At a recent campaign rally, Donald Trump spewed words that could very likely have come from the mouths of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in their representation of Jews: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”
Ever the self-avowed victim, Trump shouted, “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.”
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Trump went on further to argue that “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”
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“The Washington establishment and the financial and media corporations that fund it exist for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself… For those who control the levers of power in Washington, and for the global special interests… [i]t’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities… This is a conspiracy against you, the American people, and we cannot let this happen or continue. This is our moment of reckoning as a society and as a civilization itself.” –Donald Trump, rally speech, West Palm Beach, Florida, October 14, 2016
Donald Trump may not have a general grasp of politics and history, but he certainly understands how to use the propaganda of fascism to sway public opinion. While his wife, Melania, finally admitted to plagiarizing the words of Michelle Obama in her speech before the delegates at the Republican National Convention in summer 2016, Trump will never admit to lifting the sentiments and words verbatim from the notorious Protocols of a Meeting of the Learned Elders of Zion.
The Protocols was a fabricated antisemitic text dating from 1903 that was widely distributed by Russian Czarist forces to turn public opinion against a so-called “Jewish Revolution” for the purpose of convincing the populace that Jews were plotting to impose a conspiratorial international Jewish government.
It is the alleged minutes of a late 19th-century meeting where Jewish leaders planned to subvert the minds, morals, and cultures of non-Jews by controlling politicians, the press, and world economies for world domination. The Protocols was translated into many languages and circulated throughout the world.
In fact, the raging antisemite, U.S. automotive pioneer Henry Ford, argued that Jews controlled world leaders, international finance, and the media. He had the Protocols translated into English in 1927 and published in his Michigan newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, thereby introducing it to a large U.S. audience.
Beginning in 1920, Ford chronicled what he considered the “Jewish menace” in his paper. Every week for 91 issues, Ford exposed what he perceived as some sort of Jewish evil. He chose to reprint the most popular and virulent of his articles into four volumes titled The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem.
Hitler bestowed on Henry Ford the highest award given to a non-German, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, in 1938. At the Nuremberg Trials following WWII, Baldur von Shirach, leader of the Hitler Youth, stated that Hitler had become “Jew-wise” by reading Henry Ford’s writings.
Though Jews had little control over their lives in many European countries, the stereotype that they are obsessed with money and power, that they control politicians, the media, and banking systems, and that they are interested in world domination persists into the modern era.
Trump’s biggest fans
During his Florida speech, Trump succeeded in having his antisemitic leitmotiv dog whistle heard. Among his many ardent supporters, the Christian white supremacists of the so-called “alt-right” received it loud and clear.
The white nationalist website The Right Stuff celebrated Trump’s Florida speech with an article by Lawrence Murray affirming that “somehow Trump manages to channel Goebbels and ‘Detroit Republicanism’ all at the same time.”
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister for Propaganda and Public Education, wrote and spoke continually of an alleged “Jewish conspiracy” to undermine German culture and civilization itself. Speaking at the September 1935 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, Goebbels connected Bolshevism with international Jewry. He warned Nazi party members of a supposed international Jewish conspiracy to snuff out Western civilization.
Goebbels headed efforts to purge all Jews and other so-called “un-German” influences from Nazi German cultural institutions. He and other Nazi leaders blamed Jews for starting WWII by controlling politicians, the media, and world finances for their own ends.
In his article, Murray concluded that Trump’s speech was “almost unprecedented in its militancy and vitriol for the luegenpresse [a Nazi term meaning “lying press”] and the brahmins.” Murray also designated the speech as “88% woke.” (White supremacists use 88 as an abbreviation of “Heil Hitler” since “H” is the eighth letter of the alphabet.) He added: “Can you picture the shvitzing [“extreme sweating” in Yiddish] that must be going on in some circles right now? I can, and it’s glorious.”
Former Ku Klux Klan leader and current radio host David Duke added his praise of Trump’s “incredible speech” on his show: “Donald Trump had an incredible speech last night in West Palm Beach, maybe the strongest, most all out speech concerning the war that is being waged against us and the war that is being waged by the oligarchs who control the international banks and the globalists…”
“These Jewish supremacists and these Jewish radicals who have been dominating international banking, the financing of politics and leaders, bribing them in effect, the people who have controlled the media, the people who have controlled the political apparatus in so many countries, who have controlled much of the academia, much of the discourse, they’re crazy… They’re willing to risk World War III for their political objectives in the Middle East, in Israel, and elsewhere.”
While Hillary Clinton apologized during her presidential campaign in 2016 for her characterization of half of Trump’s supporters as fitting into “a basket of deplorables,” she was most clearly on target that some (possibly a significant number), as well as Trump himself, have constructed that basket and reside quite confidently inside it.
