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History doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes... Join us as we examine unsettling similarities between two turbulent eras that have citizens concerned. From failed coups and political comebacks to economic exploitation and media manipulation, these comparisons raise important questions about our democratic institutions and where we might be heading.
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00:00Thousands, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, many of them prisoners, they're
00:04taking up your healthcare, they're taking up your space in schools, they're taking up
00:08your hospital.
00:09Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're breaking down some of the most unsettling comparisons
00:13that can be made between the respective reigns of US President Donald Trump and German Fuhrer
00:18Adolf Hitler.
00:19This is the will of God.
00:21Now it is obvious why I think it is my duty to the nation to save the German people from
00:26the danger of communism.
00:29A dramatic return to power after political exile.
00:32Joe Biden has won the American presidential election.
00:36The BBC projects that he's crossed the threshold of 270 electoral college votes needed with
00:42a win in the state of Pennsylvania.
00:45He will now become the president in January, pending the outcome of any legal challenges.
00:50As you probably already know, the 2020 United States presidential election didn't exactly
00:55go President Trump's way, and he sort of made a big deal about it.
00:58With that in mind, it could be argued that Trump's comeback campaign after 2020 mirrors
01:04Hitler's re-emergence from the wreckage of the botched Beer Hall putsch of 1923.
01:07Both capitalized on feelings of mass unrest as well as outsider narratives for a reinvigorating
01:23return.
01:24Perhaps their most effective tactic was stoking fears about immigration and their country's
01:29future.
01:30Donald Trump reclaimed the White House after four years of tireless campaigning, not entirely
01:35unlike how the Austrian artist, otherwise known as Adolf, became chancellor in 1933.
01:40Subsequence to the death of President Hindenburg, the office of vice president will be combined with that of vice chancellor.
01:49The army has devised an oath of unconditional loyalty to the person of the Führer, to be taken by every officer and soldier of the armed forces.
02:01Failed coups.
02:02We mentioned it in our last entry, but let's contextualize the 1923 Beer Hall putsch a little further, and demonstrate how it shares eerie parallels with the January 6th Capitol insurrection.
02:16The November march was a failed attempt to take revenge against the incumbent Weimar Republic, for signing the Treaty of Versailles some years earlier.
02:37It was foiled by the Bavarian State Police, and ended with 16 deaths, 15 Nazis, one civilian.
03:00Nearly 100 years later, in 2021, President Trump's 2020 re-election effort was unsuccessful, and he encouraged his followers to storm the Capitol building and put a stop to the certification of the results.
03:13Though different in scale and context, both events were test runs for deeper anti-democratic impulses, and the symmetrical nature of their trajectory is yet another sobering coincidence.
03:24I was simply taking back that which was stolen from us five years before, namely the right, the right to defend ourselves against the wishes of an incapable part.
03:36Dictators and elder statesmen.
03:38So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.
03:44That's the best way to unite our nation.
03:47You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life.
03:53There's also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices.
03:59Germany had Hindenburg.
04:01America had Biden.
04:03Paul von Hindenburg was the president of Germany from 1925 to 1934, a war hero who had nevertheless lost favor with his people.
04:12Backed into a corner, Hindenburg agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor, and the rest is literally history.
04:18Joe Biden, a career politician faced with widely publicized health issues, gave way for Kamala Harris to try and fail decisively to win the presidency in 2024.
04:30Just a few months, the American people choose the course of America's future.
04:35I made my choice.
04:37I made my views known.
04:39I'd like to thank our great Vice President Kamala Harris.
04:44She's experienced.
04:45She's tough.
04:46She's capable.
04:47She's been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.
04:52Here's the idea.
04:53Hindenburg and Biden were leaders who represented a political crossroads, opening the door to more radical successors with fervent followings.
05:02In both cases, such a politician's obvious decline allowed for a tempestuous tyrant to steer the nation to his impulses and desires, despite the potential impact on its citizens.
05:14The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule.
05:19The people do.
05:21History is in your hands.
05:24The power is in your hands.
05:26The idea of America lies in your hands.
05:30We just have to keep faith, keep the faith, and remember who we are.
05:34Persecutory tendencies.
05:36Within hours of taking the oath of office, I declared a national emergency on our southern border, and I deployed the U.S. military and border patrol to repel the invasion of our country.
05:49And what a job they've done.
05:52Let's make one thing clear.
05:54Donald Trump is very clearly not Hitler.
05:56But his open embracement of white supremacist talking points may foreshadow disturbing things to come.
06:02While Trump has strongly denied any claims that accuse him of racism, journalists, authors, and more have been quick to characterize his viewpoints of being poisoned by racist ideals.
06:13New this morning, President Trump's sweeping new travel ban is now in effect.
06:17As of midnight, citizens from 12 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, are now barred from entering the United States.
06:23And people from seven other nations now face new travel restrictions.
06:28So what is the impact?
06:29Of course, to reiterate, we're nowhere near the level of Nazi Germany's appalling racial policies, which touted the superiority of the so-called Aryan master race and aims to whitewash the world.
06:41But Trump's rhetoric targeting Muslims, Latinos, and immigrants has normalized xenophobia and political scapegoating.
06:49Consider then how Hitler became synonymous with racism and xenophobia, taking it to an unthinkable final solution by 1942.
06:57Now, an area is constructed that, um, resembles a shower room or a bath.
07:02And the subjects are brought in naked, as though for a shower.
07:06And outside, stainless steel tanks pump in pure carbon monoxide.
07:10Which, um, what it does is, um, well, I have figures.
07:18Disdain for multilateral agreements.
07:20In 1919, as the historic meeting at the Palace of Versailles took place,
07:25the victorious Allied governments sent their representatives with one hope in mind,
07:29the formation of an organization that would outlaw war from the world and settle all future disputes peacefully and at the conference table.
07:37For the uninitiated, the Treaty of Versailles played a vital role in ending World War I, and ushering in an era of peace.
07:44Albeit a temporary one at that, it imposed heavy sanctions on Germany.
07:49These included requiring it to disarm and take full responsibility for the loss and damage wrought by the deadly and destructive war.
07:57Essentially what happened is that you create such an unstable economy and so much animosity between nations that you're just seeding the field of war to rise and grow again.
08:09Seen as a just punishment at the time for Germany's having initiated the conflict,
08:13the Treaty of Versailles ultimately satisfied no one and led to the festering resentment that would fuel Adolf Hitler's rise to power.
08:21And just as Hitler rejected the Treaty of Versailles, Trump has dismissed NATO, NAFTA, the Paris Accord.
08:28Virtually any deal not branded Trump is deemed illegitimate.
08:33I was very much involved in this. When I first got elected at the very beginning, first term, I got hundreds of billions of dollars put into NATO.
08:43I mean, NATO had no money because they hadn't paid for years.
08:46And I said, look, if you don't pay, we're not going to be a part of NATO.
08:49We're not going to protect. We're not going to do what we're supposed to do.
08:52Leveraging economic instability for political gain.
08:55Less than an hour ago, the Labor Department released new numbers showing the consumer price index that's basically follows inflation.
09:02It spiked to four point two percent compared to where we were a year ago.
09:06That is the biggest jump we have seen since 2008.
09:09In the wake of World War One, Germany's hyperinflation created the necessary conditions for extremist sentiments to bubble up.
09:16Similarly, in the post-COVID United States, the crushing weight of the 2021 to 23 inflation surge and its associated economic stress helped re-energize American nationalism.
09:29We're going to make it the best it's ever been. We can do that.
09:32We just, if we had to wait longer, I don't know it was going bad and it was going bad fast.
09:37We're going to have to seal up those borders and we're going to have to let people come into our country.
09:42We want people to come back in, but we have to, we have to let them come back in, but they have to come in legally.
09:54Of course, both nations suffered extensive periods of high inflation.
09:58In Germany, the Reichsmark had become worthless, only serving to stoke unrest amongst the German electorate.
10:04Meanwhile, in the present day, Trump can blame COVID or the Biden administration.
10:10But some of his own policies to curtail immigration, which have been decried by detractors as draconian and persecutory, are having a clear and deleterious effect on American job supply.
10:22Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers.
10:26They've worked for them for 20 years.
10:28They, they're not citizens, but they've turned out to be, you know, great.
10:32And we're going to have to do something about that.
10:34We can't take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don't have maybe what they're supposed to have, maybe not.
10:41Employment of propaganda and fake news.
10:44With an able assist from an astute student of human psychology, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, all resistance for his grab for power faded away.
10:52By 1933, Adolf Hitler was Germany, and the world watched his noisy machinations with growing fear and anxiety.
10:59Both Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump share the dubious distinction of having mastered the new media of their time to shape public opinion and vilify opposition.
11:09Hitler didn't do it all by himself, enlisting the help of his Reich Ministry of Public and Light.
11:14Key to the department was Minister Joseph Goebbels, a close confidant of Hitler's whose weaponization of Germany's radio waves produced compelling propaganda that preached hatred and anti-Semitism, as well as justification for the ongoing war effort.
11:29National Public Radio or NPR and three of its local stations sued the Trump administration Tuesday over its attempts to deny them congressionally appropriated funds.
11:39President Trump signed an executive order on May 1st, which ended federal funding for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, over what he claims is bias in their programming.
11:49Their respective friend groups.
11:51There was nobody tougher than me with Russia, and yet I got along with Putin.
11:55Let me tell you, I got along with him really well, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
11:59He's got 1,700 nuclear missiles, and so do we.
12:02But look, that's a good thing.
12:04Getting along is okay, but I got along through strength.
12:07Maybe this shouldn't be at all surprising.
12:10When given the chance to denounce the racism on display at the 2017 Unite the Right rally, Trump instead claimed that there were, quote, very fine people on both sides.
12:20So it's not exactly shocking that he tends to praise autocrats like Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Xi Jinping, and Hungary's Viktor Orban, leaders he regards as effective rather than dangerous.
12:33Viktor Orban said it.
12:36He said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump.
12:40We had no problems when Trump was president.
12:43But when this weak, pathetic man that you saw at a debate just a few months ago, that if he weren't in that debate, he'd be running instead of hers, you got no votes.
12:52He frames their despotic traits not as a threat to democracy, but as a model worth emulating.
12:59History witnessed something similar in the lead-up to World War II, when Adolf Hitler wrote admiring letters to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini,
13:07lauding his leadership and expressing interest in joining forces under an oppressive shared vision.
13:14Without a doubt, he proved an inspiration for Adolf Hitler, whose fascist party in Germany was still in its infancy.
13:19Mussolini preferred to stub the Austrian housepainter until 1934, when it became apparent that the man with the mustache was soon to become a world power to be reckoned with.
13:28Their first meeting in Venice proved to be a historic blending of two power madmen who were forced into a partnership by the enmity of the rest of the world.
13:37Expansionism, conquer or die.
13:39What I'd like to see Canada become our 51st state.
13:42We give them protection, military protection.
13:45We don't need them to build our cars.
13:48I'd rather see Detroit or South Carolina or any one of our, Tennessee, any one of our states build the cars.
13:55They can do it very easily.
13:56We don't need them for the cars.
13:57We don't need them for lumber.
13:58Once Donald Trump returned to power as the 47th president in 2025, his fascination with territorial expansion was quickly reignited, targeting, oddly enough, Canada and Greenland.
14:10In moves that baffled economists, politicians and laymen alike, Trump floated the idea of annexing Canada as the 51st state and expressed a profound interest in acquiring Greenland from Denmark.
14:22But we've been dealing with Denmark. We've been dealing with Greenland and we have to do it.
14:26We really need it for national security.
14:29I think that's why NATO might be have to get involved in a way because we really need Greenland for national security.
14:36It's very important.
14:37You know, we have a couple of bases on Greenland already and we have quite a few soldiers and maybe you'll see more and more soldiers go there.
14:45I don't know. What do you think about that, Pete?
14:48While dismissed by some as political theatre, these gestures echoed a far darker precedent.
14:53Adolf Hitler's 1938 Anschluss, the annexation of Austria that marked the beginning of his quest for a, quote, greater Germany.
15:01For both men, expansionist rhetoric wasn't just about geography.
15:05It was a tool for stoking nationalism, consolidating power, and projecting dominance beyond their borders.
15:12The cheers are for Chancellor Adolf Hitler returning to his homeland for the first time in almost 25 years.
15:20His first act on entering Austria was to declare void the Treaty of Saint-Germain, which so long prevented the voluntary union of Austria and Germany.
15:31Now, for the first time in history, Austria and Germany are one nation.
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15:52The Pandora's Box Problem
15:54See, I just spoke to President Trump.
15:57One thing, you know, the president was aware of Israel's action before it happened.
16:04There were no surprises here.
16:06But he gave me a quote.
16:07He said, Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb.
16:10We're hoping to get back to the negotiating table.
16:12We'll see.
16:13June 2025 marked what many are calling a dark turning point for the Trump administration.
16:19Amid the chaos of the brief but frightening Israel-Iran war and massive immigration protests erupting in Los Angeles,
16:26Trump seized the moment to test out his longstanding push to consolidate executive power.
16:31Critics argue that this response to these overlapping crises reflects a dangerous expansion of presidential authority.
16:38This was provoked by the White House.
16:41The reason why, we don't know.
16:44I posit that maybe we are part of a national experiment to determine how far the federal government can go in reaching in and taking over power from a governor, power from a local jurisdiction.
17:00The historical parallel is hard to ignore.
17:03Adolf Hitler used the 1933 Reichstag fire to justify the subsequent Enabling Act, effectively dismantling Germany's democratic institutions.
17:13Even if Trump himself avoids war, the forces he's unleashed, conspiracies, militias, erosion of norms, could outlast and outpace him, much like Hitler's early policies spiraled into something far more catastrophic.
17:27As I mentioned before, the Trump administration reached out to a key Middle Eastern ally beforehand to acknowledge this strike was going to happen,
17:36but that the U.S. was not involved in the strike, but the goal is still to get Iran back to the negotiating table.
17:43What do you think? Do you see the parallels between these two historically significant men, or are they just not there?
17:50Be sure to let us know in the comments below.
17:52It's lucky for the people in Los Angeles and in California that we did what we did.
17:57We got it just in time. It's still simmering a little bit.
18:00Let's do that once at night, we judge a little bit.
18:06Well let's do that when we get here.
18:08I'm not sure that we can record it.
18:10All right, let's see.
18:12Ah, I hope we get up there.
18:13I think that we're worth it.
18:14One, two, three, four, three, and I am thinking.
18:16I think my parents may not goל the whole emotionally way before us.
18:19What I'm doing is that you would have gotten there between my services,
18:21but if you're not in trouble, I am NOUTS for anрезer day and I can only be good.
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