care about the fate of our democracy and are prepared to fight for it, give it a share!