The Rise of Hitler & Trump: Parallels between the Early Days of the Führer and the Would-be Dictator

It is true that Trump doesn’t look much like Hitler yet — but neither did Hitler at first. Trump doesn’t look like 1943’s Hitler — but he does look like Hitler in 1933.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, he opened Dachau, the first concentration camp. First he arrested the homeless and “work shy” (often disabled, mentally ill, neurodivergent, elderly, etc). Then political opponents, journalists, intellectuals, and clergy who opposed the regime.

In 1934, he began openly targeting the disabled with official legislation. In 1935, he turned his eye to Jews, the Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the LGBTQ community, mostly homosexual men, and in 1939, following his military invasions, the Slavs/Eastern Europeans. Still there were no killings. Dachau was a work camp.

The Jews weren’t sent to the ghettos until 1940–1941. Deportations to the death camps began in 1942. By 1943–44, Auchwitz was killing thousands per day. It took ten full years after Hitler came to power for him to fully deploy his cruel plans and ramp the persecution up to genocide, and by then he controlled most of Europe.

It began with political control and gradually escalated to social cleansing via mass imprisonment and extermination. Eventually, anyone suspected of disloyalty or resistance could be persecuted, even just for listening to forbidden radio broadcasts.

Trump has attempted to use our government to actively target homeless & disabled people, political opponents, the free press, immigrants especially Latinos, etc. The far right Supreme Court is considering whether to overturn gay marriage as we speak. Trump has required oaths of fealty to him, as Hitler once did in his early days.

Trump has pretty much raised his own semi-private paramilitary force like Hitler and is using ICE as his personal gestapo to destabilize and terrorize cities where support for him is low and elected officials oppose his policies. ICE’s out-of-control tactics are meant to intimidate and desensitize us ALL to fascism. Regardless of your skin color, political background, or income level, it is a manipulation to keep you under control.

If you think this comparison is extreme, ask yourself why so many ordinary Germans didn’t recognize what was happening until it was too late. It wasn’t because they were evil. Life went on: people went to work, paid bills, raised children — and trusted that surely, someone would step in before things went too far. The danger of fascism isn’t just its cruelty; it’s how normal it looks from the inside. Every escalation feels temporary, justified, or “not my problem.” Fear and fatigue dull outrage until silence becomes habit.

Wake up, America.

This isn’t even about Trump but a greater evil festering deep in the heart of our nation. I used to think this country was heading in the direction of the movie “Idiocracy,” but things are much worse. It’s not funny. It’s terrifying.

We are being conditioned to accept cruelty as patriotism, obedience as safety, and apathy as wisdom. Empathy has to matter more than ideology or self-preservation. Democracy only survives when people refuse to look away. History may not repeat itself exactly — but it rhymes. And the melody we’re hearing now is chillingly familiar.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

— Martin Niemöller