The Conversation (0)
James Besanvalle
Nov 03, 2020
Donald Trump is no stranger to being compared to a dictator.
In fact, the Democratic Party has released official ads comparing him to Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Augusto Pinochet.
But it’s not even a comparison Trump seems to shy away from.
In 2016, Trump retweeted a quote from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and then defended the tweet in an interview.
When questioned about it at the time, he reasoned:
Look, Mussolini was Mussolini. It’s a very good quote. It’s a very interesting quote… and I know who said it. What difference does it make?
Yes, Trump. It does make a difference.
So here's a list of all the experts and politicians we can find who’ve made the comparison to Trump being like a dictator:
1. Joe Biden: ‘He’s sort of like Joseph Goebbels’
Democratic candidate for President and former Vice President
Last month, Biden compared Trump to German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels:
2. Ruth Ben-Ghiat: ‘He slowly chipped away at democratic institutions’
Historian and scholar on fascism and authoritarian leaders
Speaking to Insider, Ben-Ghiat compared Trump to Mussolini:
The clearest parallel is that Mussolini was prime minister of a democratic coalition government from 1922-1925. During that time, he slowly chipped away at democratic institutions, insulting the press, using violence against the left, joking that he would be in office for 20 years, establishing a militia and a legislative body (the Grand Council) loyal to him.
Ben-Ghiat also continually calls the POTUS out via her Twitter account:
3. Bernie Sanders: ‘Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Trump golfs’
Democratic senator
Sanders compared Trump to Roman emperor Nero, whose infamous reign is usually associated with tyranny, extravagance and debauchery.
He said:
Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Trump golfs. His actions fanned this pandemic resulting in over 170,000 deaths and a nation still unprepared to protect its people.
Sanders added:
I, and my family, and many of yours, know the insidious way authoritarianism destroys democracy, decency, and humanity.
4. Michael Beschloss: ‘This is the way dictators come to power’
Presidential historian and author of PRESIDENTS OF WAR.
5. Bill Clinton: ‘Dictators’ club’
Former President
Bill Clinton compared Donald Trump with foreign dictators and warned about the dangers of his repeated sowing of distrust in the media:
6. Glenn Beck: ‘Trump is a dangerous man’
Conservative political commentator
We all look at Adolf Hitler in 1940. We should look at Adolf Hitler in 1929. He was a kind of funny kind of character that said the things people were thinking.
Where Donald Trump takes it, I have no idea. But Donald Trump is a dangerous man with the things that he has been saying.
7. David I. Kertzer: ‘The power of repeating empty phrases’
Anthropologist and historian
Like Trump, [Mussolini] had very little in the way of strong ideological beliefs himself, and knew the power of emotional rather than rational appeals, and of the power of repeating simple, emotionally powerful yet substantively empty phrases.
8. Kamala Harris: ‘Trump's no better than any other dictator’
Democratic Vice President candidate
9. Timothy Snyder: 'Authoritarian or pre-authoritarian situation'
Professor at Yale and historian specialising in the Holocaust
According to the Intelligencer, Trump repeatedly dismissing the legitimacy of the election makes it ‘clear to us that he wants to stay in power illegally’:
[This is] characteristic of an authoritarian or pre-authoritarian situation.
10. Elizabeth Warren: ‘A two-bit dictator’
Democratic senator
11. James Clyburn: ‘[Trump] is Mussolini. Putin is Hitler’
Democrat and House Majority Whip
12. Anthony Scaramucci: ‘The American Mussolini’
Trump’s former White House Director of Communications
After Donald Trump re-entered the White House since recovering from coronavirus, Scaramucci remarked:
You’ve got, I don’t know, the American Mussolini, standing on the balcony... we’ve never had a president stand on that balcony and do what he just did.
13. Michael Moore
Political filmmaker
Moore’s 2018 film Fahrenheit 11/9 compares Trump’s rise in the US to Adolf Hitler:
14. Sadiq Khan: ‘I’m not talking about Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un’
London Mayor
After listing things like Trump’s Muslim ban or his “deliberate use of xenophobia, racism and ‘otherness’ as an electoral tactic”, Khan said in a Guardian op-ed:
No, these are not the actions of European dictators of the 1930s and 40s. Nor the military juntas of the 1970s and 80s. I’m not talking about Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong-un.
These are the actions of the leader of our closest ally, the president of the United States of America.
15. David Gergen: ‘A two-bit dictator’
Former presidential adviser
Speaking about Trump’s response to Nancy Pelosi launching impeachment proceedings against him, Gergen said:
I think right now it's going to go down as a letter from a two-bit dictator of a banana republic. It has that kind of quality to it.
16. Brian Klaas: 'He is behaving like the despots past presidents condemned'
Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London (UCL) and author of How to Rig an Election.
17. Jason Stanley: 'Trumpism is something akin to a fascist social and political movement'
Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and author of How Fascism Works
We don't have a fascist regime. But arguably, Trumpism is something akin to a fascist social and political movement and at the very least, we have massive use of fascist tactics. We've got militias roaming the streets, we have one of our political parties turning into a cult of its leader – the RNC platform was just whatever Trump wants – [and] that's an extremely worrisome sign.
Watch his full interview with CNN: