We use Hitler to stand for monumental evil, but he fascinates us because hero-worship is so dangerous. Everybody knows the footage of Hitler at the podium in Nürnberg lecturing the sweating worshipful crowd of supporters in military formation below him. Likewise, Trump gave his acceptance speech at the White House—also a grandiose setting—to guaranteed followers.
It’s naughty to compare the Donald to Adolf. Yet it’s hard to avoid.
Both Adolf and Donald are famous narcissists, but narcissism is a system. Both flatter their followers. As Trump has said, “I want every child in America to know that . . . ANYONE CAN RISE.” The slogan is also a euphemism. “Make America great again” means “I can make YOU great again.” He’s talking about self-esteem. YOURS and HIS.
The hatred of “enemies,” whether Jews or liberals, reinforces the conviction of supremacy. There is a direct connection between fantasies of Aryan and white superiority. You stroke my self-esteem and I’ll help you “RISE.” To rise means not just an elevation in status, but to grow up as a hero.
If you rise far enough, you become a god, the messiah. In Trump’s words, “I am the chosen one.” As Donald has told us many times, he is infallible—supremely right—and like Adolf, he has no plans ever to step down.
But remember: it’s a system. We’re all tempted. Everyone wants to be rescued from something. The messiah saves you, but without somebody to save, the messiah is nothing. Adolf and Donald both need the base. “I’m with you. I am your voice.” And the fantasy of rescue requires the hero to profess, as the Donald does, “they are coming after ME, because I am fighting for YOU.”
The base worships the super-parent to feel, as they say, on top of the world.
Adolf’s followers had lost a “world” war and suffered the Great Depression. Donald keeps trashing his predecessor Obama in order to have something to rescue us from. Meanwhile, Donald promises magical rescue from the pandemic as Adolf associated Jews with disease. Identify with the hero and you RISE above social death or, in a pandemic, real death. In a lockdown you feel helpless: you’re surrounded by an invisible viral enemy. If you give in and wear a mask, you risk realizing that the hero can’t reliably defeat of virus and therefore can’t save you.
As in sports, one of the best remedies for fear is winning. In combat the winner controls the loser, enslaving or killing them. Both Adolf and Donald promise victory.
This sounds like populism. But it is a parental promise to sacrifice for the kids, although the Hitler kids would die as martyrs in combat, and Trump’s militarism (so far) is his defense of gun rights, the Armed Forces, and white militias. Hence his taunt to Democrats. “We’re here and they’re not”—meaning we’re in the White House and they are not; but also, we are alive and immortal, and they are not.