Will, I love your writing and phenomenal ability to distill complicated issues to fine points. With much respect to you, I politely disagree on your take on the Orange One’s Word Salad at Davos. I was in Germany, reading and hearing German news on this speech which included comments such as “virtually untranslatable” to “the US is clearly untrustworthy and being led by an ill old man”. And, with the push back from foreign leaders from a right wing Danish politician who said “let me use words that he can understand, “Fuck Off, Trump!”, to the entirety of our former allies shunning the “Peace for Proud Billionaire Boys Club” or whatever that latest grift was called, there won’t be any capitulation annexation by the Europeans of Greenland (or “Iceland”, as Trump referred to it) as was done to the Sudetenland. I honestly believe their backs are up now and they see that we are the barbarians at their gates.
Great historical parallels Will! Now I know you’re comparing “words” from two speeches, Trump’s Davos speech and Hitler’s speech of Sept. 1938 threatening Czechoslovakia, but a major stated goal of Hitler’s goal of acquiring the largely German-speaking Sudetenland was a kind of “irredentism” of reclaiming German lands lost to the “self-determination” procedures dictated by the Versailles Treaty. Of course, as you stated, there’s no stranded Americans in Greenland desiring a “return” to the Fatherland, i.e., the USA. But another thing is that Hitler was said to be disappointed by Munich; he wanted war! The appeasement shown to him at Munich deprived him of the violence he savored, but initiated the military conspiracy against him by some military leaders that ebbed and flowed throughout the war. He said of his appeasers: “I saw them at Munich and they are worms.”
I don’t think Trump has Hitler’s blood lust; he’d just as soon grab Greenland for cash, although events in the Caribbean, saber rattling over Greenland, and bragging about his unstoppable armed forces, not to mention violent domestic repression, give me pause. The one thing he shares with Hitler is a love for very large “dominance” symbols: Hitler had Speer designing a rebuilt Berlin to gargantuan proportions, the Reich Chancellery was obscene; Trump has his also obscene ball room (Versailles by way of Home Depot), a triumphal arch, an obsolete love of big, imposing battleships (didn’t WW II reveal their secondary role to carriers?), and lastly he has that acquisitive eye for huge Greenland, no doubt (as reported) distorted by the Mercator maps….has he ever looked at a globe? Wonder what a psychoanalyst would say about all this hankering for “big things?”
The similarities in the speeches are striking. One key difference: Trump would have called it “Sudan” 4 times if he was the one delivering Hitler’s speech and his top propagandist would have said “No he didn’t!”
I think we'll be talking about this week in the same way we talk about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Everything for the West has changed. Everything is rupture. All masks are off.
Mark Carney's "Rupture" speech acknowledging the death of the post-WWII order alone would have been seen as historic, but between Trump's claims to the Sudetenland (er, Greenland) – which forced Europe to understand that appeasement means surrender – and the public execution of Alex Pretti, can anyone claim that the world and our country have not been broken, and is to be born anew?
Everyone seems obliged to start articles with "Trump isn't Hitler". He may not be 1944 Hitler, but he bears an uncanny resemblance to 1938 Hitler. We need to call him out before he goes further. And we need to be honest with ourselves that the superannuated guy the nation elected in 2024 is seriously mentally ill. He is inconsistent, he is irrational, he is Baron Munchausen in orange. A spoiled toddler with the nuclear codes. He was doing Putin's bidding at Davos. In my judgment, there are only two groups who can save us from this nutjob. And I don't think Congress is up to it.
You show notable restraint, the best I can manage is that he seems to have opted for Hitler Lite for the moment. He is simply not to be trusted. He has destroyed the trust of our people, Nato and various Women.
If I was Greenland I would not allow any additional US soldiers or bases in Greenland. I can just see Trump claiming Greenland after he has a bigger foothold. Denmark and Greenland should stall until we elect a Democrat that respects them both.
“Trump isn’t Hitler, of course, and any attempt to compare Hitler with a current political figure can seem laughable or outrageous. Trump is an incipient fascist; Hitler was a full-fledged totalitarian dictator.” …. The jury is still out as to where and how far Trump will take us (and congress will acquiesce) toward a true state of fascism. Hitler rose to power in 1933. Even by 1938 nobody would have predicted where his version of fascism would take the world. I certainly can’t predict where Trump’s version will take us but I think it is clear he has no boundaries as to how far he will go if he thinks it serves his self interest and he can get away with it. I can’t predict what this will look like but I can predict that we are on a path toward finding out.
With apologies to the English (I think) journalist who reported this, on the night that Hitler invaded Poland, said journalist said that the women on the Berlin streetcar she rode chatted amiably about the opera they had just attended. She (the journalist) was astonished that the invasion in was not, in the German women's minds, worthy of discussion. "Everything's fine! Normal!"
I don't *think* our society is so corrupted that we – broadly speaking – won't acknowledge what's happened this week as being anything other than insane. But it's something I'm thinking about nonetheless.
There are certainly some among us-many of the MAGAts, for example-who have drunk so much of the Kool Aid that they still believe Trump is the greatest. Those are the ones that really concern me because they don’t even seem to recognize that Trump hates them for being poor and is only using them. He’s actually harmed them economically and yet they still support him. I don’t get it, honestly.
I experience this daily in my small circle, and they absolutely mean well. These are truly good people with very positive attitudes. They say things like: "It's not as bad as some hysterical people are trying to make it sound." And, "What are the positive things Trump is doing right now?" It always reminds me of the quartet that continued performing on the Titanic. They choose to be happy.
It is very fair to compare Trump to Hitler. While we can accept that Trump has none of Hitler's deep hatreds, Trump is similarly self absorbed and unmoved by the suffering of others. That that suffering is much less than what Hitler did, still who else can we compare him to?
Trump seems to have the deep burning resentment and hatred that Hitler had. "The election was rigged! It was stolen from me. The Biden crime family - should be prosecuted." Sound familiar? Although some of his racism is covert, it plays out when he asks the reporters "Where are you from?" It's grotesquely racist, they are professional journalists and if they are people of color he has to stereotype them before he can answer the question.
Excellent well thought out article. You should send it to the leaders of the EU and the UK. They need to hear what Americans make of this so called speech. Trump has not given up on Greenland, that is clear. Did you not think it was a mistake when he said Iceland four times?
Hi Susan, a reader from Denmark here. I can assure you that European politicians - and the European public in general - are much more cognizant with regards to American politics and societal issues than American politicians are regarding European affairs. Each day we shake our collective head and are infinitely grieved and dumbfounded by the torrents of dangerous stupidity pouring forth from the Trump administration and his spineless, cowardly enablers in Congress and the media. I recently talked to a bunch of friends, and we agreed that if we ever got to be as mindbogglingly stupid as Jesse Walters, we would kill ourselves. Trust me, our leaders know. The problem is how to deal with an oversize toddler with weapons...
Will, I love your writing and phenomenal ability to distill complicated issues to fine points. With much respect to you, I politely disagree on your take on the Orange One’s Word Salad at Davos. I was in Germany, reading and hearing German news on this speech which included comments such as “virtually untranslatable” to “the US is clearly untrustworthy and being led by an ill old man”. And, with the push back from foreign leaders from a right wing Danish politician who said “let me use words that he can understand, “Fuck Off, Trump!”, to the entirety of our former allies shunning the “Peace for Proud Billionaire Boys Club” or whatever that latest grift was called, there won’t be any capitulation annexation by the Europeans of Greenland (or “Iceland”, as Trump referred to it) as was done to the Sudetenland. I honestly believe their backs are up now and they see that we are the barbarians at their gates.
Great historical parallels Will! Now I know you’re comparing “words” from two speeches, Trump’s Davos speech and Hitler’s speech of Sept. 1938 threatening Czechoslovakia, but a major stated goal of Hitler’s goal of acquiring the largely German-speaking Sudetenland was a kind of “irredentism” of reclaiming German lands lost to the “self-determination” procedures dictated by the Versailles Treaty. Of course, as you stated, there’s no stranded Americans in Greenland desiring a “return” to the Fatherland, i.e., the USA. But another thing is that Hitler was said to be disappointed by Munich; he wanted war! The appeasement shown to him at Munich deprived him of the violence he savored, but initiated the military conspiracy against him by some military leaders that ebbed and flowed throughout the war. He said of his appeasers: “I saw them at Munich and they are worms.”
I don’t think Trump has Hitler’s blood lust; he’d just as soon grab Greenland for cash, although events in the Caribbean, saber rattling over Greenland, and bragging about his unstoppable armed forces, not to mention violent domestic repression, give me pause. The one thing he shares with Hitler is a love for very large “dominance” symbols: Hitler had Speer designing a rebuilt Berlin to gargantuan proportions, the Reich Chancellery was obscene; Trump has his also obscene ball room (Versailles by way of Home Depot), a triumphal arch, an obsolete love of big, imposing battleships (didn’t WW II reveal their secondary role to carriers?), and lastly he has that acquisitive eye for huge Greenland, no doubt (as reported) distorted by the Mercator maps….has he ever looked at a globe? Wonder what a psychoanalyst would say about all this hankering for “big things?”
The similarities in the speeches are striking. One key difference: Trump would have called it “Sudan” 4 times if he was the one delivering Hitler’s speech and his top propagandist would have said “No he didn’t!”
Will the Bulwark should have Garret Graff on to talk about the founding of DHS and subsequent twisting of immigration enforcement -- his recent piece on this is excellent https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/ice-101-how-trump-changed-ice-and-cbp-into-a-fascist-secret-police
I think we'll be talking about this week in the same way we talk about the fall of the Berlin Wall. Everything for the West has changed. Everything is rupture. All masks are off.
Mark Carney's "Rupture" speech acknowledging the death of the post-WWII order alone would have been seen as historic, but between Trump's claims to the Sudetenland (er, Greenland) – which forced Europe to understand that appeasement means surrender – and the public execution of Alex Pretti, can anyone claim that the world and our country have not been broken, and is to be born anew?
Everyone seems obliged to start articles with "Trump isn't Hitler". He may not be 1944 Hitler, but he bears an uncanny resemblance to 1938 Hitler. We need to call him out before he goes further. And we need to be honest with ourselves that the superannuated guy the nation elected in 2024 is seriously mentally ill. He is inconsistent, he is irrational, he is Baron Munchausen in orange. A spoiled toddler with the nuclear codes. He was doing Putin's bidding at Davos. In my judgment, there are only two groups who can save us from this nutjob. And I don't think Congress is up to it.
Trump doesn't sound like "you know who". It's Pee-wee german aka SMiller. We need to push to have him IMPEACHED immediately, and ICE disbanded.
You show notable restraint, the best I can manage is that he seems to have opted for Hitler Lite for the moment. He is simply not to be trusted. He has destroyed the trust of our people, Nato and various Women.
If you give a mouse a cookie....thank you for a parallel read.
Time to shine a light on the private detention camps. To keep the beds full they will have to keep refining 'our people.'
If I was Greenland I would not allow any additional US soldiers or bases in Greenland. I can just see Trump claiming Greenland after he has a bigger foothold. Denmark and Greenland should stall until we elect a Democrat that respects them both.
The Orange Mussolini's Board of Peace resembles Spectre from a James Bond Movie...
“Trump isn’t Hitler, of course, and any attempt to compare Hitler with a current political figure can seem laughable or outrageous. Trump is an incipient fascist; Hitler was a full-fledged totalitarian dictator.” …. The jury is still out as to where and how far Trump will take us (and congress will acquiesce) toward a true state of fascism. Hitler rose to power in 1933. Even by 1938 nobody would have predicted where his version of fascism would take the world. I certainly can’t predict where Trump’s version will take us but I think it is clear he has no boundaries as to how far he will go if he thinks it serves his self interest and he can get away with it. I can’t predict what this will look like but I can predict that we are on a path toward finding out.
With apologies to the English (I think) journalist who reported this, on the night that Hitler invaded Poland, said journalist said that the women on the Berlin streetcar she rode chatted amiably about the opera they had just attended. She (the journalist) was astonished that the invasion in was not, in the German women's minds, worthy of discussion. "Everything's fine! Normal!"
I don't *think* our society is so corrupted that we – broadly speaking – won't acknowledge what's happened this week as being anything other than insane. But it's something I'm thinking about nonetheless.
There are certainly some among us-many of the MAGAts, for example-who have drunk so much of the Kool Aid that they still believe Trump is the greatest. Those are the ones that really concern me because they don’t even seem to recognize that Trump hates them for being poor and is only using them. He’s actually harmed them economically and yet they still support him. I don’t get it, honestly.
I experience this daily in my small circle, and they absolutely mean well. These are truly good people with very positive attitudes. They say things like: "It's not as bad as some hysterical people are trying to make it sound." And, "What are the positive things Trump is doing right now?" It always reminds me of the quartet that continued performing on the Titanic. They choose to be happy.
It is very fair to compare Trump to Hitler. While we can accept that Trump has none of Hitler's deep hatreds, Trump is similarly self absorbed and unmoved by the suffering of others. That that suffering is much less than what Hitler did, still who else can we compare him to?
Certainly not to any US president before him.
Trump seems to have the deep burning resentment and hatred that Hitler had. "The election was rigged! It was stolen from me. The Biden crime family - should be prosecuted." Sound familiar? Although some of his racism is covert, it plays out when he asks the reporters "Where are you from?" It's grotesquely racist, they are professional journalists and if they are people of color he has to stereotype them before he can answer the question.
Well put, relevant and thought provoking; "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them" .
Excellent well thought out article. You should send it to the leaders of the EU and the UK. They need to hear what Americans make of this so called speech. Trump has not given up on Greenland, that is clear. Did you not think it was a mistake when he said Iceland four times?
Hi Susan, a reader from Denmark here. I can assure you that European politicians - and the European public in general - are much more cognizant with regards to American politics and societal issues than American politicians are regarding European affairs. Each day we shake our collective head and are infinitely grieved and dumbfounded by the torrents of dangerous stupidity pouring forth from the Trump administration and his spineless, cowardly enablers in Congress and the media. I recently talked to a bunch of friends, and we agreed that if we ever got to be as mindbogglingly stupid as Jesse Walters, we would kill ourselves. Trust me, our leaders know. The problem is how to deal with an oversize toddler with weapons...
Jesse Watters, sorry.