The Comparison of Early Nazi Rallies to Trump Events is too powerful to Ignore

Trump courts Q-Anon, because he needs a ‘storm’ of outrage if he's arrested

Donald Trump’s propagandists recently expressed outrage when President Joe Biden referred to the MAGA movement as “semi-fascism”. Apparently, the most inaccurate part of that statement was the qualifier “semi”. To prove Biden wrong, the enraptured mob went full-blown fascist at Trump’s Saturday rally in Ohio. Without a shard of self-awareness, the rabid throng proudly raised their arms in what appeared to be something eerily reminiscent of a Nazi salute. While the rally occurred in Youngstown, one could be forgiven for believing they had been transported to Nuremberg circa 1933.  

Even by Trump’s gutter standards, the Dear Leader’s Saturday cult rally was discomfiting. While it was largely the same, tired schtick – the snide remarks, the scapegoats, attacks on the media and the peddling of the Big Lie – something about it was darker and more sinister.

Maybe it was the backdrop of Q-Anon’s creepy theme song, which played ominously while the defeated president railed against his enemies list. The tune’s name, “Wwg1wga”, is an abbreviation for the Q-Anon slogan "Where we go one, we go all." Trump’s cronies claim it wasn’t the Q song, but instead one called “Mirrors”. Either way, the two songs are nearly identical. Trump knew exactly what he was doing, with the evidence being the raised hand salute, which is a Q-Anon ritual. This rally song followed recent overtures to Q-Anon, according to the New York Times:

Last week, for example, Mr. Trump posted an image of himself on Truth Social, wearing a Q pin on his lapel and under a slogan reading “The Storm is Coming.” Adherents to QAnon believe that the “storm” is the moment when Mr. Trump will retake power after vanquishing his enemies, having them arrested and potentially executed on live TV.

It’s important to remember that Q-Anon is a dangerous, pathological right-wing conspiracy that believes the United States is being sabotaged by an evil cabal of child-trafficking Jews, Democrats and baby-eating elites from Washington, New York City and Hollywood. It is surreal to witness an ex-president dive down this rancid rabbit hole to inflame his fanatical base. To see these wild-eyed extremists, unmoored from reality, in the grip of a raving madman, is to understand the existential danger posed to our teetering democracy.

In Ohio, Trump attacked the Department of Justice, which is investigating his theft of Top Secret documents, that very well could lead to his exposure as a foreign spy.   

“We are a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never ever before,” Trump bellowed to the assembled mob. “We’ve got a Federal Bureau of Investigation that won’t allow bad, election-changing facts to be presented to the public.”

Like a good fascist, Trump also attacked the media, saying there is “no fair press any longer” and placed the media in physical danger by spewing that they are “truly the enemy of the people.” The toxic rally follows a menacing interview with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt last week, where Trump warned of potential violence if he were indicted for his many alleged crimes.

“I think if it happened, I think you’d have problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before. I don’t think the people of the United States would stand for it.”

Hewitt asked Trump what he meant by “problems.”

“I think they’d have big problems. Big problems. I just don’t think they’d stand for it. They will not sit still and stand for this ultimate of hoaxes,” Trump said.

Let’s do the math here. Trump believes he is in grave legal peril, particularly over the documents he heisted and hid at his Florida Corruption Castle. The investigation might reveal that he’s a traitor to his country. Why else would he pilfer such documents?

If this were to occur, he would need to discredit the media in advance, so his cult followers refuse to believe their news stories. If he can strangle the messenger today, their urgent message won’t be trusted by his followers tomorrow.

It seems that Trump is also telegraphing the next January 6. It will occur shortly after he is arrested (certainly a possibility). As he is taken into custody, he will go on social media and say something to the effect of “the storm has arrived. Are you ready to do your duty, be a patriot and defend your country before they steal it?”

At this fateful moment, his radicalized Q-Anon followers will know exactly what to do. They have been conditioned to “stand back and stand by”, just as he had previously done with the Proud Boys. I think that Trump is specifically zeroing in on Q-Anon conspiracy theorists because they are uniquely gullible, lost in the deepest of disorienting rabbit holes and easy to command. They are among the most likely to be persuaded to carry out acts of domestic terrorism.

Think about it. If you truly believed with all your heart that arrogant elites were selling children as sex slaves and eating infants, wouldn’t you be ready to take action? If you believed this was being orchestrated by Deep State bureaucrats, wouldn’t you be paranoid and incensed?

Furthermore, if you were persuaded that Donald Trump was anointed by God to crush the Deep State and to stop this evil cabal of child molesters, wouldn’t you follow him to the Gates of Hell?

We cannot deny that these brainwashed lunatics have organized their lives around the expectation of “The Storm”. If their incarcerated savior says that he’s being persecuted and his arrest proves that the tempest has arrived, it’s reasonable to believe that they might carry out acts of political violence on his behalf. Donald Trump’s greatest gift is that he can spot the proverbial sucker born every minute. In Youngstown, there was a stadium full of them, ready to be exploited by the greatest con man of our time. If he says “go”, many of these easy marks will follow his commands.  

If this weren’t disturbing enough, the looming threat could greatly multiply if election-denying Trump disciples win their midterm races. The New York Times reports:

Hundreds of elected Republican officials around the country falsely claim that the 2020 election was rigged. Some of them are running for statewide offices that would oversee future elections, potentially putting them in position to overturn an election in 2024 or beyond.

Among Republican candidates running for statewide office this year, 47 percent have refused to accept the 2020 result, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis.

If you combine the threat of MAGA “Big Lie” lawmakers with crackpot Federalist Society “agenda judges,” such as Aileen Cannon, the rule of law and democracy could soon be in significant trouble.

I strongly urge everyone to watch filmmaker Ken Burns latest masterpiece, “The U.S. and the Holocaust”. The comparisons to Hitler’s early rallies and Trump’s today are striking and unmistakable. While America First fascism is not a new phenomenon, its sickening stench is upon us once more. As in the past, we must defeat this cancer before it eats our nation’s soul. There is no reasoning with Q-Anon MAGA madness–only a reckoning where the forces of civilization beat back medieval barbarism.