Trump’s and Hitler’s appeal to the masses
Why is Donald Trump still leading the polls among the Republicans and has millions of supporters and followers? What is the secret of the appeal to the masses of this hate-speaking, lying, and criminal person?
After the second World War (1940–45) a similar question was raised about Adolf Hitler by many scientists. Why millions of Germans have been supporters and followers of the Nazi-movement and its leader Adolf Hitler, a crazy man whose destructive policies have been disastrous for millions of innocent people.
One of the scientists who investigated this question was Erich Fromm (1900–1980), a German-American psychoanalyst and philosopher. He analysed the personality of Adolf Hitler and the reasons of his attraction to the German population of that time.
The similarities between Hitler and Trump are astonishing. In an interview about ‘Who was this person, Hitler?’, which was recorded on 10 April 1975[1], Erich Fromm explains the symbiotic relation between Hitler and a great part of the German population.
Same characters
Like Trump, Hitler was a narcissist. For him only things related to himself were important: “My idea, my words, my property, my body, my image, my feelings…” everything that was not “mine” was not important and didn’t exist for Hitler. He was not interested in other people, only in himself. He was unable to show affection to others, and he hid his longtime relationship with his companion Eva Braun from the outside world. In his vision, women’s only task was to be beautiful and to contribute to the spread of the “Aryan race” by bringing children into the world and raising them according to Nazi-ideology. He disgusted women and her children who were not of the so-called “Aryan race” and millions were sent to the concentration camps where they were gassed. He was not empathic, he was a man without feelings, uninterested, and unconcerned about the millions of Jews, political opponents, Roma people, people with a physical or mental handicap, homosexual people and others who were targeted and murdered by the Nazis. He was only interested in himself, his plans, his power, and his will.
Trump shows a similar behaviour. He doesn’t care about the feelings of other people when he offends them, or when he spreads slander and lies about people on social media, or when he rages in his rallies with vicious expressions of hatred against people, or when he criminalises and falsely accuses migrants of problems in the USA, or when he throws people under the bus after having used or abused them for his own interests. He doesn’t care about the traumas caused to migrant parents and children when they are separated from each other and locked up in cages near the border. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he didn’t care about the thousands of people who died. In the middle of the pandemic, he was even holding mass rally’s exposing his own fans to high risks of infection. He doesn’t show affection or appreciation for women. He sees women mainly as sex-object — even his own daughter — or as housewives (particularly when they live in the suburbs), and he only want women to adore and to love him, because he only cares for himself, for his money, his properties, his business, his name, his power, his body, his hair, his ideas, his words, his opinion.
Since their childhood, both Hitler and Trump have been persons without discipline. They didn’t like to work and to have obligations. They lived in a world of phantasy. Hitler wanted to become a famous artist, but his father wanted him to become a civil servant. Trump wanted to become a famous movie star, but his father wanted him to go in real estate. Both were disappointed because they didn’t achieve much and both tried to hide this. Hitler hid that he was not allowed at an Academy for architects. Trump hid his tax-data that would show a poor business performance whereas he pretended to be the most successful businessman. The less they achieved in the real world, the stronger they believed to live in their fantasy world where they had achieved great things. This characteristic remained with Trump until now. After having been dumped in the real world of movie stars, and after having lost the elections in 2020, Trump found new ways of living in his phantasy world by exposing his phantasies as a movie star in NFT-cards.
Driven to destroy
Besides having a narcissist character, Hitler also hated life. He was fascinated by death and killing. Deep inside, he was driven to destroy. He felt hate against everyone. That’s why Erich Fromm characterised him as necrophiliac; not in the sense of sexual behaviour, but in the sense of his inclination to embracing violence, whether in the form of acts of terrorism or acts of war. Not only did he hate the Jewish people, but he also hated the Polish and the Russian people, and finally he even hated his own people in Germany. Unconsciously he was destructive. His character was inclined to disrupt and derange instead of building up in a constructive way. In case Hitler would have won the war, he probably “would not have known what to do next”, as quoted in the interview with Erich Fromm.
When Hitler realised, he was losing the war, he wanted to destroy everything. He gave the order to destroy buildings, fabrics, churches, but also social infrastructure for food and medical services before the enemy could walk into Germany. This severely affected the German population. He didn’t care about this. By the end, he even hated himself and his closest supporters, which ended in an “orgy of hate” with his own death and the death of the most loyal people around him, including his longtime companion Eva Braun, as well as Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda, who first murdered their little children before committing suicide themselves.
Trump also feels hate against all those who are not loyal to him or do not vote for him, particularly the voters and representatives of the Democratic Party, the government of Joe Biden, and even Republicans with a critical mind, which he calls RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), or republican candidates for presidency, which he calls ‘clowns’. In his Iowa rally in July 2023 and other recent rallies, he openly embraces conspiracy theories, promising his fans that he will demolish and “destroy the deep state and get them the hell out of government”. In his hate-speeches he not only fulminates against them, but also against the Department of Justice, against migrants, against the Chinese, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and of course against all critical citizens in the USA who are not fooled by him. He lumps them all together by calling them communists, socialists, and fascists.
He is also inclined to embrace violence to remain in power. This is not only expressed in words in his rallies, but he also showed that he is serious about this. He wanted to destroy the entire democratic system in the USA after realising that he lost the elections in 2020, and after losing over 60 lawsuits to overthrow the election results. He attempted to ‘steal the elections’ by trying to use the army to seize voter machines, and by persuading and intimidating authorities and officials to commit electoral fraud, calling them cowards when he failed to achieve his goal. On January 6, 2021, he called his ‘standby paramilitary groups’, the proud boys, the oath keepers, the cowboys, etc. to march to the capital and to “fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Back in the White House he enjoyed for more than 3 hours the life broadcast of the violent attack on Capitol Hill by his fanatic followers, seeing that police officers were severely hurt, and knowing that his vice-president Mike Pence was in great danger, as well as all congress men and women and their staff. While he was watching the destruction caused by the aggressive mop that was “fighting like hell”, he refused the repeated requests — from his daughter and other people around him — to simply tell the mob to go home. When he finally sent a message to go home, he embraced the violent mob that caused the disruption and derangements by saying “We love you. You’re very special.”
As a hint to his fanatic violent followers he recently targeted the prosecuters of his indictment processes by posting their names on social media, shortly after having posted the message “if you go after me, I’m coming after you”. Trump is driven to destroy all and everything that stands in his way to personal power. It’s in line with expectations that he will initiate destructive action if it gets to the point where he ends up in jail. Those who know him best, like his wife Melanie, and other close family members, wisely remain at a distance from the indictment procedures, because they know his destructive side and his unpredictability if he realises that he is loosing all.
Saviours of the country
Both Hitler and Trump profiled themselves as the saviours of the country.
Hitler identified himself with Nazi-Germany, calling it the ‘Thousand-Year Reich’, which in fact only existed 12 years until the Allies defeated Germany in May 1945 and ended World War II.
Trump also profiles himself as the saviour of the county. He identifies with the USA, as if it were his private property. When he lost the election, it felt for him as if ‘they’ had taken the country away from him. He could not accept this and started to fuel hatred to everything and all who in his view had “rigged the elections” and taken away the country from him and his followers. Recently his rhetoric changed into “They want to take your freedom and I am standing in their way” to justify his destructive plans, to mobilise people to join him to “demolish the deep state”, and to mislead his followers about the indictments by telling them that this has only political reasons and picturing himself as a hero who is enduring this “witch hunt”.
Performance in public
Both Hitler and Trump have shown to be excellent performers in public. Hitler had a certain look that tolerated no contradiction and was therefore attractive to authority-sensitive people, who believed in him and wanted to submit themselves to him as their leader.
Just like Trump, Hitler also preferred to hold his rallies in the evening, when people are already tired and less critical about what they are told, making it easier to manipulate them. Like Trump, Hitler tolerated no opposition. Everyone had to show allegiance to him with the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute, just as Trump supporters must show their adherence with Maga caps, Trump flags and recently at an Orlando rally even with raising their right hands and taking a pledge to vote for him for president. Journalists who dare to ask critical questions to Trump during a press conference, are insulted in public. If he could, he would lock them up like Hitler did. Instead, he spreads hate messages against his opponents, and let his fanatical supporters do the work of threatening and intimidating people.
There was a certain relationship between Hitler’s character and his fanatic followers. In Germany the closest followers of Hitler were people from the lower middle class, who had been suffering from the economic crisis of the 1930s and had few prospects because small producers and traders could not compete against the big ones in the emerging industrialization. They were filled with resentment and lost all their hope for a better life. They were mainly set to get power over others and to demolish. They believed Hitler when he pointed to the scapegoats who were to blame for their misery: the Jews, the communists, the socialists, the ethnic minorities, the homosexuals, the weak with a disability, and all his political opponents. Millions believed his words and saw him as their saviour without perceiving his destructive side. His followers didn’t protest when Hitler’s scapegoats and opponents were imprisoned and murdered in concentration camps, when he banned political parties and trade unions, and when he imposed the Nazification of the entire society and invalidated the constitution.
Trump would also love to put all his opponents in jail, to start with his number one opponent during election time in 2016, Hillary Clinton. Trump feels frustrated that he has not been able so far to come to a similar level of abuse of power as his dictator friends and to get rid of all the ‘nasty’ people who hinder his wishes of ruling ‘his country’ with absolute power. So far, the democratic system, the strong institutions and the ethical non-corruptible attitude of many authorities, officials and lawyers in the USA could withstand Trump’s demagogic harmful fascist power strategy.
Fanatic supporters and followers
Hitler had two types of supporters, the fanatical active followers, and the stunned silent supporters. Trump also has his fanatical followers who are willing to fight for him, like the ‘stand-by’ para-military groups who were leading the mob during the attack on Capitol Hill, and the silent crowd who believe his words, sympathize with him and vote for him out of disappointment and resentment with the situation in the USA. He can do no wrong in their eyes and they are blind for his destructive side.
Hitler needed the crowds to make himself feel strong. Without acclaim from the public, he was unable to bring forward his ideas. He needed applause, approval, enthusiasm from the crowd to feel self-confirmed. His feeling of power came from the crowd of supporters to whom he was speaking. Hitler was so self-fulfilled that each word he pronounced sounded for him as the greatest wisdom and truth on earth, but he needed others who believed in him in order to believe his own words. If nobody would believe him, only himself, Hitler would probably have gotten crazy.
Trump is a similar case. He needs his followers to confirm, applaud, and enthusiastically approve his words. Trumps vision, ideas and statements are not based on evidence, on facts or on research. They are merely expressions of his emotional state and only based on his personal needs for power and control that he seeks to be confirmed by the crowd. He takes his words, his ideas and vision for the truth, because millions of people believe what he says, and not because they are the truth, or expression of his conviction.
He doesn’t care about the truth. His prove of ‘truth’ lies in the consent and the applause of his followers, and not in the consistency with the facts. The applause of the crowd makes things true, which explains the name of his platform ‘truth social’.
Like Hitler, Trump also needs the crowds to feel strong. As any demagogue, he is only interested in consent and applause by the crowds. Therefore, he is often inconsistent, because to achieve applause, he adapts his speeches to different crowds, inner circle speeches, NRA, Religious groups, etc.
Unpredictable situation
Arnold Schwarzenegger who was born short after World War II and suffered from the impact of the war in his early family life, recognised the similarities between Hitler’s and Trump’s approach. He warned for the consequences if Trump is re-elected.
Currently there is an unpredictable situation in the USA. Despite an avalanche of criminal charges against Trump he continues to have millions of followers, according to the polls. Will this lead to new forms of violence? Will he be able to win the elections or find other ways of grabbing power again? Will the democratic institutions in the USA be strong enough to resist the power game of Trump and avoid that the USA repeats the history of Nazi-Germany?
One thing is certain. Trump is nothing without his followers. Trump in jail for his criminal behaviour may make him a popular martyr and increase his popularity. It will not take the wind out of MAGA’s sails, because the American society is sick, and it will not take away the sense of frustration and resentment among his followers, particularly the silent masses that are disillusioned and easily influenced by conspiracy theories because they don’t see new perspectives of realising the so-called American dream. After Trump, new ‘Trumps’ will emerge if dissatisfied and outraged segments of the population together with a silent majority continue to feel neglected, undervalued and underserved by the institutions that represent the status quo of vested political interests.
What to do?
In Germany an investigation into the reasons why Hitler and ‘Nazism’ had so many followers was done after the war. It is to be hoped that such investigation will be done in the USA before ‘Trumpism’ spirals out of control and further undermines human rights and democracy in the USA.
How to reduce the risk that the USA falls into an authoritarian, patriarchal, fascist, racist, violent system, that threatens the human rights of many women, black people, ethnic minorities, migrants, LGBTIQ+ people, and all those who do not support ‘Trumpism’.
To reduce this risk, strategies for social cohesion are key, particularly strategies to create safety and an inclusive social and economic security system.
The creation of safety and security for all is of high priority to take away the culture of violence, fear and distrust that has permeated all walks of life, from family-life, nursery, and primary school to Capitol Hill. This can only be done by disarmament of the population, strong regulation of gun ownership, rehabilitation of members of disarmed para-military groups, spiritual transformation to increase compassion and tolerance in daily life, and healing initiatives to overcome the many traumas caused by senseless violence including gender-based violence, shootings in schools, femicide, and racist violence. It’s high time for the USA to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and enforce its implementation. Security sector reform from a gender equality and social inclusion perspective is needed to create a human-rights based enabling environment for a peaceful and tolerant society. This includes capacity building and training for a do-no-harm-approach at all levels and areas of the security sector, from the police officers till the lawyers.
The creation of an inclusive social and economic security system that leaves no-one behind should be another priority in the USA. Tax reform to redistribute the most extreme income inequality is required. Universal Basic Income embedded in a privacy protection system could take away the daily tension and survival stress of millions of people in the USA and create time for them to exercise their right of providing care to and receiving care from their close ones, and to develop their talents and creativity. Additionally, equal access to medical care is still an urgent challenge in the USA.
Thera van Osch, Germany, July 2023
[1] Erich Fromm: Hitler — Wer war er und was heißt Widerstand gegen diesen Menschen? Interview von Hans Juergen Schulz zur Eröffnung der Sendereihe „Der 20.Juli — Alternative zu Hitler?“ im Süddeutschen Rundfunk Stuttgart. Erstsendung am 20.04.1975. #ErichFromm #Psychoanalyse. Copyright ©2020 by Literary Estate of Erich Fromm; and Copyright der Produktion by SWR.
