Trump, Musk, and Nazis: The Fall of American Democracy

“When fascism comes to America
it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
—attributed to Sinclair Lewis

Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States has many Americans fearing for the future of the country. Comparisons between Trump and Hitler are rife on the internet, and the Republican administration is not easing any worries.

Elon Musk was appointed to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and he gave a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration event on January 20, 2025. During his speech he thumped his chest and raised his arm out straight, palm down, towards the audience, twice.

Republican sympathizers online have said that he did not know it is a Nazi salute, and they have made the excuse that he could not control his hand gesture because he has autism. Some even still used the outdated term “Asperger’s syndrome,” even though that term has not been used by professionals in over a decade because Hans Asperger, the doctor behind the syndrome, was a Nazi who orchestrated the murder of over 5,000 disabled children in the Reich.

Musk’s rhetoric and apparent signal to the neo-Nazis in the audience has struck a chord. The Tesla CEO has been known to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories and far-right rhetoric on X, formerly known as Twitter. People wonder, “What will the fascists do next if they are so comfortable using Nazi salutes on television?” While Americans have excused Musk, Germans have stated that “a Hitler salute is a Hitler salute.”

The Trump administration began by pardoning almost 1,600 insurrectionists from the January 6 coup d’état, and promising to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and to take away birthright citizenship. Some people believe that Trump even hinted that they rigged the election during his inauguration speech.

The administration will adhere to Project 2025, what some are calling the end of American democracy, and the installation of fascism.

Project 2025 is a blueprint of policies designed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative institution, in collaboration with other conservative organizations. The 900+ page document outlines the policies they want for the Republican United States President, while demonizing the “radical left.” It is intended to reshape federal laws and operations with their Christian nationalist views.

The Project seeks to:

• Expand the authority of the President by enhancing executive power
• Militarize civilian spaces and increase military spending significantly
• Reform social policies to restrict or ban access to health care
• Oppose or roll back LGBTQIA2+ rights, including to remove trans individuals from the US military
• Implement Christian education in public schools
• Idealize the “nuclear family” according to religious values
• Eliminate or roll back social services and equal opportunity programs
• Restructure the government by reducing or eliminating certain federal agencies and departments and filling the government positions with conservatives, even eliminating Congress
• Enforce strict immigration and national security measures
• Enforce mass deportations of immigrants and foreign nationals from communist countries
• Build more ICE detention camps for “national security threats”
• Control the media by defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Control education abolishing the Department of Education
• And go to war with communist adversaries
  Among many other policy changes

These are a few of their anti-democratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian ideas. Many have made the comparisons between Trump and Hitler, and between Project 2025 and Nazi Germany’s policies, and many have vehemently denied any similarity.

Similarities between them include, but are not limited to:

• Dehumanizing others and targeting certain demographics with racist remarks, such as how Trump has said immigrants are “vermin,” “poisoning the blood of our country,”  and the “enemy from within”
• Using extreme nationalism and populism to garner political and social support
• Hailing the leader as the savior or Messiah
• Exploiting economic insecurities
• Promising to rebuild greatness of the country
• Manipulating the media and extreme propaganda
• Using scapegoats for national problems
• Fostering division among citizens and enforcing the “us vs. them” mentality
• Authoritarianism
• Attacking the press and intellectuals for opposing or not praising them
• Endorsing coup d’etats and paramilitary groups which support them

In 2024, Tanner Horne wrote an undergraduate thesis titled Rhetorical Demagoguery: An Exploration of Trump’s and Hitler’s Rise to Power in which he compared the similarities of their rhetorical appeals and actions.

And according to a former Chief of Staff, John F. Kelly, Trump admitted that he admires Hitler for rebuilding the German economy. Kelly said that he believes Trump is a fascist and would rule like a dictator. Trump has supported white supremacists, Christian nationalists, racists and antisemites who stormed the capital and attended the Unite the Right rallies in 2017 and 2018.

There are differences in how Hitler and Trump have governed, but historians believe that the similarities are too risky to ignore. Hitler’s rise to power was not immediate, it took time to garner enough support, and after he got into power it only took two months before he had stripped everybody of certain freedoms, gained complete decision-making power, and expelled everybody from the government who did not agree with him.

The majority of the United States population may not support Trump, but the ones who do give him unyielding support and tremendous praise.

“So this is how liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause.”  – Padme, Star Wars Episode III