Trump will not be Hitler

There will never be a World War III— at least, not the way I have imagined it. Some of us may envision an upcoming World War as one that features the drafting of our boys to far-flung Pacific islands or small towns in Europe or Northern Africa. We may even worry that WWIII will mean food rationing, or hope that it would spruce up the U.S. economy the way the second World War did.

This isn’t reality. While it's not for me to predict the future, it is unlikely that any so-called “World War III” will resemble anything our great-grandparents witnessed. There are simple reasons for this, mostly related to our current state of affairs. Today there are at least 195 sovereign nations in the world; by the end of WWII there were no more than 100. The British Empire did not officially disintegrate until 1997; currently, the vestiges of colonialism give the world different problems to face, but problems nonetheless. In noting this, how then can we accurately equate Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler?

The fall of the Berlin Wall supposedly ushered in a period of postmodernism, in a similar fashion that Obama’s presidency introduced an era of “post-racialism,” but these are claims that are consistently contradicted. On the first count, individuals from both sides of the aisle employ modernist, irrefutable tactics by arguing that Donald Trump is the new Hitler. While I am not interested in arguing against post-modernism wholesale, it seems that this case and a few others exemplify how we harken back to the past universally, appropriating certain definite notions about the world from yesteryear. Constantly we are reminded to learn from history— with varied results— and perhaps this is what we do when we refer to President Obama as Stalin or remind modern “social justice warriors” that their problems do not compare at all to the issues that faced men and women who were lynched in the American South or water-hosed by the police in the 1960s.

Comparing Trump to Hitler, and thus belittling the terrors that befall the present, is a mistake. If elected president, Trump will be in one of the greatest positions to make America worse, with methods that may resemble methods of past dictators. But no matter what, he will not be Hitler.

When comparing Trump to Hitler, many arguments stem from the notion that Trump’s rhetoric resembles those of the Nazi leader and perhaps by extension neo-Nazi dogma. His alleged comments concerning a mandate that would require Muslims to carry “identification cards that note their faith” has been compared to similar regulations imposed on Jews. Trump’s targeting of Mexican immigrants, branded by him as one of the key problems facing U.S. security today, also mirrors Hitler’s condemnation of Jews and other minority groups before and during WWII.

There are countless other ways that Trump parallels the rise and rhetoric of Hitler, and I am not denying that the comparable rise of the Nazi leader is important to note during this election cycle. Rather, I wish to caution against the urge to give Trump the easy way out— to hold him against a standard of history that can never truly be met, but challenged nonetheless.

Many of us fear that history will repeat itself, but our world does not face the same problems it did during Hitler’s lifetime. The context of the Holocaust is not one that we live in today, nor is it one that is possible to faultlessly replicate. On the Internet, I’ve seen many “jokes” that Trump will usher in a new era of slavery for African-Americans, featuring everything from cotton fields to antebellum slave masters. Funny or not, this is another example of our fallacious relationship with the past.

Many may imagine that the worst thing Donald Trump could do to black people is “send us back” to cash crop, cotton-picking slavery. While undoubtedly slavery is one of the many atrocities that the United States have committed, other horrors such as Jim Crow laws or the modern mass incarceration crisis have existed since then. “Modern-day slavery” is unimaginable, but if it did come to be, it would certainly not take the form of American chattel slavery.

Indeed, many of us fall into the trap of holding certain atrocities as the pinnacles of evil, such as American slavery or the Holocaust. These were horrifying occurrences, which cost millions their lives and much more. However, in constantly focusing on these unique historical incidents, we ignore the similar cruelties that have occurred since then and place a disproportionate focus on the past. We are neglecting the present and the conditions that have the potential to make dictatorship or imperialism even more frightening.

I fear that we regard evil as taking only a few forms. Consequently, will we recognize and condemn evil if it does not imitate the wickedness that has been endorsed as the supreme form?

Our post-modern world has the potential to create yet unseen evils, but we continue to cling almost exclusively to historic standards. I write this with the hopes that we remember this and find new ways to “define” evil that will make Trump even less of an acceptable candidate for President.

Imani Thornton is a sophomore from Matteson, Ill. She can be reached at it4@princeton.edu.