Hitlerism as a word never became popular. There is now such a thing as Trumpism. Move over, Nazism. This is the ism that will describe America. By Hal M. Brown

 

This is the Wikipedia entry for Trumpism. The term is a part of the current lexicon.

Hitlerism never became a popularly used word. Nazism did. I am not sure why. Hitler achieved a cult of personality the same way Trump has done. Maybe it is just that the term didn't have a ring to it.

This is from Wikipedia:

Nazism, formally named National Socialism (NS; German: Nationalsozialismus, is the far-right totalitariansocio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitler Fascism (German: Hitlerfaschismus) and Hitlerism (German: Hitlerismus). The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War and therefore after Nazi Germany collapsed.

Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. Its beliefs include support for dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, anti-Slavism, anti-Romani sentiment, scientific racism, white supremacy, Nordicism, social Darwinism, homophobia, ableism, and the use of eugenics.

It took Trump the four years leading up to the election to position himself to achieve his dictatorial power. He did it differently than Hitler, but the result is the same. Read: 

In January 1933, Hitler did not immediately become a dictator. When he became chancellor, Germany’s democratic constitution was still in effect. However, Hitler transformed Germany by manipulating the democratic political system. Hitler and other Nazi leaders used existing laws to destroy German democracy and create a dictatorship.

In August 1934, President Hindenburg died. Hitler proclaimed himself Führer (meaning “leader”) of Germany. From that point forward, Hitler was the dictator of Germany. Read entire article.

If you are reading this Substack, and have read my previous essays recently, it probably needs no further explanation as to why I have posted the excerpt from this article.

I watch people on TV and in Substack videos and many of them are still smiling as they report on one or another victory against Trump and Trumpism. I only manage to smile, and even laugh these days, when playing pool volleyball and watching a good comedy on TV. I never smile when learning about a victory achived by the anti-Trump movement.

One of the first articles I read this morning was Trump 'clearly' threatening his own people in public: CNN analyst.This is how it begins:

CNN political analyst Mark Preston on Thursday said that President Donald Trump appeared to be openly threatening his own cabinet officials not to get in the way of X owner Elon Musk's efforts to take a wrecking ball to the federal government.

During an interview with host Sara Sidner, Preston said that Trump's first gambit to shut down the United States Agency for International Development looks like just the opening salvo in a broader attack on the government as a whole.

"I think this spells trouble, because this is going to be the first step in really Donald Trump successfully dismantling the government," he said. "Now, everything that he does try to do, Sarah, is not going to be successful but in this first step, he appears to be successful."

The last paragraph is what jumps out. I won’t explain why.

It is hopefully no longer considered by anyone reading this, and many others, to be hyperbole to compare what happened in Germany in the 1930’s to what has happened in the United States in the previous 10+ years. Those of use who see the parallels do not suffer from the pseudo-psychiatric disorder Trump and his allies called Trump derangement syndrome. This legitimately made it into Wikipedia (here), not because it is a real disorder but because it was a political reality.

Coining this term in regard to Trump was an attempt to gaslight his critics, i.e., to manipulate them into questioning their own perception of reality.

What we do suffer, actually suffer from, is seeing things clearly and as a consequence experience anxiety and depression, real disorders, because we see the fate of our democracy.

Addendum:

It isn’t reassuring that the report that a Trump official moved to change the poem on the Statue of Liberty was only deemed partially true by Snopes. Lady Liberty and Hitler are two of the most common themes political cartoonist are using these days.

None of the cartoons which you find when you do an image search for Trump and the Statue of Liberty are funny (Google image search): 

I want to thank all of my readers and my Substack subscribers. You can read all of my Substack posts here. If you subscribe you will recieve an email every time I post. Respectful comments are always welcome even if you disagree with me.

Some think Trump's aura of invincibility is fading. By Hal M. Brown (Not me. I think he's as invincible as he ever was. He controls the people with guns.)

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This is a reaction to reading The Aura of Invincibility is Fading in The Contrarian (here).

The meaning of the word aura is “the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person.” The title of Jeniffer Rubin’s essay in today’s edition of The Contratian, published in SubStack, suggests that the aura of invincibility around Trump is fading. Her subtitle accurately says that “plenty of people are taking swings at Trump.”

If you’ve been reading my Substacks, you know I have not been basking in warm sunshine of optimism. Quite the contrary, I am in the wilds bundled up in my roaring blizzard togs. I am feeling the stinging icy wind against my face. I am not face down in the snow, but I don’t see the way to the warm safety of my cabin. I don’t need the weather channel to tell me that this is such an unprecedented storm that there’s no way to tell when, if ever, it will end. 

There have been lot's of losses for Trump & Co. and many wins for our side, but there is this chilling quote from Gen. Barry McCaffrery: "It is all a "consolidation of power with the people who have the guns."

I think of the heroic World War II Resistance. They had many victories thoughout the war. They even had guns. But for every one German officer killed, the Nazis made civilians pay with their lives 10-20 times over. If the Resistance had explosives, too, but when they blew up a bridge the Nazis destroyed an entire nearby village.

The only way the Nazis were defeated was for the Allies to amass huge military might. I don't see us as being anywhere near to D-Day. 

My partner and I are 81. We may not live to to see the Allied victory.

I think Trump and his henchmen will learn from their mistakes and focus their efforts on doing things that they believe will help them the most to achieve their final goal. We know what this is.

They will realize that their mistake was mounting a blizkrieg-like juggernaut. This was overreach where, using Project 2025, as a plan, they tried to do everything at once. But this wasn't actual warfare where Hitler's "lightening war" made sense. This was a planned takeover of a democracy and they treated it like they were invading countries.

DOGE, as well as killing woke and DEI, weren't necessary for them once they installed people like Pete Hegeseth, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, and others to lead the departments and agencies which had guns. They probably now know that RFK Jr. was a mistake. (The first person just died of measles.) His department doesn't have guns. The same could be said for cutting USAID. Their workers don’t have guns either. 

Greenland, Panama Canal, Canadian statehood, even tariffs, all were unnecessary except as distractions which they didn’t need. Vance’s speech was blowing smoke. Likewise, cozying up to Putin, made no real sense.

Once Musk gave him the millions to help win the election there was no need to let him anywhere near the Oval Office. Like he’s done with others, Trump should have cut him loose without any payback for his services.

Trump & Co. continues to squander their power and waste their energy. For example there was no need to attack the media, kick the AP off Air Force One, and take over selection of the members of the White House Press Corps. They don’t need to control the media. Reporters don’t have guns.

I see this as the the consequence of the personal psychopatholgy of Trump, Musk, and others. Mostly it was Trump who, after the humiliation of losing the election, had his burning need for revenge festered through the E. Jean Carroll trial and literally hit home when the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago.

Trump has a need he can’t control. He has to put on a show. He has to scream “look at me!” He does this every day whether it is through his social media posts, his press appearances, or his signing executive orders making such photos of him doing so with his smiling face this are plastered everywhere. I’ll spare you photos since you’ve seen so many of them.

I predict you will see Trump backing off from many of the unnecessary assaults on democracy and norms, and focus on using the incredible power of the presidency, and the control of the people with guns, to become the monarch he's always wanted to be.

Trump is itching for an excuse to declare a national emergency and to declare martial law. All it will take is for something to happen during a protest rally for him to justify this. There are already are rallies across the country and there will be more and more of them. Some of them have resulted in a few people being arrested. Eventually someone will be hurt, or there will be looting and vandalism. It doesn’t have to be particularly bad, all Trump has to do is say that it was bad.

Then we come down to the question as to whether or not soldiers will follow unconstitutional orders. This sets the country up for a military coup, but I doubt this would happen because it would mean the military throwing out the elected leaders of the country and replacing them with generals who would govern until there could be truly free elections. That would be a step too far for them. I see generals and admirals resigning before they would do this.

Nobody can do more than imagine how far this will go. One thing I believe is that the United States that was envisioned by the Founders is in grave danger of disappearing. Democrats are hoping that they will take control of the Congress in 2026. If they do, this is no quarantee that Congress will act as a check on Executive Department excess. By 2026 Trump may have consolidated so much power he will just ignore Congress. He’s already breaking laws. 

The same applies to the Supreme Court. If they try to rein in the implications of the previously enacted presidential immunity ruling and rule that the president doesn’t have imperial power, Trump can just ignore them. After all, the Supreme Court doesn’t have guns.

..

When the armored FBI Tesla Cybertruck parks in front of our houses, By Hal M. Brown, Also: there's the brutal Chenchen leader helping the Russians who Musk gave a Cybertruck to. He put a machine gun in the back.

Summer, 1940, a small German city:

Isach Mendelsen and his family have just begun to eat breakfast. The two windows facing the street in their second floor apartment are open. They hear the morning hum of their small city, a few cars are going by, and there’s noise of the milkman's horsedrawn cart. They hear the chatter of people outside walking the streets and the sound of a few merhcants opening their stores. Then there is silence. They hear a car stop in front of their house. The engine turns off and the doors open and close.

Nine year old Hyman goes to the window and looks out and sees a new Citroën in front of their apartment building. There aren’t too many cars like that on their street.

“Mommy, daddy, there are men outside,” he exclaims. Isach goes to the window and looks out. Four men in trench coats and wearing hats are walking towards the door of their building. 

(Above: real Gestapo)

He knows who they are. The Mendelsens are the only Jews living in the building. He knows why they are there.

A year from now in a small American city:

Anti-Trump journalist Clark Putnam works from home. He’d been fired from his job at a local television station's news department for not towing the pro-Trump company line. He has barely been making a living writing a Substack about how the Trump adminstration is ruining the lives of ordinary people. With about 200 readers paying $8 a month to both read and comment on his essays, and his wife’s income from her job working at a convenience store. They’d exhausted half of the family savings. They knew it was a mater of time before they’d have to sell their house and find a cheaper place to live.

He has just finished breakfast with his family in their suburban home on a quiet residential street. It is a spring morning. He hears his neighbor start his lawnmower. 

He's mulling over what to write his Substack about. He has to write one every day. This is what his readers pay for. Gradually more people are deciding it is worth paying both to support his work and to be able to make comments. He gets about one or two new paying subscribers each day. That’s $8 or $16 a month but it adds up. This reminds him of the commercials on TV which show a sick or starving child and say “for only $19 a month, that’s only 63 cents a day, you can help this child.” (There’s a reason so many charities choose this amount.)

There was an ICE raid at a hospital where seriously ill immigrant patients were loaded into a van to be taken to a deportation center. That was a human interest story he thought people could relate to. There was also the news that the US Postal Service, long since put under the Department of Commerce, had announced that they would cease to allow mail-in ballots to be sent in postage paid envelopes. It seemed like a small victory that courts managed to stop from outlawing mail in voting but this was clearly an effort to make it more difficult. Mail service was so slow with postal workers fired and post offices closed that many people stopped even buying stamps since they rarely mailed letters.

Clark had settled into a mood of low grade depression and anxiety. He tried to breathe in the aroma of newly mown grass and clear his mind so he could decide what to write about. Then his neighbor's mower stopped. There was nothing unusual in that, but he had a sudden sense of dread that came out of nowhere. It prompted him to look out of the window.

What he saw chilled him to the bone. It was one of those armored Tesla Cybertrucks that the FBI was now using. He'd seen photos of them on the news. He'd watched as Musk met with Kash Patel and Dan Bongino at a Tesla plant where the vehicles were being manufactured. He heard Musk explain how powerful they were, how much gear they could carry, and especially how they could stop the bullet from an AR-15. There were videos on TV of FBI agents using Cybertucks as they raided high profile anti-Trumpers. Three or four of these futuristic vehicles pulling up in front of someone’s house was somehow more terrifying to watch than the same number of black Ford Suburbans. 

He thought he was small potatoes. He never thought they would come for him. He had the presence of mind to get the name of a decent criminal lawyer, just in case, and write it down, but in a panic he couldn't remember where he put it. 

He watched as four heavily armed men in FBI body armor exit the car and begin to walk towards the path to his house. "Honey," he said to his wife, "it's happening, they are here for me."

The back story:

This was first reported earlier in February:

'Sleazy corruption': $400M award reportedly for 'Armored Tesla' outrages Musk critics

It was denied but then new information came out yesterday:

A new document undercuts Trump admin's denials about $400 million Tesla deal

It never made sense that an armored Cybertruck would be appropriate for ferrying diplomats from place to place. It does make sense for the FBI Gestapo to adopt them their primary mode of transportation. When they do their raids they offer the protection from being shot at. If they need to pursue anybody they are incredibly fast. 

And finally, there’s this:

If they needed more firepower they could mount a machine gun in the back. (Read article)

Excerpt:

The warlord leader of Chechnya has mounted a machine gun on a Tesla Cybertruck that he says he plans to send to Russian forces on the battlefields in Ukraine.

Ramzan Kadyrov published a video on Saturday of himself driving the vehicle, which he said had been sent to him by “the strongest genius of our time,” Elon Musk, before it was adapted.

Musk later denied giving the vehicle to the Chechen leader. “Are you seriously so retarded that you think I donated a Cybertruck to a Russian general?” Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns.

In the slickly produced video, a grinning Kadyrov is seen driving the vehicle through an empty square in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital. He then gets out of the truck and stands behind the machine gun with an ammunition belt draped round his neck.

“We received a Tesla Cybertruck from the respected Elon Musk. I was happy to test the new equipment and personally saw that there’s a reason that it is called the ‘Cyberbeast,’” Kadyrov wrote on Telegram.

Kadyrov said he “literally fell in love” with the vehicle, which he said was “invulnerable,” “fast,” “comfortable” and “maneuverable.”

Now we know. Musk, who has threatened to cut Starlink to the Ukrainian military, has already helped the Russians. This is the General he gave the Cybertruck to:

For decades, Kadyrov has been criticized for alleged human rights violations. The US State Department sanctioned him in 2020, saying it “has extensive credible information” that Kadyrov was responsible for “gross violations of human rights,” including torture and extrajudicial killings. Kadyrov has also been sanctioned by the United Kingdom and European Union.

Monday’s Substack:

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