Who said Trump is Hitler? His Vice President

Republicans and many Jews express outrage whenever anyone suggests that former president Donald Trump could in any way be compared to Hitler, yet no one was upset that the man he chose to run as his vice president did exactly that. “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” said JD Vance.

Did he base his opinion on the fact that Trump said Hitler “did some good things,” admires the loyalty of Nazi generals, routinely uses the “Big Lie,” said he wants to be a dictator on day one, and refers to human beings as “vermin”?

Regardless, Vance took the stage at the Republican Convention to extol Trump’s virtues and accept the nomination to be vice president.

The question for American Jewish voters is whether they buy into the claim that Trump was the most pro-Israel president ever or whether they will be more influenced by the following views of Vance and other Republicans who say the former president is unfit for a second term.

Besides thinking Trump is “America’s Hitler,” Vance also called him a “moral disaster” and a “total fraud” who is “reprehensible.”

Trump’s former VP Mike Pence stated that on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump’s “reckless words had endangered my family and all those serving at the Capitol” and “I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”

Pence also said, “I think it’s very unfortunate at a time that there are American hostages being held in Gaza, that the president or any other leader will refer to people that are moving through our justice system as hostages. It’s just unacceptable.”

Before Nikki Haley endorsed Trump, she said Trump’s “disrespect for the military” disqualified him to be the president “because I don’t trust him to protect them.” On his support for bigots, she said, “I will not stop until we fight a man that chooses not to disavow the KKK. That is not a part of our party. That is not who we are.”

Echoing criticism of Biden, Haley observed, “The problem now is he is not the same person he was in 2016. He is unhinged. He is more diminished than he was” and “we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this.” She also said, “We’re talking about the most demanding job in human history. You don’t give it to someone who’s at risk of dementia.”

Like Vance, Haley had a miraculous conversion when she endorsed Trump. Comedian Larry Wilmore’s comment about Haley’s convention speech applies to many Republicans: “Haley’s head doesn’t believe what her mouth is saying.”

That goes for Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Governor Rick DeSantis who also groveled on the convention stage.

Previously Rubio said, “This is the most important government job on the planet. And we’re about to turn over the conservative movement to a person that has no ideas of any substance on the important issues. The nuclear codes of the United States — to an erratic individual — and the conservative movement — to someone who has spent a career sticking it to working people.”

He also called Trump “a con artist” and “an embarrassment” who says things that “are nonsensical.” And Rubio will have to answer for this statement: “For years to come, there are many people on the right, in the media and voters at large, that are going to be having to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump.”

DeSantis said, “I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn’t do anything while things were going on.”

Remember South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, before he became the president’s defender, had called Trump a “kook,” “crazy,” and “unfit for office.”

Trump always boasts that he only hires the best people. Well, what do the “best people” he hired say about him?

John Bolton, former US National Security adviser, said Trump is not “fit for office” and doesn’t have “the competence to carry out the job.”

Former attorney general Bill Barr described the actions Trump was alleged to have committed as “nauseating” and “despicable,” adding that “someone who engaged in that kind of bullying about a process that is fundamental to our system and to our self-government shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.”

Furthermore, Barr said, Trump “is a consummate narcissist. And he constantly engages in reckless conduct that puts his political followers at risk and the conservative and Republican agenda at risk.” Barr compared Trump to “a defiant 9-year-old kid who is always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it.” Barr called him “a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s.”

For those who excuse his behavior and moral failings but like his policies, Barr observed, “he’s the last person that could actually execute them and achieve them. He does not have the discipline, he does not have the ability for strategic thinking or linear thinking, or setting priorities, or how to get things done in the system. It is a horror show when he’s left to his own devices. You may want his policies, but Trump will not deliver Trump policies. He will deliver chaos.”

Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron” and recalled that “his understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of US history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.” Trump would get frustrated, Tillerson said, when he was told he couldn’t do what he wanted because it violated the law or a treaty.

Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, also referred to his client as “an idiot.” Another Trump lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said Trump “was incapable of telling the truth.”

Secretary of defense James Mattis said Trump “acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth grader.’” He said, “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.”

Mattis was also appalled by Trump’s use of the military to facilitate his photo op where he famously stood in front of a church holding the Bible upside down. “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”

One of the men closest to Trump was his chief of staff, John Kelly, a Marine Corps four-star general, who called Trump “an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in crazytown.” In reference to Trump’s comment that Hitler “did some good things,” Kelly said, “It’s pretty hard to believe he missed the Holocaust, though, and pretty hard to understand how he missed the 400,000 American GIs that were killed in the European theater.”

Kelly unintentionally summarized the case for Democrats:

A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.

A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women. A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”