Voters elected Hitler because they liked his fascist promise. Trump’s reelection repeats that history
The failures of a campaign run on the argument that Trump embodies authoritarian principles are telling, and tragic
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center on Nov. 6. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The end of the presidential campaign was characterized by broad charges that President-elect Donald Trump is a fascist. Vice President Kamala Harris and her surrogates invited voters to view the former president as a reckless, self-interested dictator in the making. Trump’s own former chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, characterized him as an authoritarian “in the far right area” and said he “falls into the general definition of fascist.” The assumption was that voters would be turned off by seeing Trump for what he is — authoritarian, pitiless, hateful — and would recognize him as a kind of Hitler.
Hitler, the most identifiable villain in modern history, and America’s arch-enemy in World War II.
But the charges didn’t stick. “Fascist” and “authoritarian” proved themselves to be abstract, unfamiliar, and even esoteric labels that did not particularly matter to voters concerned with inflation or immigration. And there was another, less savory, reason that the charges did not really hurt Trump: To suggest that Trump was a fascist was, actually, to identify many of the attributes that made him appealing.
In his political campaigns in Germany in 1932 and 1933, Hitler repeatedly revealed himself to be, well, Hitler. He ran as the bigoted, hateful disrupter who stood unequivocally for change: the single leader who would speak up for Germans as the injured victims of a self-interested establishment; who would use any means available, including suspending the constitution, to restore virtue and peace; and who would make good on his promise to turn the page of Germany’s grim post-World War I history by using necessary violence — he spoke about “heads rolling in the sand.” He tallied a long list of domestic enemies whom he would vanquish: democrats, socialists, Jews.
Hitler, in other words, won as much support as he did precisely because he was uncompromising, incendiary, and willing to battle Germany’s enemies — not despite those qualities. There was nothing coy about Hitler or the Nazis.
Those qualities helped Hitler easily overshadow the Hitler-lite figures who preceded or competed with him, much as Trump’s many acolytes — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, etc. — have failed to gain even a fraction of the same support as him. In all the elections between 1930 and 1933, when Hitler was decisively installed in power, a majority of swing voters who switched parties cast their ballots either for the Nazis or, in smaller numbers, the Communists. They were not confused protest voters anguished or torn about their choice. An unprecedented number of German voters went along with the Nazis because they liked that Hitler was Hitler.
Then, as now, it turned out that fascism was an attraction. The fascist is a monster to some, yet a siren to others.
Yes, efforts to portray Trump as Hitleresque certainly swayed some people. Exit polls showed that “democracy” was an important issue for Democratic voters. The problem: There simply weren’t enough of them.
In hindsight, it’s clear that to call Trump a fascist was going to accentuate, not reduce, his appeal to those American voters who loved his strongman image, and his promise to fight the system, representing its neglected victims. They loved his apparent readiness to go into battle, challenging orthodoxy and breaking rules in order to get things done. His defiance of the law made these promises credible; to his supporters, it showed not that he was a dangerous criminal, but rather that he was unafraid and able to get away with it.
He publicized his resolve to get “even” with his enemies and enact mass deportation of illegal immigrants, embracing an outlaw image he used to tantalize supporters with a damning and violent vision of the present — and future. He depicted himself, in the tradition of many fascist leaders before him, as the implacable righter of so many imagined wrongs.
Trump’s MAGA movement depicts the United States as a crime scene, the victim of a terrible assault — at the hands of immigrants, “woke” leftists and murky global powers —that has unmade its greatness. To “make America great again” means identifying and dealing with the criminals responsible for the assault. In his campaign promises, Trump delivered a muscular expression of a melodrama in which enemies of the “real” America will be prosecuted, or locked up, or deported. That melodrama cultivates an insular, possessive sense of righteousness in its followers; it does not leave much room for fair play or tolerance.
The voters who assembled behind Trump like that Trump is Trump — just as the decades-past swing voters who went Nazi liked that Hitler was Hitler.
As far as Trump and his fervent supporters are concerned, the 2024 election — the first in which, it is important to note, Trump won the popular vote — has given a mandate to the very qualities Harris and her allies tried to depict as dangerous to the soul of the country. Perhaps those qualities, instead, reflect the current soul of the country. Trump’s deferential Republicans have won a Senate majority, and are poised to pull off the same feat with the House. The Democratic opposition will find itself more paralyzed in face of the scale of events.
In the new era, they might well themselves take up MAGA talking points, as trends suggest more people will flock to MAGA than peel off. This combination of growing consensus and targeted coercion is part of fascism. We know how this can play out — now, we simply have to wait to see how bad it gets.
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