Image source: The New Yorker
Adolf Hitler is widely considered the most evil person to have ever lived. He is responsible for between 11 million and 14 million brutal murders of innocent people, including six million Jews.
However, it's less commonly taught in schools how the United States has at times instituted similar policies to those of Nazi Germany. During World War II, some 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced to sell their belongings and relocate to our own form of concentration camps in different parts of the country, where families were pitted against each other by anti-immigrant sentiment and policies.
Furthermore, American ideas directly inspired Hitler's eugenicist policies. The American eugenics movement of the early 20th century promoted selective euthanasia, segregation, and forced sterilization. Many of these policies were put into effect, most notably in California where nearly ten thousand people were forcibly, and often unknowingly, sterilized in the first 25 years of such legislation.
Ultimately, it's not by any means baseless to suggest that the US could descend into Nazi-esque policies. And it's even less baseless with Donald Trump as a major party candidate for president.
Here are some quotes by Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi officials that should give anyone pause before voting for the Republican nominee:
1. "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."
2. "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it."
Politifact reports that 53 percent of what Donald Trump says is "False" or "Pants on Fire." Another 17 percent is labeled "Mostly False."
3. "It is not truth that matters, but victory."
4. “I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.”
5. "The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force."
Anyone watching his speeches knows that Donald Trump does not use reason, statistics or facts to present his arguments. He instead relies on appeals to emotion--most notably, fear.
6. "Humanitarianism is the expression of stupidity and cowardice."
While Donald claims to be committed to charitable giving and helping veterans, the Donald J. Trump Foundation gives almost no money to useful charities, preferring instead to pay Trump's legal fees, bribe politicians for tax breaks and endorsements, and purchase portraits of Donald Trump himself.
7. “The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.”
8. "Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future."
Trump has repeatedly defended, and even encouraged, police brutality as a way of keeping "law and order." He has also actively encouraged violence at his rallies and inspired dozens of violentacts across the country with his hateful rhetoric and ambivalence toward violence.
9. "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
9. "All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach."
Analyses of Trump's speeches and debate performances have shown that he speaks about as well as a nine-year-old. He has overwhelming support from the least educated voters, many of whom are woefully misinformed on the issues. Trump supporters are also thought by neuroscientists to be psychologically more receptive to fear tactics (as opposed to reason) than most Americans.
And lastly, this quote takes the cake:
10. “The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes.”
Take Hitler's advice and learn from all the atrocities he committed. He, too, was a democratically elected demagogue promising to solve his nation's troubles. Remember that when you go to the polls this November.