J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, once equated Trump with Adolf Hitler. This got me thinking about Hitler and the strategies he used to achieve and remain in power. One of those strategies was turning people against each other by demonizing subgroups of the population; in Hitler’s case, the Jews and Romany people. Rather than uniting, he divided the country and set people against each other. Mr. Trump appears to be following the same playbook, in his case, demonizing undocumented immigrants.
Trump does not threaten to exterminate those he demonizes as Hitler did, only to deport them en masse, no matter how long they have lived in the country, what contributions they have made to the community, or the fact that many are doing jobs that American citizens don’t want. From the cheers at Trump rallies, that seems OK with many people; after all, they were born here. They see no danger of harm coming to them.
Be warned: Once the dividing and demonization starts, who can predict where it will end?
— Susan Soule
Anchorage
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