Vote With Care

Last week Stacy Spink criticized Richard Ackerman’s comparison of Trump to Mussolini and Hitler as unjustified. However, Trump’s admiration of Hitler, Mussolini, and other tyrants is well documented. Even his MAGA slogan is derived from Mussolini’s 1927 address suggesting Italian-Americans “make America great.” Trump refers to political opponents as “vermin” and says immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” echoing Hitler. When challenged, he replied that Mussolini said “interesting things” and Hitler “did some good things.”

Spink calls for facts. Here are a few facts regarding Trump’s embrace of tyrants: On 4/12/18, Trump described China’s dictator, Xi Jinping as “a friend of mine, who’s a very, very good man.” On 9/29/18, he said North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un “wrote me beautiful letters… We fell in love.” On 6/29/19, he called Turkish strongman Tayyip Erdogan: “a friend of mine, somebody I’ve become very close to, in many respects, and he’s doing a very good job.” Trump’s continual praise for Putin needs no recounting. Any normal politician would denounce dictators, and true citizens would reject candidates who refuse to do so.

Why does this matter? On 12/5/23, Trump said he would be a dictator on “Day One.” While his supporters brush this off as bluster or hyperbole, the same was true of all too many Germans’ early assessment of Hitler. On 7/1/24, the Supreme Court gave our president “at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.” Vote with care!

–Bill Ferretti, Castro Valley