New York
Dateline: Berlin, 1933—On a bitter cold morning in late January, the convicted criminal who incited a deadly insurrection was officially sworn to office as his country’s head of state. In his inaugural address, he pledged to restore national honor.
Flash forward ninety-two years:
Dateline: Washington, 2025—On a bitter cold morning in late January, the convicted criminal who incited a deadly insurrection was officially sworn to office as his country’s head of state. In his inaugural address, he pledged to restore national honor.
Each fervent pledge—“Machen Sie Deutschland wieder großartig!”and “Make America great again!”—alluded to apocryphal glories of yesteryear, as imagined by two men of different times and continents; two megalomaniacs beloved by the rabble and the rich, each of firm belief that divine intervention had spared them from death and destined them to leadership.
In Berlin of 1933 and Washington, D.C. of 2025, each criminal of destiny penned his name to an official document that proclaimed them, respectively, chancellor of Germany and president of the United States.
Here in the U.S., we entertain a trust that the most cancerous era of modern world history, the one led by a monster of Germany’s past, will not metastasize to our time and star-spangled place—our „land of the free and home of the brave,” as so claimed in the Yankee Doodle lyrics of America’s national anthem.
Such trust is naïve at best, and strategically ignorant at worst.
Given the ugly new regime installed last month in Washington, many of us here and beyond see new urgency in an old adage: as variously attributed and paraphrased, “History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” By no means is it alarmist to be unnerved by historical rhymes. Following are but a few among many:
• Adolf Hitler launched a bloody “beer hall putsch” in München in 1923, with thousands of his admiring thugs attempting a coup d’état against the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), a constitutional democracy riddled with corruption and instability that was eventually ended by Herr Hitler and his emergent Nazi party.
Likewise, Donald Trump instigated an attempted coup in Washington on the sixth of January 2021, during which thousands of his admiring thugs and vandals rampaged through the Capitol building, smearing the marbled galleries and corridors with feces, intent on murdering then-Vice President Mike Pence. Purpose of the mob was to shut down a perfunctory ritual of U.S. democracy—congressional certification of Mr. Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the presidential election of November 2020, a loss that Trump and his cult continue to claim, without evidence, was the product of a massive conspiracy to “rig” the vote.
In München, five Nazis and one bystander died. Nine people died in Washington, on insurrection day or soon thereafter, including three police officers.
• Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler employed propaganda and Big Lie techniques to foster partisan cohesion and to counter uncomfortable truths.
Throughout his presence on the national stage, Mr. Trump has been the darling of America’s rightwing media—notably, Fox Television, purveyor of what he and his Republican Party loyalists call “alternative facts.”
Similarly, Herr Hitler in his time branded the objective strain of German news media as die Lügenpresse (the lying press).
• The U.S. president is a renowned liar. So, too, the German chancellor from 1933 until his suicide in 1945 at the close of World War 2.
¶ According to fact-checkers at the Washington Post newspaper, Mr. Trump made 30,573 false or wildly misleading statements during his initial four-year presidential stint begun with the election of 2016. He continued that tradition in the run-up to his election victory in 2024 with this bald-faced lie: Haitian immigrants living legally in small-town Ohio eat their American neighbors’ pet dogs and cats;
¶ According to a New York Times article from April 11, 1943, “[Hitler’s] lies are legion and colossal; his biggest being that Germany was not beaten in 1918…The very record of the man is marked by a series of falsifications and deceptions perhaps beyond the record of any other man…in public life.”
• Crude means of party discipline became necessary to Trump as well as Hitler. Der Führer relied on his Sturmabteilung, the unsanctioned “brownshirts” whose clubs and fists quelled public dissent. Today, Trump can call on a devoted confederation of bullies—the street brawling Proud Boys gang, and the Oath Keepers militia, both outfits on the front lines of the January 6 insurrection. (More on these outfits and their leaders later herein.)
• According to Professor Burt Neuborne of New York University Law School, “Neither Trump nor Hitler ever admitted a mistake, and both responded to criticism with insults and name-calling; both used low forms of language, simple sentences so even a person with a low level of education would understand.”
In a newspaper essay, the professor added:
“Hitler orchestrated mass meetings to cement his status as a charismatic leader. Trump’s rallies do the same, reinforcing his narcissism. Neither of them respect or respected scientific experts, especially academics who questioned Hitler’s views on race and Trump’s views on climate change, immigration, and economics.”
• In the cause of Lebensraum (territorial expansion), Adolf Hitler moved from occupation of the Rhineland in 1936 to the annexation of Austria and seizure of the Sudetenland in 1938 to the takeover of then-Czechoslovakia in 1939—thence to the invasion of Poland in the same year.
As I write, Donald Trump proposes to take over the Danish island of Greenland, seize the Panama Canal, annex Canada, and dispatch U.S. military troops to Mexico to hunt down “vicious criminals pouring over [America’s] southern border by the millions.”
• The preposterous physical appearance of both tyrants seems a camouflage to their fascism: Nothing to worry about, folks, these Führrinnen are farcical men.
Behold Hitler with his struts and jodhpurs and swagger sticks, his scrub brush moustache and greasy forelock. And Trump, of whom the British novelist Edward Docx wrote in the Guardian of London: “The extra-large suits, the extra-large tie. The endless huge of it all. The hyperbole of speech and form. The anti-intellectual, anti-law, anti-civility. The lethal cunning, the canny instinct. The way he looms and thuds through the world.”
We may laugh at ridiculous stylings, as did the British filmmaker and comedian Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) in his 1940 spoof “The Great Dictator,” focused on the rise of “Adenoid Hynkel” as laughable stand-in for Adolf Hitler. Mr. Trump is skewered daily by America’s late-night television comedians; his bloated physicality, a constant presence in social media, is typically presented as a diapered cartoon baby-man with odd yellow hair.
But it would do well to pause from our amusements to consider the spookily accurate insight into authoritarian psychology that satire offers, and of consequences of failing to take seriously the outlandish people unable or unwilling to understand our laughter.
Thus was I counseled one autumn afternoon in 2019 during a stroll through the streets of Berlin’s Kreuzberg district with my friend Thomas Wörtche, publisher and literary scholar. Along our way to the Hammett bookshop in Friesenstraße, we spoke of the world’s unfortunate politics, in particular those of Donald Trump.
Thomaschen asked me, “Have you Americans learned nothing from what happened to us?”
•
This is not a normal presidency, and Donald Trump was not in normal character on his first day in the White House. For in lieu of a lie, as per his custom, he kicked off the new era with a burst of honesty. Before a gaggle of reporters, Mr. Trump declared his political intent: “We’re going to do things that people will be shocked at!”
For example, his nominations to four of the most powerful secretariats in the nascent administration. All have earned nicknames heard in the cloakrooms of Congress:
• PETE HEGSETH for Secretary of Defense. A veteran drunkard and alleged rapist with a plethora of tattoos inked to his various body parts—e.g., a machine gun arm illustration as accompaniment to that of the American flag, and the so-called “Jerusalem Cross” spread across his chest, a symbol popular with white racists and U.S. neo-Nazi organizations. Accordingly, Mr. Hegseth is known by the behind-his-back sobriquet “Tatsy.”
In the final days of January, the U.S. Senate, under Trumpian control, confirmed Tatsy’s appointment to run the Pentagon and its budget of $916 billion (€878 billion), more than four times that of China, home of the world’s second largest military machine.
• TULSI GABBARD for Director of National Intelligence. Nicknamed “Tizzy” due to her fawning admiration for Hawaiian cult leader Chris Butler, whom she calls her guru dev, or spiritual master. Mr. Butler’s more ardent followers often prostate themselves before him, and add the guru’s toenail clippings to their food as tribute.
Ms. Gabbard’s political genesis came in working for her father’s
anti-homosexual/anti-transsexual movement in the state of Hawaii.
A former congresswoman, Ms. Gabbard would become the first person of Samoan heritage to head a federal agency of any category, especially one responsible for overseeing eighteen spy agencies with an overall budget of $75 billion (€71.5 billion). She has shocked Washington’s intelligence establishment with approving words for the likes of Vladimir Putin of Russia and Bashar al-Assad, the murderous ex-president of Syria deposed last December and now living in exile in Moscow.
At this writing, Tizzy is yet to be confirmed by the Senate.
• ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Despite a lack of science credentials of any sort, Mr. Kennedy is a long-time peddler of crackpot medical theories universally described by health care providers as “dangerous.” Five years ago in Ms. Gabbard’s own Samoa, Mr. Kennedy, known as Bobby Jr., advised parents there to decline the common, highly effective measles vaccine introduced in 1963; the advice resulted in the death of infants and children. However, Mr. Kennedy sees to vaccinating his own children against measles, rubella, mumps, whooping cough, and the corona virus that spurred a deadly global pandemic begun in 2019
Yet Bobby Jr. asserts that the life-saving vaccine that dramatically eased the pandemic is the cause of rising rates of autism.
Scion of a beloved political dynasty—the late President John F. Kennedy and his brothers, Senators Edward M. Kennedy (1932-2009) and Robert F. Kennedy Sr. (1925-68)—Bobby Jr. is estranged from his large family, considered to be Democratic Party royalty.
In 2012, Mr. Kennedy revealed in a court deposition related to divorce proceedings that doctors had discovered the remains of a parasitic worm in his brain—hence the nickname bestowed on Mr. Kennedy Jr.: “Wormy.”
According to Simon Groen, professor of evolutionary systems biology at the University of California/Riverside, the dead worm in Bobby Jr.’s brain “can lead to [unspecified] neurological disorders.”
Which may explain his curious behavior of late, to wit:
¶ Upon discovery of a deceased whale washed ashore near a Massachusetts resort, Bobby Jr. severed the beast’s head, hoisted the thing to the top of his car, and drove it home to New York;
¶ While driving one night in the rustic suburban community where he lives, Mr. Kennedy accidentally collided with a bear, killing the animal. According to his own account, he thought it would be “funny” to cart the bear carcass into New York City for deposit in the middle of Manhattan’s Central Park, which he did;
¶ During his explanation to police regarding the bear disposal, Wormy let on that he often scoops up roadkill for deposit in the meat section of his home freezer;
¶ On January 28, the eve of Bobby Jr.’s confirmation hearing before the Senate, his cousin Caroline Kennedy denounced him as a “predator” who has “lied and cheated his way through life.” Ms. Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Australia under President Joe Biden and ambassador to Japan under President Barack Obama, said further that her cousin enjoyed “showing off” how he uses a kitchen blender to grinds up mice and baby chickens as puréed food for his pet hawks.
As with Tulsi Gabbard, Mr. Kennedy’s nomination is unconfirmed at publication time.
• KASHYAP “KASH” PATEL as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.).
“Once upon a time, in the Land of the Free, there lived a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer…”
So reads the opening line of the first in a trilogy of children’s books authored by Mr. Patel, in which the wizard serves a noble “King Donald” and eventually vanquishes the lady hellbats “Hillary Queenton” and “Comma-la-la-la,” references to Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris—both defeated by Donald Trump.
When not entertaining youngsters with his kooky literary œvre—thus “Kooky” as his handle—Mr. Patel is a sometimes television commentator who hosted the online TV show “Kash’s Corner, an offshoot of the ultra-rightwing, Trump-loving Epoch Times. Headquartered in New York, the international journal is affiliated with Falon Gong, the dissident Chinese religious cult.
The agency that Mr. Trump despises and that Kooky may soon control, completed its investigation last year into the finances of the Epoch Times. The F.B.I. probe was the basis for a federal indictment against Epoch’s chief financial officer, Weidong Guan, a/k/a Bill Guan, facing trial on charges of laundering approximately $67 million (€64.3) of funds obtained from illicit unemployment insurance claims.
In March of last year, Mr. Patel claimed that prominent Democrats knew of advance plans for the January 2021 insurrection. Previously, he claimed that undercover F.B.I. agents helped plan the coup, and goaded insurrections to smash into the Capitol building—a claim denied by a recent Department of Justice investigation.
Currently, Kooky awaits word of the Senate’s decision to approve or disapprove his nomination.
•
Beyond the diversionary masquerade performed by Donald Trump and his sycophants—a theatre of incompetence, stupidity, racism, anti-Semitism, cheap criminality, and the fraternity of hatred—are the certain signs of coming darkness, signs too terrible to heed until it is often too late.
For instance, the heedless New York Times of January 1, 1933—four weeks before Adolf Hitler became Germany’s chancellor. That New Year’s Day edition of the Times featured a county-by-country rundown of the European political zeitgeist. In Germany, it was said, “Hitlerism is on the wane.” Never mind the accompanying photographs of uniformed Nazis marching in formation through the Platz der Republik, west of the Reichstag building in Berlin.
And never mind the advance corps of fascists that stormed the Capitol building in Washington four years ago, many with swastika tattoos beneath their armored jackets.
The fascists then were led by Enrique Tarrio, proudest thug of the Proud Boys street brawler gang. Positioned nearby was Homer Stewart Rhodes, commander of the Oath Keepers militia; he stood ready to launch an arsenal of heavy weapons should there be success in the coup d’état that he comrade Tarrio plotted—at the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more behest of Donald J. Trump, aggrieved by his loss in the presidential election of 2020 .
Once rounded up by police in the days following insurrection, what to do about Messrs. Tarrio and Rhodes? In accordance with the U.S. Constitution, they were tried in court before juries of their peers, found guilty of their crimes, and sentenced to long prison terms.
For a short time, it was clear that to be a neo-Nazi was dangerous.
But then, what to do about incarcerated neo-Nazis once their patron resumed power by his improbable victory in the election of 2024?
Along with some 1,500 others, Messrs. Tarrio and Rhodes were released from prison in the opening week of a new presidency, in which the Republican victor Donald Trump gladdened the hearts of men he said were “hostages” of the fallen Democratic administration.
On his first day of new freedom, Mr. Tarrio told reporters, “There’s absolutely nothing I will apologize for because I did nothing wrong…American patriots did nothing wrong.”
Likewise unrepentant, Mr. Rhodes said, “I didn’t get a fair trial. Trump did the right thing.” He added a cryptic note about the future of American fascism: “Don’t be surprised.”
When I heard these words from Mr. Rhodes, I was put in mind of the warning from German dissidents during the resistible rise of Hitler: “If you don’t make it dangerous to be a Nazi, they’ll make it dangerous not to be.”
•
Finally, what to do about the wealthiest man on Earth—and perhaps, in time, on Mars, should his wildest fantasy come to pass?
In his day, Hitler could help himself to the corporate riches of I.G. Farbenindustrie AG and Krupp Steel. Today, Donald Trump has Elon Musk, the almost-trillionaire mogul best known for manufacturing the world’s ugliest motor vehicle—the Tesla Cybertruck, starting at $79,990 (€76,739).
Having “donated” to the Trump election effort of 2024, to the tune of a cool quarter billion dollars, Mr. Musk now operates from office space in the White House as director of DOGE, the improvised Department of Government Efficiency. He also enjoys come-as-you-please luxe residency in a commodious cottage on the grounds of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Further, Mr. Musk is self-nicknamed “First Buddy” to the president.
If Mr. Trump is embarrassed by his buddy, he has yet to express same.
On the evening of January 20, First Buddy’s joy was unrestrained at a post-inauguration gala celebrating Mr. Trump’s ultimate victory in three attempts to land the presidency. So joyous was Mr. Musk that he slapped his right hand over his heart, then raised it straight upwards in a flat-palmed “Sieg Hiel” to the president he owns; twice, he performed the Nazi salute…
…which he would like you to know is actually the “Roman salute” from the swords-and-shield era of chariot races.
One week later, in the lead-up to this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, Mr. Musk was joyous again in his surprise video appearance at a rally in the eastern German city of Halle to support of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, characterized by many as an anti-Semitic political movement. No words of remembrance emerged from the mouth of Musk.
Instead, the president’s buddy told five thousand AfD adherents to sidestep apology and relish comfortable elements of a glorious past, to avoid the temptation of tolerance. “It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values,” he said, “and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturism that dilutes everything.”
The sentiment worries Brendan Ballou, a lawyer for the U.S. Justice Department under President Biden who prosecuted the most violent participants of the Capitol attack of January 2021. Mr. Ballou resigned upon word of Donald Trump’s decision to free Messrs. Tarrio and Rhodes, et alli — after reportedly telling his aides, “Fuck it, pardon ‘em all.”
Mr. Ballou advocates remembrance of the January coup in Washington, and wherever else in the world injustice and ignorance and intolerance manifests.
“Memory itself,” he writes, “is an act of resistance.”
