Thereâs a forgotten moment from Donald Trumpâs history that I think about with some regularity. About two decades ago, Trump got into a fight with the town of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., over a flagpole he installed at his golf course there. The pole was installed without a permit and the height violated local codes. This was not the fight he had centered on an oversized flag installed at Mar-a-Lago â a story that became part of the Trump-as-patriot lore of his followers, with details exaggerated in service to the idea that he put the display of the flag above all else.
What lingers for me about the California iteration is an interaction Trump had with Stephen Colbert, then host of âThe Colbert Report.â Colbertâs shtick on the show was that he was an uncomplicated, jingoistic voice of the right, so he recorded a segment offering fake enthusiasm for the future presidentâs tussle. Then, at the end, he exposed Trumpâs insincerity.
âWhatâs important is this flag,â Colbert says, with his characterâs trademark bravado, âand its message of freedom â a message as important to Donald Trump as it was to the 13 original colonies.â
Cut to Trump.
âI donât know what the 13 stripes represent,â Trump says.
This isnât surprising, in either the specifics or the broad strokes. The story of Trumpâs tenure in national politics has been that he â often coarsely â seizes on symbols of American patriotism while showing little understanding of what they represent or the traditions they embody.
Itâs true of the flag, the 13 stripes of which he has formed a habit of hugging during the past eight years. Itâs true of the presidency itself, which by all outward appearances he entered while believing that it operated something like being the CEO of a private company. At no point did Trump indicate that he viewed the office as something he was entrusted to hold for four years, as his response to the 2020 election shows. At no point did he indicate that he viewed the presidency as a coequal branch of government with Congress and the Supreme Court.
This haphazard approach to American institutions and history is useful to consider, given Trumpâs declaration over the weekend that he would target his perceived opponents as though they were disease-carrying animals.
âIn honor of our great Veterans on Veteranâs Day,â he wrote on social media, âwe pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream.â
âThe threat from outside forces,â he added, âis far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within.â
In 2015 and 2016, Trumpâs rhetoric focused heavily on the purported threats from outside the country, including immigrants and terrorists (groups he often conflated). But those targets were not personally annoying to him in the way that his political opponents â and those he claims are aligned with his opponents, such as federal prosecutors and media members â are annoying. So he has shifted.
As soon as Trump offered these comments, historians (both professional and amateur) noted that they echoed the rhetoric of fascist leaders like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. This raises a new question: Is Trump doing so knowingly â or is he simply following the same path those dictators walked?
The distinction here is admittedly subtle. It seems important to distinguish between a potential president whose clumsy anger at his opponents has him using language deployed by some of historyâs worst actors and a potential president who is willfully modeling himself in their mold.
Stories about Trumpâs flirtations with Hitler â or, at least, with some narrowly constructed vision of the mass murderer â have been around for decades. In 1990, Vanity Fair reported an allegation made by his wife as they were going through a divorce.
âIvana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitlerâs collected speeches, âMy New Order,â which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed,â Marie Brenner reported. Asked about it, Trump claimed that he was given Hitlerâs âMein Kampfâ as a gift and that, âif I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.â
Books released after Trumpâs presidency contained anecdotes in which Trump offered words of praise for Nazi Germany to White House chief of staff John Kelly.
âWell, Hitler did a lot of good things,â Trump told Kelly according to Michael Benderâs âFrankly, We Did Win This Election.â At a moment when he was frustrated by pushback from military leaders, Trump reportedly complained to Kelly that he wished his officers could âbe like the German generalsâ during World War II.
âYou do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?â Kelly replied, according to Peter Baker and Susan Glasserâs âThe Divider.â
This is true. But Trumpâs familiarity with Hitler didnât extend so far as to understanding that there was internal dissension even given the iron fist with which he controlled the country. By all appearances, Trump just sees the fist.
Over the past eight years, this has become obvious. Trump offers praise to a range of autocrats and dictators: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. These are leaders who donât share an ideology or a system of government but share an approach to the wielding of power and a popular response that Trump finds appealing.
Jonathan Karlâs new book, âTired of Winning,â documents a conversation between Trump and another Republican politician that gets to this point, according to an excerpt obtained by Politico.
âTrump gloated to a prominent member of Congress that [former German chancellor Angela] Merkel â who detested the 45th president privately and had trouble hiding her scorn publicly â told him she was âamazedâ by the number of people who came to see him speak,â Karl writes, according to Politico, âand Trump said âshe told me that there was only one other political leader who ever got crowds as big as mine.â The Trump-allied congressman knew who Merkel was comparing Trump to, but couldnât tell if Trump, who took Merkelâs words as a compliment, himself understood.â
âWhich would be more unsettling,â Karl continues, âthat he didnât or that he did?â
That, again, is the question. Is it more alarming if Trump knows very well that Hitler used rhetoric comparing his opponents to rats that needed to be eradicated or if he simply got to the same place by himself? Is it better if Trump doesnât know how Hitlerâs story ends â taking his own life as his grotesque empire collapsed having earned a reviled position in world history â or if he does? Which possibility offers a less disconcerting set of possibilities for the post-2024 future?
And, of course, how does that distinction color other reports about what Trump has planned, that he wants to scour the federal bureaucracy of disagreement, turn federal law enforcement against opponents and imprison asylum seekers in camps?
Trump didnât spend a lot of time lingering over his âverminâ comments on social media this weekend. He was too busy sharing and resharing video clips of his applause-drenched entrance to an Ultimate Fighting Championship event at New Yorkâs Madison Square Garden, accompanied by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and musician Kid Rock. Thatâs what he enjoys: the applause and the adoration of people who came to the famous entertainment venue to see two people beat each other senseless.
In 1939, Madison Square Garden also hosted a pro-Hitler rally that disparaged the media and Jewish people. The event was soaked in just the sort of patriotic iconography that Trump adores, with only a slightly elevated level of contradiction.