Last week, a video went viral that showed a man yelling at protesters as he left a Donald Trump rally in Cleveland, Ohio. With a campaign poster in hand, he slowed his pace to tell the crowd to “go back to f---ing Auschwitz.” With that being said, one disrespectful and intolerant comment made by a man in passing doesn’t necessarily mean all of Trump’s supporters have this same type of superiority complex — except that when these types of comments have grown more frequent and less humane, it absolutely does.
For his own political gain, Donald Trump is relying on a type of propaganda that sets him apart from all the other candidates: racism. His campaign kicked off with his promise to build a wall that would border us off from Mexico. Soon after, he began to publicly express his dislike for Muslims, promoting his plan to deport them all from the country. Recently, he’s gained the approval of David Duke, former head of the KKK, and sparked controversy regarding his eerie parallels to Hitler’s rise to power. However, the most terrifying part in all of this is not Trump’s words of bigotry and prejudice, but rather how well these messages are being received throughout the country.
In light of the recent comparisons of Trump to Hitler and the Nazi Party, as well as the increase in derogatory actions and comments, Americans need to understand Trump’s candidacy for president is no longer just an entertainment value. His plan to “Make America Great Again” could very well become a reality — meaning, we would go back to a time when prejudice and discrimination plagued our country. By supporting Trump and his pursuits, Americans are contributing to a campaign fueled by hate. Even worse, they’re incapable of seeing any wrong in all of this.
Without question, Trump’s entire political campaign advocates racism, yet he has managed to disguise it in subtle forms — so effectively, in fact, that his supporters are quick to deny any accusations of them being racist or bigoted. Like Birgitt Peterson, the woman seen giving the Nazi salute at a Chicago rally, who said she did the gesture to counter-protest and “demonstrate something [the protesters] had no knowledge about.” In fact, many of Trump’s supporters have said how they find it insulting to be compared to the Nazi Party, and rightfully so. After all, the Nazis blindly followed a leader who promised change and vowed to restore their country’s pride, strength and overall greatness. They gave into the belief that certain groups of people were responsible for the problems in their country. They took away the rights of human beings and eventually removed them from their country. With a notorious reputation like this, it’s no wonder that Trump’s supporters find the comparison insulting.
Except, how is this any different from the promises that Trump is making about people of color in our own country? Ignorantly, Trump has grouped all the predominantly white people in our country as “true Americans” (seemingly forgetting that at some point, we derived from immigrants ourselves) and categorized the rest as immigrants who don’t belong. Take his outlook on Muslims, for example. Trump has taken the actions of a few radical Muslims and generalized them to an entire group of people, claiming that they’re the source of all of the problems in our country. As he’s publicly declared, an easy solution to this would be to either deport or detain Muslims in our country and ban any more from entering.
When we look at history and the Nazi Party, we easily see how wrong it is. But when we look at the exact same situation currently happening in our country, many people hesitate — and the honest reason for that is because since 9/11, many Americans have carried a silent stigma against Muslims. It was a tragedy that directly affected the entire country and as an instinctive part of human nature, we helped cope with the pain by finding someone to blame. Since then and the downfall of events that followed it, many people in the country have been so desperate for hope that in their pursuit of finding it, they’ve forgotten what our country originally stood for: freedom from oppression and opportunities for a better life in America.
I’ve never been one for politics. I’ve also been told to never share my political opinions with others, especially over social media platforms. But Donald Trump’s campaign isn’t so much about politics anymore as it is morals and I refuse to remain silent about it.
If it’s true that history repeats itself, just remember that it didn’t start out with gas chambers and concentration camps. It started with a leader promoting hate and intolerance, and a crowd who was desperate for change.
