Trump told chief of staff Hitler 'did a lot of good things', book says

[Soph0571]

On a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, Donald Trump insisted to his then chief of staff, John Kelly: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.”
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But Bender says unnamed sources reported that Kelly “told the president that he was wrong, but Trump was undeterred”, emphasizing German economic recovery under Hitler during the 1930s.

“Kelly pushed back again,” Bender writes, “and argued that the German people would have been better off poor than subjected to the Nazi genocide.”

Bender adds that Kelly told Trump that even if his claim about the German economy under the Nazis after 1933 were true, “you cannot ever say anything supportive of Adolf Hitler. You just can’t.”
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“Senior officials described his understanding of slavery, Jim Crow, or the Black experience in general post-civil war as vague to nonexistent,” he writes. “But Trump’s indifference to Black history was similar to his disregard for the history of any race, religion or creed.”

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/06/donald-trump-hitler-michael-bender-book|]
Emphasis mine.

Nazi be nazi. Nasty be nasty. How the actual fuck did this vilest and shallowest example of humanity become the leader of the conservative movement in the free world?!?! Yuck.

[Joinfortmill]

1. Unbelievable: Entitled, ignorant and criminal to the core.

[3Hotdogs]

2. Well, didn't Hitler make the trains run on time? --- oh sorry,

actually, that was Michael Quinn. Google Michael Quinn NYC

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

19. My Austrian mother used to go to Italy on vacation during the 1930s

She told me that the Italian trains did not run on time.

[Mike Nelson]

3. Very revealing...

... about Crooked Donald. What is "a lot" when listing Hitler's good things? I can think of millions of bad things... I wonder why it's important for The Donald to think Hitler did may good things?

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

4. Make no mistake. Trump is a Hitler loving Nazi.

I've been telling people this for years.

[Girard442]

5. The Nazis rebuilt the German economy to support their wars of conquest.

If you ignore the why, the economic resurgence could look good by itself.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

20. Actually, Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, the Nazi economics minister in the 1930s

Reestablished the German economy through three means: A massive public works program, which among other things built the autobahns; Hitler's renunciation of reparations payments; and slight of hand (see "mefo bills&quot .

[Kid Berwyn]

6. When McConnell and McCarthy protect Trump...

…they protect Hitler.

[lark]

7. Bottom line - drumpf is a fascist and loves him some Hitler.

According to one of his exs, the book of Hitlers' speeches is the only thing TFG ever read and he read it every night for 10 years. He s a Hitler wannabe and he and the fascist party (RNC) and the judiciary now in charge and trying to subvert democracy to put in the system most favored and favorable to the rich - nazism.

[Ilsa]

8. Let's see, I guess to the Orange Vulgarian,

not shitting your pants on a daily basis is a good thing.

I could name a few others, but the bar is so low, slugs can cross over it.

[Blue Owl]

9. Please, enlighten us O Bloated One

[twodogsbarking]

10. Trump says Trump did a lot of great things.

That covers it.

[lame54]

11. You are sure to hear that a lot more...

No Trumper will be appalled
They will proudly repeat it

[seta1950]

12. He's a crook

But his supporters, regular people who support him totally confound me😳

[Initech]

13. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[Caliman73]

14. In response to your question...

Nazi be nazi. Nasty be nasty. How the actual fuck did this vilest and shallowest example of humanity become the leader of the conservative movement in the free world?!?!

Conservatism is prone to move rightward. Conservatism is founded upon the belief that a natural hierarchy exists among humans, as with other animals, and that those at the top are meant to lead. Conservatism started off as a defense of monarchy. When monarchy fell, conservatives did not pack it in, they simply changed the narrative as to Who deserved to be at the top. Fascism is an extreme right ideology that takes conservatism to its logical conclusion. Fascism follows a hyper-national, typically racialized narrative about a group, or country's history and glory, and their betrayal by "others". That narrative allows a dominant group (White people) to justify maltreatment of minorities and degenerates in order to re-establish the "natural" hierarchy based on the "glorious past". Trump is following this trajectory and Republicans/Conservatives are just following their inclination.

[TexasTowelie]

15. More discussion on an earlier thread:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215599323

[oldsoftie]

16. Trump was always a shitty student.

Everyone should know that. Instead they push fake memes about "top of class" bullshit

[Botany]

17. 9/2015 Business Insider, Trump's interest in Hitler had been known from before the 2016 election.

9/2015 Business Insider, Trump's interest in Hitler had been known from before the 2016 election.
But did we hear about this? No, but we heard 24/7 about Hillary, her emails, and her email server.

Sadly I think at least 50% of Trump supporters are totally fine with Trump getting "tips from Hitler."
*********
Business Insider
Sep 1, 2015, 8:25 AM

Donald Trump's ex-wife once said Trump kept a book of Hitler's speeches by his bed

According to a 1990 Vanity Fair interview, Ivana Trump once told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that her husband, real-estate mogul Donald Trump, now a leading Republican presidential candidate, kept a book of Hitler's speeches near his bed.

"Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed ... Hitler's speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist," Marie Brenner wrote.

Hitler was one of history's most prolific orators, building a genocidal Nazi regime with speeches that bewitched audiences.

"He learned how to become a charismatic speaker, and people, for whatever reason, became enamored with him," Professor Bruce Loebs, who has taught a class called the Rhetoric of Hitler and Churchill for the past 46 years at Idaho State University, told Business Insider earlier this year.

"People were most willing to follow him, because he seemed to have the right answers in a time of enormous economic upheaval."


https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-ex-wife-once-said-he-kept-a-book-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bed-2015-8

[mnmoderatedem]

18. I can only imagine his reaction when asked about this.

reporter: Mr. Trump, is it true you said Hitler did some good things?

Trump: I don't know Hitler.