All Dictators Eventually Fall and Trump Will Be No Different
Dictators from Stalin through trump claim that they and they alone decide the truth, that protestors are traitors and that only tyrants know what is best.
Trump is the latest tyrant to try to manufacture truth by banning scientific inquiry to maintain his power. Millions of GOP voters are all in to proclaim trump king, dictator or tyrant, they are all the same.
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had biologist Trofim Lysenko, who led a political campaign against genetics and science-based agriculture. Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of his own idiosyncratic, pseudoscientific ideas later termed Lysenkoism.
In 1940, Lysenko became director of the Institute of Genetics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and he used his political influence and power to suppress dissenting opinions and discredit, marginalize, and imprison his critics, elevating his anti-Mendelian theories to state-sanctioned doctrine.
Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics were dismissed from their posts and left destitute. Hundreds if not thousands of others were imprisoned. Lysenko’s ideas and practices contributed to the famines that killed millions of Soviet people; the adoption of his methods from 1958 in the People’s Republic of China had similarly calamitous results, contributing to the Great Chinese Famine of 1959 to 1961.[9]
In Spain, the dictator Francisco Franco dissolved the Board for the Advancement of Studies and Scientific Research (JAE) in 1937. The board was set up in 1909 to promote Spanish science and exchanges with foreign researchers. Franco, who ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975, also banned discussion of evolution and books by the noted biologist, Charles Darwin. In the last years of Franco’s rule, religious censors prohibited science broadcaster Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente from using the phrase “the sea, the cradle of life” on public television.
In Nazi Germany, Hitler ordered the boycott of Jewish businesses in April 1933. Soon after, the Nazi German Students Association declared that literature should be cleansed of the “un-German spirit.” Tens of thousands of books by Jewish writers were burned, leading to the rejection of accepted scientific theories by Jewish intellectuals, including Albert Einstein and his groundbreaking theory of relativity. Burned and banned books included works by Sigmund Freud, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Marx, Stefan Zweig, Walter Benjamin and Einstein.
Yahya Jammeh was president of Gambia from 1996 to 2017. In January 2007, Jammeh claimed he could cure HIV/AIDS and asthma with natural herbs. His unscientific and later completely debunked treatment program included instructing patients to cease taking their anti-retroviral drugs. Many people died because they were denied drugs that were proven to delay the onset of HIV/AIDS. In December 2011, Jammeh restated that the alleged cure for HIV/AIDS was “going very well.”
Fadzai Gwaradzimba, a representative of the United Nations Development Programme in the Gambia, was ordered to leave the country after she expressed doubts about the claims and said the remedy might encourage risky behavior. In August 2007, Jammeh claimed to have developed a single dose herbal infusion that could treat high blood pressure. Jammeh also claimed to develop an unproven treatment for infertility in women as part of what is called the President’s Alternative Treatment Program (PATP).
Co-opted News
Stalin relied on domestic and foreign journalists to report favorably on the dictator’s programs. Those who did not follow his dictates found themselves in a Soviet gulag or worse. Stalin’s plan of collectivizing farming led to the Holodomor, the starvation of millions in the Ukraine. Chief among the stooges spreading false information about the starvation was Walter Duranty who was Moscow bureau chief of The New York Times for 14 years, from 1922–1936. In 1932, Duranty received a Pulitzer Prize for a series of reports about the Soviet Union. He was later criticized for his denial of the widespread famine in the USSR.
Despots rely on a small circle of henchmen. Disloyalty to the Fuhrer or to Stalin often meant death. Disloyalty to trump means public humiliation and shattered futures.
Hitler relied on his toadies to carry out his plans. They included the likes of Heinrich Himmler, ReichsFührer of the feared SS and Military Commander of the Waffen-SS; Hermann Göring, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe and founder of the dreaded Gestapo in 1933; Martin Bormann, head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and previously known as Deputy Fuhrer; and Joseph Goebbels, Reichsminister for Propaganda, with control over all news.
Trump also has named as advisors a group of lackeys whose primary quality is loyalty. They include the likes of Stephen Miller, architect of the worst of trump’s inhumane immigration policies; Todd Lyons, acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency that has led to deportation of innocent immigrants and the arrest of numerous elected officials and others for alleged ICE violations; Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has led publicity tours to notorious foreign prisons threatening migrants in America with the same fates; Federal Bureau of Investigation director, Kash Patel, a longtime conspiracist leading the cleansing of the FBI of allegedly disloyal agents; and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who relays trump’s messages.
Chief among trump’s propagandists has been Fox News, a Minor League training ground for future top ranking officials. The mega-corporation has long been accused of being a shill for the trump administration. From his first run for president in 2016, trump was a regular daily guest, receiving tens of millions of dollars of free political advertising. Anchors and guests frequently regurgitate without questioning trump’s lies and many have been richly rewarded. More than 25 Fox Corporation staff members have been hired under the trump administrations.
Most notably, the current administration includes former Fox commentator Peter Hegseth, the exquisitely unqualified secretary of defense; Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who was co-host of Fox’s “Bottom Line with Dagen and Duffy”; Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a former paid contributor for Fox News; Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, who had his own show on Fox Nation; Dr. Mehmet Oz, a regular guest on Fox News, was named director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; and Attorney General Pam Bondi was a frequent guest co-host of Fox News Channel’s “The Five.”
Trump also appointed Judge Jeanine Piro as interim US attorney for Washington D.C. Pirro was a co-host of the rabidly pro-trump, Fox News program “The Five.”
Bongino is a conspiracist who believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen through unproven voter fraud. Before his appointment, Bongino hosted a Fox News show and a podcast where he accused the FBI of being corrupt after agents raided trump’s Mar-a-Lago castle and seized top secret documents that were allegedly stolen by trump.
Science Perverted
Trump has his version of Stalin’s bogus scientist, Lysenko. That would be Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist, who is now the powerful Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy has promoted vaccine misinformation and public-health conspiracy theories, including the chemtrail conspiracy theory, HIV/AIDS denialism, and the scientifically disproved claim that vaccines cause autism. He has drawn criticism for fueling vaccine hesitancy amid a social climate that gave rise to the deadly measles outbreaks in Samoa and Tonga.
Kennedy ordered the dismissal of around 5,200 workers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He fired most of the staff of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, ending such programs as one on new workplace safety equipment and research into firefighter health. He also removed and replaced all 17 members of the influential, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
During his first administration, Trump promoted bogus treatments for COVID-19, in the same manner that Yahya Jammeh offered his disproven claims to halt HIV/AIDS.
In April 2020, trump suggested research into whether the coronavirus might be treated by injecting disinfectant into the body. He also proposed a possible cure, later roundly refuted, of irradiating patients’ bodies with UV light. Disinfectants are hazardous substances and can be poisonous if ingested and even external exposure can be dangerous to the skin, eyes and respiratory system.
In 2022, a congressional committee found that trump officials also had pressured federal health experts into reauthorizing the use of hydroxychloroquine, a discredited COVID-19 treatment. The probe noted emails in support of the use of hydroxychloroquine from Fox News’ Laura Ingraham and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who had a daytime TV show and is currently director of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Hitler had Goebbels, Reichsminister for Propaganda and trump has Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the latest in a long line of trump mouthpieces. Leavitt is the youngest White House press secretary in history.
In her first news conference, she falsely said that the former Biden administration had tabbed $50 million in taxpayer dollars to buy condoms in the Gaza Strip. She said that trump lost the 2020 presidential election because of “irregularities and chaos” as a result of allegedly deceptive precautions against the COVID-19 pandemic. A lawsuit filed by the Associated Press, said that Leavitt told the AP that the organization would be barred from certain areas of the White House unless it referred to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” as it was renamed by trump.
The Nazis burned books while trump has been a proponent of banning books in public libraries and schools that do not adhere to his version of sexuality, race, slavery and other aspects of American history and society.
Rather than burn books, the trump administration has instituted massive cuts in funding for many libraries and museums in an effort to force them to remove certain books that violate trump’s beliefs. At the end of March, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a federal agency that provides grant funding to museums and libraries across the country, placed its whole staff on administrative leave. Last year, IMLS awarded $266 million in grants to cultural institutions that depend on the funding.
Trump’s Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights also dismissed all complaints of book banning. A press release issued on January 24 was titled “U.S. Department of Education Ends Biden’s Book Ban Hoax.”
Fascists, from Hitler and trump to Benito “Il Duce” Mussolini and Saddam Hussein come to power by exploiting differences and fomenting anger to pit social groups against each other. But ultimate power corrupts ultimately and dictators fall because of an insatiable lust for power, leading to military misadventures and unpopular domestic policies.
Dictators like Hitler, Mussolini and the self-proclaimed French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, all seemed to be invincible only to see hubris lead them to downfall, shame and death. Trump will likely share the same fate.
Napoleon won the admiration of the French people after leading successful campaigns across Europe. But his appeal vanished after he lost campaigns such as the disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. His defeat in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 was the end of his rule and he was exiled by the British.
Mussolini ruled Italy as a dictator for more than two decades, maintaining power through widespread censorship and violent suppression of dissent. Mussolini was popular because of his emphasis on Italian nationalism, and pipedreams of recreating the ancient Roman Empire. The allied invasion of Italy spelled the end for Mussolini who was executed by Italian partisans in 1945.
Hitler started World War II with a promise of expanding German lebensraum and a blitzkrieg of victories. But he was unable to defeat the Soviet Union, leading to insurmountable drain on his resources and the German will. In 1945, with Allies closing in, Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin.
Offers of Hope
Hitler, trump and the other dictators offered optimism to a hope-starved population who felt beaten down by a system over which they have no control.
Hitler used his hypnotic, oratorical skills as he promised racial purity and national resurgence while he surrounded himself with a gang that included perverts and other miscreants. Trump promised that he would represent the forgotten Americans and promised to “drain the swamp” of incompetent bureaucrats and has replaced them with a conglomeration of unqualified, loyal sycophants.
Trump mesmerized and drew followers by recognizing and giving voice to the dispossessed. Millions found power vicariously through trump’s well-scripted anger and in his choreographed moves to pit his followers against those in power. He pandered to supporters by attacking so-called woke policies and gave credence and voice to his followers’ racist, chauvinist, xenophobic views. Trump promised to rescue America while he pushed for a tax bill that saves the richest Americans billions of dollars in taxes. He calls it the “Big, Beautiful Bill” but it should be known as the “Screw the Poor” bill.
Early Support
Tens of millions of Germans screamed in ecstasy for their Fuhrer to return Germany to greatness and to purge society of the racially impure and to replace morally decadent high art and culture with Aryan art. Hitler had all art destroyed and books burned that he deemed to be decadent and against National Socialist principals.
Trump wants culture cancelled that defies MAGA principles. As an example, he stopped a performance by the Gay Men’s Chorus at the Kennedy Performing Arts Center while planning to host a professional wrestling card outside the White House.
Millions of Americans prostrate to the man who would be an American king who would Make America Great Again by eliminating modern art and taking the nation back to a purer time of bigotry and racism.
Germans of the 1930s, from all economic levels, did not raise a collective eyebrow as Hitler blamed Jews for all of Germany’s problems. The German people’s robotic love of Hitler allowed the Fuhrer to embark on a war that would destroy a nation while killing millions of adoring Germans. Hitler ordered construction of dozens of concentration camps where the hated Jews would be forced into slave labor and exterminated.
Many Republicans believe trump when he screams that the biggest reasons for their misfortune are the multitude of poisonous, treacherous undocumented migrants. Like Hitler, trump is giving voice and acknowledging the anger of millions of Americans.
In a nod to the Nazi racist ideology, trump’s base and nearly all GOP lawmakers have voiced overwhelming support for trump’s abominable program to sanitize America by uprooting lives and deporting millions of migrants while spending more on immigration enforcement than any time in U.S. history. Trump’s plans include his version of a concentration camp, the new prison dubbed the “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida everglades where migrants trying to escape might find themselves to be food for the alligators.
Hitler convinced the nation that war was in the best interest of Germany, as millions were killed and wounded in an effort that forever scarred the German people.
Like Hitler’s legions, the MAGA world cheers trump’s “Big Beautiful Budget” even though an estimated 17 million Americans will lose health care coverage, including many of the same endearing and enduring MAGA supporters.
Hitler thrived on feeding the anger of the German people, largely by blaming Jews for everything that was wrong in Germany, including the nation’s defeat in World War I.
Trump has followed a similar path. America’s July 4 celebration has traditionally been a non-partisan time when Americans of all stripes honor the nation’s history. Trump instead took the time to screech about his hatred and demonization of Democrats who he claims have caused all of the nation’s troubles.
Despite protests to the contrary, many Americans who feel wronged want a king and they love trump because he gives voice to those who believe they have been shafted by everything from minorities and migrants to woke Democrats. MAGA followers purport to be patriotic, religious Americans as they empower a leader who would dismantle the constitution and restrict freedoms while he profits from selling autographed Bibles.
It is a strategy right out of the dictator’s playbook, right up to the dictator’s appearance. A new Facebook documentary on Hitler, “The Fuhrer — The Hitler Chronicles,” shows the Fuhrer bloviating and grimacing with anger to his worshipping Germans, allowing his followers to vicariously express their own anger. It is an image that trump has used to great success, with photos, banners and all sorts of merchandise emblazoned with pictures of an angry trump preparing to seize all power.
There seem to be two reasons that spines among GOP lawmakers are as rare as the Hope diamond. For many, it is a Machiavellian battle for survival as many are convinced that most of their GOP constituents love trump’s every move. Those who dispute the king would be booted out of office at the next primary election. Just ask Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who decided not to run for another term after committing the unforgiveable sin of bucking trump. He was immediately informed that trump would marshal millions of dollars in campaign contributions to unseat Tillis if he ran for reelection in the next GOP primary.
GOP lawmakers know that most of the GOP supports trump and that if they disagree, they will lose a primary.