Neither Trump nor Hillary is Hitler — but Hillary has potential

nuremberg_party_rallies_gallery_main_2Slate Magazine is at it again, likening Trump to Hitler. This is a ridiculously stupid argument but to be expected given that the people who write for Slate are ignorant about history and think in cartoonish terms. (And no, I’m not going to dignify the latest Slate article with a link.) Whether looking at personal beliefs, friends and supporters, or politic ideology, the fact is that neither Trump nor Hillary is Hitler — but it so happens that Hillary is a lot further down that road.

Personal Beliefs

Beginning at least with Reagan, the Left has loved to say that it’s irrelevant that the Republican candidate of the day has never, ever been heard saying something antisemitic or demanding violence or discrimination against American citizens on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion. FDR was the last president to attack an entire class of people on race, as he did when he imprisoned Americans of Japanese descent. Instead, says the Left, Republican candidates are using secret “dog whistle” code that can be heard only by people of ill will.

In fact, Hitler never used dog whistles. He was anything but shy about stating his beliefs. He trumpeted them from every rooftop, beginning with Mein Kampf and continuing with his, and his cohorts’, every utterance about Jews.

To my knowledge, Trump has never said anything antisemitic in his life. When he was still a registered Democrat, he was honored by the black community for his services to and good relationship with that community — something unlikely to have happened had he been going about whistling for racist dogs.

Moreover, contrary to the “Big Lie” Leftist accusation, Trump did not smear Latin Americans qua Latin Americans. What he did say was that illegal immigration — which the Mexican government encourages — is sending a disproportionate number of Mexican criminals to America. Mexico would say the same were we to encourage those Americans who’ve spent time, or who ought to spend time, in San Quentin to head down to Mexico.

Nor did Trump savage all Muslims (a group the Left relentlessly, and wrongly, classifies as a race in order to increase their victim status). Instead, he said what every honest American thinks: When you have a religion that has terrorism as a central doctrine, and your government plans to bring in hundreds of thousands of refugees from a region torn by Islamic religious wars, a sane country puts screening systems in place before admitting those inclined to practice the more violent fundamental tenets of their faith.

Nobody on the Left was bothered in 1980 when Carter imposed a stringent religious test on Iranians trying to enter the U.S. and sought to deport 50,000 Iranian students already in the U.S. And the racist, unconstitutional FDR is still a bright light in the Democrat pantheon.

Things are a bit different when it comes to Hillary. For years, people have come forward with stories of her vicious attacks on Jews, blacks, and the mentally handicapped. Bill’s former girlfriend, Dolly Howe, wrote a book in which she alleged that:

Hillary was heard calling mentally challenged children ‘f*****g ree-tards’ and caught on record blurting out the terms ‘stupid k**e and ‘f***ing Jew b*****d’, while Bill called the Reverend Jesse Jackson a ‘G**damned n****r’.

If that were just one source, it could be discounted, but it’s not. Other sources have reported on Hillary calling Paul Fray a “f***ing Jew bastard,” an accusation Hillary has never challenged or denied.

Politically, despite lip service, Hillary has never been a friend to Israel. Animus to Israel is so often a proxy for anti-Semitism. Beating down on a Jewish state facing genocide reeks of anti-Semitism, after all.

Hillary supporters, while denying that she ever said “f***ing retards” might come back by saying Trump is worse because he mocked a handicapped reporter. The problem with their argument is that Trump did not do that and the video proves it.

If there’s a candidate in this campaign who seems to have a problem with Jews, minorities, and the disabled . . . well, it’s not Trump.

Family, Friends, Associates, and Supporters

More than 2,500 years ago, Aesop told us that a man is known by the company he keeps. Looking at Trump’s and Hillary’s family, friends, and associates is enlightening.

Trump’s beloved daughter Ivanka is married to Jared Kushner, an orthodox Jew. As part of marrying him, Ivanka converted to Judaism. Kushner is also one of Trump’s closest advisers in the presidential campaign. Trump’s close and respectful relationship with his daughter and son-in-law definitively puts to rest any accusations of Hitlerian anti-Semitism.

To the extent that anti-Zionism has become a proxy for anti-Semitism, it’s telling that Trump has strong support from the most pro-Zionist Jews around. See, for example, my dear friend JoshuaPundit, one of the staunchest Israel and Trump supporters around. Another example is the group of Zionists who set up a website trumpeting their support for him. The most ardently pro-Israel Jewish bloggers are consistently hostile to Hillary and most are also supportive of Trump. This derives in no small fact from Trump’s willingness to recognize that Islam is a problem for the world’s Judeo-Christian tradition. Obama’s (and Hillary’s) refusal to recognize Islam’s violent antisemitic streak has left Israel isolated in terms of American foreign policy.

And yes, it’s true that a strong subset of members of the Alt-Right supporting Trump aren’t just rebels against the constraints of political correctness, but are vile anti-Semites and anti-black racists who are using the rebellion against political correctness as a chance to voice their debased instincts. But do keep in mind that they are a fringe. They’re not drafting the Republican Party platform, they’re not honored at lunches, they’re not giving speeches. They are relegated to the darkest basements where they belong.

Things are a bit different on Hillary’s side of the aisle.

It all starts with Huma Abedin, Hillary’s shadow, a woman so close to Hillary that they are reported to share a bedroom when they travel. Even pro-Hillary publications can’t ignore Huma’s connection with, and possible control over, Hillary.

Huma comes from a family that has dedicated its life’s work to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood, in turn, advocates for the return of a sharia Caliphate governing the world and is, of course, violently anti-Semitic and genocidally anti-Israel. You can find a good rundown of Huma’s family history, the Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorist ties, and Huma’s own work for the Muslim Brotherhood here. Neither Huma nor anyone in the Clinton camp has ever challenged these facts.

Huma’s marriage to a Jew (and what an icky, horrible Jew) is not proof of any philo-Semitism on her part. For one thing, the Muslim doctrine of Taqiyya allows Muslims who are acting to advance sharia law to take positions antithetical to Koranic dictates — marrying a Jew would therefore have been permissible for the greater good.

Separate from that marriage, we know that Huma dislikes Jews. One of the interesting facts that Wikipedia’s leak of Podesta’s emails revealed is that, when Bill was asked to speak to AIPAC, the completely mainstream pro-Israel PAC, Huma’s response was immediate and clear: “u really want to consider sending him in to that crowd?” (Emphasis mine.) When pushed — and when Hillary’s opinion came into the discussion — Huma doubled down:

Band responded that Clinton was going to speak with wife Hillary about whether he should. Abedin responded that Hillary would agree with her. Band followed up with “go or not go?” and Abedin responded, “No go to AIPAC.”

Hillary’s vice presidential pick, the creepy Tim Kaine, has a long and deep record of being hostile to Israel:

To supporters of the Jewish state among the most damaging things about Tim Kaine is that he is the darling of the anti-Israel organization J-Street. Founded in 2008 by George Soros and Hillary Clinton’s campaign director John Podesta,  J-Street goes by the motto “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” has been but has been described by liberal attorney Alan Dershowitz as being neither pro-Israel nor pro- peace. One of the group’s founders Daniel Levy has been quoted as saying the creation of Israel in 1948 was wrong (there’s more if you are not convinced).

J-Street endorsed Kaine’s 2012 run for Senate but money speaks louder than words. According to Open Secrets, an organization which tracks campaign donations to all candidates of any party, J-Street at $133,382 was the second largest donor to Tim Kaine’s campaign committee between 2011-2014.

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Open Secrets also reports that J-Street was the number one donor ($178K) to Tim Kaine campaigns over the course of his entire political career.

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Tim Kaine was one of the first Democrats to announce he was boycotting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress. Adopting the Obama administration’s excuse Kaine said, the Netanyahu speech would give an “appearance of US favoritism in a foreign election. There is no reason to schedule this speech before Israeli voters go to the polls on March 17 and choose their own leadership,” Kaine was one of only 8 Democratic Party senators who boycotted the speech (vs. the 36 who attended).

There’s much more, and you really should read it to discover exactly what kind of person Hillary wants at her side — and what kind of person will take the helm if Hillary’s ill health renders her unable to serve.

It’s not just Kaine and Huma, though. Those emails that Hillary didn’t delete and that ended up getting released show that she happily accepted an endless stream of anti-Israel information from friends and advisers. One of those advisers is Sidney Blumenthal, whose son, Max, is so hostile to Israel that anti-Semitism can be his only motive.

Hillary is also getting funding from George Soros’s organizations, which are notoriously hostile to Israel. Soros, incidentally, looks back fondly on his time spent working for the Nazis, identifying Jews that they could ship to the death camps.

Like Trump, Hillary has her own anti-Semitic followers but, unlike Trump, hers are central to her campaign and to the Democrat party. Hillary has overwhelming support from faculty and students at American college campuses. At those same campuses, anti-Semitism is on the rise, with faculty, administration, and students not even bothering anymore to hide their anti-Jewish animus. Vocal anti-Semites work to ban Jews from student government, silence them in class, verbally attack them, describe them in gross and demeaning terms, and are relentless in their desire to advance the destruction of the only Jewish nation in the world.

With this in mind, it’s worth pointing out that Hillary has never once refused to appear at a college because of its anti-Semitic administration, faculty, or students. Hillary personally has never addressed, and certainly never castigated, the rising anti-Semitism that overwhelms these pro-Hillary bastions.

Likewise, Hillary has never disavowed the anti-Semitism that is endemic amongst her American Muslim supporters, 86% of whom intend to vote for her. Have she and her party ever challenged CAIR, a violently anti-Israel, anti-Semitic advocacy group? No, indeed. For the entire American Left, CAIR is the go-to organization whenever it comes to whitewashing problems with Islam at home and abroad.

Should I mention here that Muslims and Hitler had a mutual adoration society? They were both united in their belief that Jews should be wiped out, that the state should be supreme, and that all other people subordinated to their ideologies.

Once again, it’s Hillary who is closer to Hitler than Trump. Again, I’m not saying she’s Hitler. I’m just saying that objective criteria — her homies — tie her much more closely to anti-Semities than is true for those closest to or following Trump.

Political Beliefs

Finally, let’s look at the beliefs powering their campaigns and see which candidate is closer in political ideology to Hitler — Trump or Hillary? This means determining which candidate holds political views that are fascist, since that was the color of Hitler’s political belief system.

Every single political system exists on a continuum:

Government continuum

Those forms of government on the Left side of that continuum go by all sorts of different names: Communism, personality cult, military junta, theocracy, oligarchy, socialism, and fascism are just a few examples. The name given the system doesn’t really matter. What matters is all-encompassing government and limited, or non-existent, individual rights.

Thanks to the Bill of Rights, America has historically been on the individual liberties side of the spectrum. At the end of the 20th century, we could still boast that Americans functioned with less government interference than that found in most other places around the world.

Fascism, the label appended to Hitler and one the Left now bestows upon Trump, started in Italy, where Mussolini provided the classic description: “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” Boom! Statism writ large.

Fascism and communism, arise from the statist impulse but have some differences. American Progressives have exaggerated these differences to try to whitewash communism. Moreover, even though small-government conservativism is on the opposite side of the spectrum from both communism and fascism, Progressives have used these exaggerations, along with actual falsehoods, to tar conservatives with the “fascist” brush. To that end, Progressives have argued explicitly or implicitly that communism done right is a warm, cuddly, sharing kind of statism, while fascism is a mean, nasty, right-wing Republican kind of statism. Not even close and definitely no cigar.

Both systems are about complete government control. Communism, however, bans private ownership, while fascism allows a simulacrum of private ownership, provided that the state still exercises control over both businesses and individuals. Corporate shareholders can get their profits and sell their goods, but the government and business are in cahoots for the state’s, not the citizens’, benefit. The state and business will scratch each other’s backs when need be, but ultimately the government calls all the shots. It seems pertinent to point out here that the Podesta emails reveal that Citibank selected Obama’s cabinet in 2008/2009.

In both communism and fascism, power rests with a government class, although in fascism, the government class is amalgamated with powerful corporate interests. I like to call the American cronyism that Obama has made central to his governance “crony fascism.” It’s all still big government versus individuals.

Government classes with total power are scary. Everything that is bad in individuals — greed, carelessness, stupidity, corruption, nepotism, bullying — is magnified beyond all imagination when it’s concentrated in a single all-powerful government.  Concentrating power in government never leads to a golden age of wealth, morals, and generosity. Instead, it invariably leads to economic and moral collapse, as we’ve recently seen in Europe, and too often leads to despotism (e.g., Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba, and on and on).

For ordinary citizens, the difference between communism and fascism is like the difference between wearing ugly stainless steel handcuffs and stainless steel handcuffs with some sparkly rhinestones. The citizens are still wearing handcuffs because the state is still calling the shots. It’s just that in the fascist state, at least before the state really gets the bit in its teeth, there’s an illusion that material things are nicer.

Ultimately, communism and fascism are just different flavors of statism. Moreover, when they’re not fighting for power, they’re inclined to support each other, as was the case with Hitler and Stalin, right up until Hitler decided he wanted Stalin’s territory too. Likewise, in Spain, there was a civil war, not because communism and fascism are natural enemies, but because they were jealous rivals both seeking the throne.

Hillary, like the fascists and the communists, believes government is the answer no matter the question. As one Hillary fan pointed out, in a squiblet that has made the rounds amongst my Leftist friends on Facebook, the Leftist fear is that Trump will shrink the same government that Hillary seeks to maintain and, if possible to significantly enlarge:

What Hillary stands for - big big government

Aside from an overarching mindset, Hillary’s specific political positions are entirely consistent with fascism:

Hillary wants to amend the First Amendment, to end criticizing the government especially when that government is Hillary. The right to criticize government is, of course, the foundation of a free society. Her followers, too, especially at the universities, believe the First Amendment is dangerous when it threatens them.

Hillary wants to do away with the Second Amendment, taking arms from American citizens and leaving those arms solely in government hands (including the hands of the same police she reviles as she panders to minority voters).

Hillary wants to create a hard Left Supreme Court that will use the power of the Court to further concentrate power in government.

Hillary is deep in the arms of Wall Street, creating the perfect government-business hybrid that is at the heart of fascism. One need only look at those Goldman Sachs speeches….

Hillary wants to change the composition of America’s electorate to ensure herself a permanent majority (kind of like Erdogan did and is doing).

Before I get to Trump’s views, which did not align with fascism, let me touch a moment on those big Trump rallies. No matter Hillary’s views, her Leftist allies insist that Trump’s rallies are just like the Nuremburg rallies. Hillary safer, they imply, because she can only attract a few dozen people to high school gyms. (In a glorious example of Leftist hypocrisy, Progressives are unfazed by their past enthusiasm for big rallies when Trump led them.)

It’s true that nationalism was the gloss that Hitler brought to Naziism. However, if he hadn’t been vested with complete power, that nationalism would have been as innocuous as chants of “USA! USA!” at Olympic games or the flag waving on Independence Day.

It’s that fact that concentrated power is toxic power that allowed Hitler to take that nationalism, mix it with perverse race theology, and run with the idea of ruling the world as a master race — and to purge or enslave everyone else. The genocidal nationalism wasn’t the cause of Hitler’s mania; it was the toxic result of concentrating complete political power in the hands of a small group that went mad with that power.

Okay, so big crowds don’t matter. But there’s still that “make America great again” chant. That’s just the English version of Deutschland uber alles, right? Wrong.

If you dig just a little way down into the Trump agenda, you find out that when he talks about “making America great again” he’s mostly talking about enforcing laws and policies already on the books. Was Clinton a fascist when he signed into effect some of those laws? Was Carter a fascist when he banned possible enemies from entering America? Is the history of America right up until Obama fascist because we actually had laws, most of which Obama ignores?

The answers to those questions, naturally, are no. There’s nothing fascist about enforcing our immigration laws, our national security laws, and our criminal laws, or about elevating the Constitution as the primary document from which American law flows. We’re not charting new territory here. We’re returning America to its natural mostly-free state, circa the second half of the 20th century.

Trump is also promising to get the government out of American businesses, another policy that is the opposite of fascism. Remember, fascism is all about a government/industry partnership to further state control. It’s communism with cash. So Trump’s promise to decrease regulations and lower taxes to weaken government’s ability to interfere with private citizens is a step towards freedom, rather than its opposite.

Another Trump promise is to respect the Second Amendment, keeping guns in the hands of private citizens. Remember: The single biggest barrier to total state control is an armed citizenry.

No fascist — that is, no person ever seeking complete control over individuals within the state — would dare keep arms in citizen’s hands. After all, once the fascist has accomplished the things people like, such as getting the trains to run on time, the fascist invariably starts doing things that people don’t like, such as controlling their thoughts and actions, controlling their economy, and imprisoning or killing anyone who doesn’t get with the fascist program. You can’t do that when your citizens shoot back. (If you’re feeling rich, please spend 99 cents to buy my ebook, Our Second Amendment Rights In Ten Essays. That explains in fairly short essays just how important the Second Amendment is to our liberty.)

Trump’s evolution from totally pro-abortion to mostly pro-life is another anti-fascist idea (contrary to Hillary’s “all abortion, all the time” view). Fascists don’t look out upon the population they control and see a collection of individual human beings. They see widgets, all intended to better serve the state. Once you’ve reduced people to widgets in your own mind, it’s a surprisingly short step to deciding that some of those widgets are defective or expensive and need to be destroyed.

Again, when one looks at policy, it’s Hillary, who is not Hitler, who is still outpaces Trump by a great deal along the political continuum that is the road to Hitler (and Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao and Castro and….).

I’m not enamored of Donald Trump but once one strips away his bombast, his instincts are not fascist instincts. Hillary’s are. Ignore the hysteria from Slate Magazine and other media outlets, from Hollywood, and from all the other usual suspects,and keep those core distinctions in mind when you go to your polling station in three weeks.

For more election analysis, be sure to check out WOW! Magazine, the collaborative effort from the Watcher’s Council and its friends.