You don't have to be another Hitler to be Hitlerian, by Hal M. Brown Trump's agenda is Hitler without death camps and starting a war that would kill 75 million.

Today Sabrina Haake wrote Contempt of Court (here).

She references Hitler twice:

Bukele’s ‘States of Exception’ are the legal cover he employs to silence his critics and send people to concentration camps with no legal process. States of Exception were also Hitler’s initial cover for controlling the media, dispatching SS henchmen, and sending millions of innocent people to unthinkable deaths.

Like Bukele, Hitler, and other autocrats throughout history, Trump is also fond of declaring “national emergencies,” which are precursors to states of exceptions. After only three months in office, Trump has already declared six new national emergenciesranging from the “US border emergency” to a “National Energy Emergency,” to a national emergency designating “Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”

For my own Substack today I am expanding on what I posted as a comment to her Substack:

For some time people like Sabrina and me have not been reluctant to compare Trump, and people like Bukele, to Hitler when appropriate. Others with a public forum treat mentioning his name like uttering the name of the evl Voldemort. Only Harry Porter dared to do this. When Trump does something Hitlerian and we point this out we do so knowing full well that to say that this does not diminish the worst in history genocide and a war that killed some 75 million people. One doesn't have to be literally a modern day Hitler to be Hitlerian which is defined as "relating to or characteristic of Hitler or the policies of the Nazi party."

Wiki defines blitzkrieg as follows:

Blitzkrieg is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with artillery, air assault, and close air support. The intent is to break through an opponent's lines of defense, dislocate the defenders, confuse the enemy by making it difficult to respond to the continuously changing front, and defeat them in a decisive Vernichtungsschlacht: a battle of annihilation.

Ironically, considering the failed Russian attempt to defeat Ukraine in their own blitzkrieg, this is the photo Wiki used as their illustration:

The German bliztkrieg began in 1939 and had achieved the Nazi goal of conquering Europe by 1941. It included the invasions of Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.

Trump, in a matter of months, has been engaged in his own blitzkrieg to achieve the Hitlerian end of turning the country into his dictatorship where the rule of law is what he says it is.

Trump is engaged in a juggernaut to cement his power. A juggernaut, in current English usage, is a literal or metaphorical force regarded as merciless, destructive, and unstoppable. (Wiki). (The word may sound German but it is really an English version of Jagannath, an important deity in the Hindu traditions of eastern and north-eastern India. The meaning originates from the Hindu temple cars.)

Trump has decided to flex his 78 year old golf tournament winning muscles by coming up with things to attack that have little if anything to do with achieving his ultimate goal. Chief among them are the entire DOGE agenda and his trying to wipe DEI from the country. Neither of these needed to be done to become ruler of an authoritarian country. But, back to Hitler, I wonder if the Nazis needed to exterminate the Jews to take over Europe.

What that seems to add up to is my concluding, not as an historian, but as a psychotherapist, that ruthless dictators are a strange breed with both quirks and psychopathology that may differ from one to another. For example, I doubt Hitler ever had anything like a Trump Cabinet meeting, with cameras rolling, going around the room having everyone praise him effusively. I haven’t read anything about Hitler being a grandiose narcissist needing to be effusively praised by his subordinates. He was, however, ruthless in using the force of arms to achieve his goals.

Trump’s armed troops don’t enforce his dictates by rumbling down the streets in tanks. Instead they drive up in black SUVs and his ICE version of the SS are just as intimidating as the Waffin SS were.

Imagine ICE officers like the SS troops below standing on your street and wondering which of your neighbors they were coming to take away, or whether it might by you.

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Dr. Seuss gave us "Bartholomew and the Oobleck." Trump is giving us the Stephen King version where burning lava is raining down on us,

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I heard about that Hitlerian Hungary declaration of war against LGBTQ this morning (read article) and was beyond being aghast. This is an awful reaction. We aren’t even surprised by such news anymore, because it is so expected both here and in countries like Hungary. The world is as divided as it was in WWII, and it is divided in a way we should have anticipated. Unlike during that world war when we were joined with nations fighting to save the world from a ruthless dictatorship, as a country we are on the wrong side. 

We have a president who postures as being on the side of the angels, even being a godhead himself, but if you want to go there to relgious mythology, he is Satan in disguise.

The news keeps mounting. Looking at RawStory is a good way to keep up because they are so current with breaking news - by now "Entire embassies to be closed as Trump looks to cut State Dept. budget by nearly half" is way down the page. Now the top story is 'We're living through hell' and 'it's all downhill from here': Trump-covering reporter."

This will change during the day, but this is how RawStory looks as I write this:

As I post this here’s their top story:

Every day there is a barrage of horror raining down on us like burning chunks of lava from an erupting volcano. 

I am reminded of the Dr. Seuss book “Batholomew and the Oobleck.” In the book the gooey green stuff coming down didn’t incinerate people. Note that in the story there is an arrogant king and the kingdom is saved by a young boy.

Here’s a summary of the plot from Wiki:

The book opens with an explanation of how people in the Kingdom of Didd still talk about "the year the King got angry with the sky". Throughout the year, the king of Didd, Theobald Thindner Derwin, gets angry at rain in spring, sun in summer, fog in autumn, and snow in winter because he wants something new to come down from the sky, but his personal advisor and page boy, Bartholomew Cubbins, is a bit too uncomfortable to agree with it. The king gets the idea that he can rule the sky, being the king, and he orders Bartholomew to summon the Royal Magicians, who announce that they can make a substance called Oobleck, which will not look anything at all like the regular weather. That evening, the magicians make the substance at their cave at Mystic Mountain Neeka-tave and release it into the atmosphere.

The next morning, the Oobleck starts falling from the sky. When the King sees it, he is overjoyed. He declares the day a holiday and orders Bartholomew to tell the Royal Bell Ringer to announce the occasion, but the bell will not ring; the Oobleck turns out to be both gelatinous and adhesive, and it has gummed up the bell. When Bartholomew sees a robin trapped and paralyzed in her nest by the Oobleck, he decides to warn the kingdom. The Royal Trumpeter tries to sound the alarm, but gets his hand stuck in his horn while pulling a blockage of Oobleck from it. Bartholomew tells the Captain of the Guards to warn the kingdom, but the captain, determined to prove that he's not afraid of the Oobleck, scoops some up with his sword and eats it, only to get his mouth stuck and breathe out sticky green bubbles. In the meantime, the Oobleck is falling in larger quantities than before, and is now threatening to flood the kingdom. Soon, it starts spilling into the palace as well, and pretty soon, no matter how Bartholomew tries to warn them, everybody is stuck to it and flopping about in the goo. So Bartholomew decides to ask the king for advice to save the Kingdom of Didd from the falling Oobleck.

In the throne room, the king, now covered in Oobleck, orders Bartholomew to summon the magicians to stop the storm of gooey Oobleck, but Bartholomew delivers the bad news that "their cave on Mountain Neeka-tave is buried deep in Oobleck". The king gets the idea to use the magicians' magic words "Shuffle Duffle Muzzle Muff" (but there are more unknown words) to stop the Oobleck, but he cannot remember the whole incantation, and, in any case, he is not a magician. A much-more confident Bartholomew scolds the king for ignoring him in favor of the falling Oobleck and making such a foolish wish, and he tells him to apologize for the mess his wish has caused. The king is reluctant at first, but belts out a tearful apology after Bartholomew tells him he's "no sort of king at all" if he and his subjects are drowning in Oobleck and he won't own up to his mistakes. Immediately after the king says those simple words in tears and sobs, "I'm Sorry", the Oobleck storm disappears and the sun melts away all the green slime. The king rings the bell proclaiming the day a holiday, honored not to Oobleck, but honored to rain, sun, fog, and snow—the four things that have always come down from the sky. After that, Bartholomew is hailed a hero for saving the kingdom, with the help of the king.

Then my own fantasy gets dark and I think about how Stephen King would write a similar story. The kids would still save the country like they did from an alien invasion in “Dreamcatcher.”

Dr. Seuss or Stephen King, we have no one to count on to save the country, and the world, from Donald Trump.

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There may be those who remember history and want to repeat it. --- "History warns us: every major economic crash has led to a world war. Trump’s corruption, debt, and tariffs may be lighting the fuse." Thom Hartmann

 

Read Thom Hartmann's Substack. The subtitle, "history warns us: every major economic crash has led to a world war. Trump’s corruption, debt, and tariffs may be lighting the fuse…" is what my partner, Ann, just read to me when she looked at this and said I should read Thom’s Substack.

When I did, I thought of two sayings about history. The obvious one is about what happens to those who don't learn from history. We can thank George Santayana's “The Life of Reason, or The Phases of Human Progress" for "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The other is from Shakespeare: "What's past is prologue." This is a quotation from his play The Tempest. Of course it now means that history sets the context for the present.

What this doesn't address is that it is possible that there are those in power who do understand this. When it comes to a depression, they don't care. Far more alarming, when it comes to war, they may actually want one. Trump who enjoys playing the wrestling villain, generally bullying all his enemies, and his macho posturing henchmen like Hegeseth and Homan, (and a few henchwomen) may actually want a war.

They have all these weapons. To them they may be toys they are itching to play with. It's not like when I drove across country for the first time before moving to Portland to visit before moving here from Massachusetts. This was in a fast sports car. At 5:00 AM with no cars on the highway I waited for a very wide woodsy divided median on a straight stretch so there wouldn't be a police car on the oposite side to clock my speed. Then floored it. I got it up to 140 mph before the governor on the car wouldn't let me go any faster. It was scary and exhilerating. Boys will be boys, right?

All I risked was a hefty speeding ticket and maybe one for reckless driving, not starting a war. (I may have gotten off with a warning because the many cops I've known like to have a chance to engage in a high speed chase and open up their giant engine police cars and see how fast they can go. I know some have done this in the wee hours of the morning because when I was a reserve cop myself we clocked a sheriff deputy at over 120mpg when we were running radar from a bridge over the expressway though town.)

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Walter Reed doctors apparently can test the health of someone's soul, by Hal M. Brown -- Trump passed his dementia test, but apparently he aced his soul test, too.

 

The soul is often conceived as the non-physical, immaterial essence or principle that animates a living being and is believed to be immortal. It's seen as the core of who we are, a unique expression of a divine or universal energy, and often thought to exist beyond the physical body.

This is from Wikipedia:

The soul is the immaterial aspect or essence of a living being. It is typically believed to be immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that describe the relationship between the soul and the body are interactionism, parallelism, and epiphenomenalism. Anthropologists and psychologists have found that most humans are naturally inclined to believe in the existence of the soul and that they have interculturally distinguished between souls and bodies.

So, Trump fans, you don’t have to worry about Dear Leader succumbing to devastating dementia. If the Walter Reed doctors who examined and assessed him are responsible, they would have tested his basic cognitive functioning. I have no reason to believe that they would outright lie and say there were no signs of dementia if they determined that there were.

Despite my friend Sabrina Haake doubling down in her second Substack (also published on Rawstory) that she thinks Trump has dementia (I offered a countray view of this here), I don’t see indications of this. Frankly, I am tired of providing my arguments.

What struck me the most was more evidence of Trump’s self-aggrandizing lunacy. I use the word “lunacy” in the non-clinical sense: extremely foolish, eccentric, or irrational behavior; extreme folly or eccentricity. However, I also see this statement as showing that in some ways he is more normal than his critics want to admit.

What Trump apparently means to convey in his statement about doctors concluding that he has a good soul is that they could tell that he’s a good person. Mister Nice Guy… just ask Bill Maher who, having met with Trump, thinks he’s just a hail-fellow. (I refer you to my real life friend Dianna Jackson’s Substack about this: Pretending It’s Normal Bill Maher Gets Played.) 

Here’s an excerpt:

But last night while sitting on a stool like a pigeon, he gave a report to his viewers about his two and one half hours of Presidential time he squandered at the visit. Per Maher, Trump was nice, funny, charming, generous. And this visit of his was happening at the same time that he (Trump) was ruining the world’s economy and defying court orders. WTF? A comedian meets up with a wannabe dictator and all is hunky dory. Yeah. Right.

This is the comment I posted on her Hickups Happen Substack:

He's now a shill for Trump being the kind gentle leader of the Gestapo.

I have to wonder if Maher knew that according to some historians Hitler could be charming too? https://medium.com/@pagany/hitler-the-soft-hearted-side-no-one-talks-about-570c959992ca Why didn't Maher use this chance of confront Trump on his sadism and on the human suffering he has caused and continues to cause?

What this tells me is that there’s a side of Trump, like the parts of Hitler and many despots, which no matter how monstrous they are that when relaxed and with people they feel comfortable with they expose a kinder gentler self. Unless they suffer from a major depressive disorder they have the same human need to chill out and have a good laugh.

Another way to put it is that people who unleash evil upon the world may take a break from plotting ways to make their enemies live in terror (investigate treasonous Miles Taylor and Kris Krebbs or turn the southern border into a 60 foot wide military base for example.)

They may kick back, have a few drinks (Diet Cokes for one at least) and have a few laughs with their cohorts.

For any Trump supporter who may have stumbled onto this, you should rest assured that your leader assured us that some of the top doctors in the country diagnosed him as having a good soul.

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Kristi Noem does the blonde Trump Barbies one better by proving her malevolent sadism with an assault rife, By Hal M. Brown -- Call her Tactical Barbie.

 

I was inspired to use AI to make the image above by this comment:

.Read Kristi Noem roasted for her gun handling skills in ICE photo-op. There is a video in the article.

Here’s an excerpt:

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is being blasted online for posing while pointing her rifle at an officer’s face in a new social media video.

In a 20-second video posted to X on Tuesday, Noem, who once boasted about killing her dog, stands between two Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as she wields a gun. Social media users flooded the comments section of her clip to warn about the dangers of holding her weapon in that way.

“Here we are with Marco and Brian today. They’re letting me roll with them. We’re going to go out and pick up somebody who I think got charges of human trafficking,” she says in the video. “We earlier had an op that swept up somebody that was wanted for murder. So appreciate the good work that they do every day, and we appreciate them working to make America safe.

In saying “they’re letting me roll with them” Noem no doubt believes she’s got the lingo down pat.

Noem and Tom Homan together are the public faces of the Trump endeavor to deport whoever they damn well please to a Salvadoran prison where inmates are stacked in bunks reminiscent of those in Nazi concentration camps. The two of them seem to be in competition for the media spotlight. This is a Google News search for Tom Homan. Here’s the Google News search for Kristi Noem.

Rachel Maddow covered her costumed photo-ops on April 8th.

This is from the UK Americas edition of the Daily Express:

She made the news during her visit to El Salvadore, not so much for the horrors that our democracy has been reduced to, but because she was wearing a $50,000 watch.

On April 9 I wrote “Trump's Hitlerian Henchwomen: Pam Bondi and Karoline Leavitt offer the feminine tone as their Führer sets the stage for sending people to the modern day version of concentration camps.”

My AI illustration software couldn’t really tell Bondi and Leavitt apart.

My hunch is that dog killer Noem wants none of this pretty face image. Her behavior indicates she wants to be seen as the toughest of tough Trump enforcers.

Instead of the regular and social media focusing on the image photos like these convey to people who want us to stay a democracy where the rule of law prevails, they are lambasting her for how she is carelessly handling a  M-4 assault rifle.

Anyone who has had any firearms training knows that you always assume a gun is loaded and never point it anywhere near a direction other than your intended target. This was the first thing I learned as a reserve police officer when I was taken to the range for the first time. This, however, is beside the point.

The ICE agents posing with Noem, and the other ICE agents we see in the media, are equipped like SWAT members about to assault the lair of a heavily armed drug kingpin, not arrest some unfortunate immigrant who may or may not be here illegally.

They are armed like this for the purpose of intimidating, not the people about to be arrested, but the rest of the country. Cross us, their message is, and we will send thugs in body armor carrying weapons best suited for actual combat against enemies who are shooting back. 

Trump wants it both ways. He wants some of his cadre to convey a soft image and others to come across as hard as nails. He wants his muscle bound tatooed Pete Hegseth, whose photos flooded the media when he was nominated, and RFK Jr., shown below making the news with shirtless photos of him working out. If Trump can’t be a muscle bound Rambo at least he can have the satisfaction of ordering them to do his dirty work.

What’s a poor girl to do when she’s competing with the immigration czar who actually looks like he could he a psychoath?

I guess all that’s left is to show she’s not afraid to stand in front of Venezuelan gang members who may not have seen a woman in months or years and going on a raid with ICE agents… we don’t know if this really happened and if it did whether she was allowed to carry a loaded assault rifle.

Here’s another AI image of tactical Barbie:

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