On Feb. 20, 1939, 20,000 Americans filled New York City’s Madison Square Garden to pronounce themselves Nazis, giving Nazi salutes and cheering for Adolf Hitler. The rally took place just two days before George Washington’s birthday, the stage outfitted with massive a portrait of our first president, flanked by both American flags and swastikas. Organizers branded it a “pro-America” event; one of the featured speakers proclaimed that “If George Washington were alive today he’d be friends with Adolf Hitler.”
The keynote address was given by one Fritz Julius Kahn, a German-American Nazi activist who called upon “American patriots” to install a “white, gentile-ruled United States,” just like the good old days. “We with American ideals,” he intoned, “demand that our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it.”
Given Donald Trump’s vow to “terminate” the Constitution, to be a “dictator” on day one of his hoped-for return to the Oval Office, his threats to unleash the American military against critics whom he describes as “the enemy within” and his oft-expressed admiration for murderous totalitarians like Vladimir Putin and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, his decision to stage a rally at the same venue as the Hitlerites did in 1939 had, well, a certain de ja vu aspect to it.
Team Trump angrily rejected any comparison, pointing out that plenty of non-Nazis have played the Garden. Billy Joel plays it all the time, for example. Problem is that while Trump never invokes Billy Joel, he has evinced real sympathy for Adolf Hitler – by name. Retired Marine General John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, told the New York Times on the record this past week that Trump “commented more than once that ‘you know, Hitler did some good things, too.’ ” Kelly recounted that on multiple occasions Trump, complaining about the American military, said that he needed “German generals.” When Kelly asked “Surely, you can’t mean Hitler’s generals,” Trump replied “Yeah, yeah. Hitler’s generals.” This corroborated the accounts of two present in the waning days of Trump’s administration, when he was frantically seeking to remain in office even after Americans voted him out of it. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump reportedly complained.
Trump denies that he admires Hitler, and you know how much that denial is worth. His running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, says he believes Trump, but he is a somewhat imperfect validator. Vance, who in the past called Trump a “total fraud” and “reprehensible,” wrote in 2016 that “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical (expletive) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
There’ve been a long line of American military leaders, conservatives all, who served under Trump, who, whether or not they have actually used the name of world history’s most infamous fascist, have said that Trump is one. General Kelly told the Times that Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist,” adding that Trump “would love to be a dictator…. He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.” Army General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, pointedly and publicly called Trump a “wannabe dictator,” and told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump was “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person in this country.” Trump’s Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, asked if Trump fell into the category of a fascist, responded “It’s hard to say that he doesn’t. And I think it’s something we should be wary of.”
Last Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Vance about Trump’s statement that former Congresswoman Liz Cheney should be hauled before a war tribunal. “None of this sounds fascistic to you?” Tapper asked incredulously.
“Of course it doesn’t,” Vance replied.
Of course it does. And of course it is.
In a week, Americans will decide whether we have learned anything since 1939, and, if so, what. Here’s the thing about the decision we make: there won’t be any do-overs.
Jeff Robbins’ latest book, “Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad,” is available. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment, he is a longtime columnist for the Boston Herald.
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