Are Democrats Whitewashing Hitler with Lame Attacks on Trump?

By Steve Huntley | March 30, 2025

I’m old enough to remember when Hitler personified incomparable, bottomless, merciless evil. These days he’s mostly used by the left as a cudgel to hammer, ineffectively, Donald Trump. In doing so, Democrats risk trivializing and even sanitizing Hitler.

What sets Hitler apart from other monstrous 20th century dictators — such as Mao Zedong and Stalin — was his all-consuming Jew hatred, his unprecedented Jewish murders, his factories of death and extermination that slaughtered 6 million Jews.

Mao and Stalin (himself an antisemite) each killed more people than Hitler, yet the German fuhrer is recognized as the worst tyrant. The reason is clear — the Holocaust.

There have been other genocides, such as those of Turkey against the Armenians and the Hutus against the Tutsis in civil war in Rwanda.

But in none was genocide as central to a regime’s core and purpose as in Hitler’s Germany. None of those other murderous campaigns erected a massive industrial complex of death camps devoted to the annihilation of one people.

You can’t separate Hitler from his pathological loathing and mass murder of Jews.

If someone is likened to Hitler, it’s inescapable that this person must be a rabid Jew hater.

To invoke Hitler without his murderous antisemitism is to homogenize him as another one of the 20th century’s dictators, just the most infamous.

In doing so, Democrats purge him of his singular crime against humanity.

President Trump is Hitler, shout progressives.

That would be the same Trump whose grandchildren are Jewish. The same Trump who is described by Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of the Jewish state, as “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.”

Some Hitler.

A similar whitewashing is going on with Democrats hurling Nazi insults at Trump’s supporters.

Hitler made the Nazi party in his image. Hitler planted antisemitism, persecution of Jews and Jew slaughter at the heart of the Nazi movement.

No daylight intruded between the Nazi party and the persecution of Europe’s Jews. The Nazi SS enforced Hitler’s racial policies in occupied Europe and ran the extermination camps. In pre-war Germany, the SS joined with the SA storm troopers in inflicting the pogrom against Jews known to history as Kristallnacht.

You can’t be a Nazi without Jew hatred.

Yet, the left paints Trump supporters as Nazis.

Some of those progressives say they are themselves Jews, as was the case with a big pro-Hamas demonstration inside Trump Tower in New York recently.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who’s Jewish, invoked the Nazis in attacking Trump. He claimed he didn’t bring up “the specter of Nazis lightly.”

Pritzker and others try to clean up their smear by saying that they are only talking about how Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany. Hitler seized power to what end? Kill Jews and conquer Europe.

“I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now,” Pritzker said. “The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems. I just have one question: What comes next?”

We know what came next with Hitler and the Nazis.

Pritzker appears to be drawing some sort of a parallel between Hitler sending innocent Jews to concentration camps and Trump deporting illegal aliens. The left calls them “migrants” but these foreigners broke U.S. law by entering our country without permission.

Europe’s Jews did nothing, but suffered mass murder. That was a crime against humanity.

Illegal aliens thumb their noses at the law and thus face the consequences of being sent back to their home countries or some other destination. That’s called justice.

These illegal immigrants mostly are trying to escape the miserable economies of their native countries.

There is no comparison to the desperate Jews of the 1930s and ‘40s fleeing a regime intent on killing them, their children, their parents, all their relatives, everyone like them — for the singular reason that they were Jewish.

The Hitler and Nazi attacks from Democrats also gloss over an uncomfortable truth, for them, that a 21st century version of Nazism is bringing new misery for Jews in particular and the civilized world in general.

That would be the radical Islamism.

It’s a powerful, fanatic, barbarian movement within Islam and it commands the loyalty of millions of Muslims. Many terrorist gangs, such as the al-Qaeda responsible for the Sept. 11 atrocities, kill in Islam’s name. They kill indiscriminately but never fail to single out Jews or to target them.

Maniacal Islamists rule Iran. They openly advocate the extermination of Israel and seek a nuclear weapon to that end.

Just taking notice of the crimes of Islamism can bring an accusation of Islamophobia from its many sympathizers on the left, in so-called elite universities, in progressive media and at the United Nations.

We must not let the smear of Islamophobia keep us from recognizing and speaking out about the Islamist threat to Western civilization.

The Islamist terrorist gang most often in the news these days is Hamas, guilty of the most horrific atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust.

In their Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Hamas savages slaughtered 1,200 people, raped women and teen-age girls, burned and mutilated the bodies of young and old, and took 250 hostages back to the Gaza Strip. Among those hostages were babies, toddlers, Israelis over age 80 and dead bodies.

The terrified captives, including women still bloody from sexual assault, were paraded before jeering and taunting crowds of Palestinians in Gaza. Hostages, including at least two children, were murdered during captivity.

When a cease-fire was finally realized and some Jewish hostages freed, Hamas thugs again paraded them before jeering and taunting masses of Palestinians.

We are no longer surprised by the depths of depravity, cruelty and savagery that Palestinian terrorists and mobs will sink to. Palestinian and Islamist culture and society constitute our era’s version of Nazi Germany’s culture and society.

And we can see troubling signs in our own society — notably widespread antisemitic demonstrations and intimidation of Jews on prestigious college campuses. The Anti-Defamation League found that antisemitic attacks in America surged by 200 percent in the year after the Hamas attack.

It’s surely no coincidence that these soaring assaults against Jews come at a time when Democrats are whitewashing Hitler with their frivolous attacks on Trump and Republicans.

This sick tendency to sanitize Hitler also occurs on the right.

Prominent podcaster Tucker Carlson gave a forum to a “popular historian” who promotes crackpot theorizing that the “chief villain” in World War II was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, not Hitler.

We should never forget what set Nazi Germany apart, why Hitler represents unparalleled evil.

We should never forget who Hitler was.

Volumes have been written about him. Among the most intriguing was Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of his Evil by Ron Rosenbaum.

Rosenbaum examined many of the theories and explanations about Hitler.

After doing so, he cautioned that explaining Hitler can carry a potential downside.

We should remember, he said:

“To resist the way explanation can become evasion or consolation, a way of making Hitler’s choice to do what he did less unbearable, less hateful to contemplate, by shifting responsibility from him to faceless abstractions, inexorable forces, or irresistible compulsions that gave him no choice or made his choice irrelevant.

“To resist making the kind of explanatory excuses for Hitler that permit him to escape, that grant him the posthumous victory of a last laugh.”

Are the Democrats’ frivolous invocations of a Hitler without the Holocaust opening another avenue to grant him the posthumous victory of a last laugh?

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Steve Huntley, a retired Chicago journalist now living in Austin, Texas, has contributed other pieces to johnkassnews.com from an examination of the secret jail for Christopher Columbus and other politically problematic public art to an essay on Americans suffering from Joe Biden gas pain.

For almost three decades Huntley spent most of his career in Chicago journalism at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he was a feature writer, metro reporter, night city editor, metropolitan editor, editorial page editor and a columnist for the opinion pages.

Before that he was a reporter and editor with United Press International (UPI) in the South and Chicago, and Chicago bureau chief and a senior editor in Washington with U.S. News & World Report. Northwestern University Press has issued soft cover and eBook editions of Knocking Down Barriers: My Fight for Black America by Truman K. Gibson Jr. with Steve Huntley, a memoir of a Chicagoan who was a member of President Roosevelt’s World War II Black Cabinet working to desegregate the military.

Comments 43

  1. Pritzker can’t see beyond his next feed.

    He became governor only to secure legal weed with the help of the noxious Kelly Cassidy, the lamprey eel attached to Heather Stearns and her family fortune. Both of these LGBTQ/abortion harpies ran Pritzker’s legalize weed foundation and pushed Personal PAC down the throats of the the Illinois legislation.

    Pritzker is always at the trough.

      1. While ESL is heinous, there are only 17,000 people living there. You get way more D votes in Champaign County, which was riddled with election irregularities in 2024.

    2. Yes sir. Always at the trough. Even here in Evanston, where he and Biss were finally successful in appropriating our most beautiful public beach for his boutique hotel, the Harley Clarke mansion. Through one of his blind trusts that invest in businesses with state contracts.

      Any comparisons of Trump to Hitler is a self own. To call JB, or Penny for you thoughts scum, insults scum

  3. The “Hitler, Hitler, Hitler” and “Nazi, Nazi, Nazi” harping by the Left did not start with Trump. In his book, “It Didn’t Start With Watergate” author Victor Laskey describes how the Demorats went after conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964 with the same tactics trying to take him down like Trump with the remarkably the same smears. Like other members of Trump’s team, the Demorats accused Goldwater of being a warmonger like Hitler and of ties to far-right wing German political groups. The greatest irony, if you can it that, was that Goldwater himself was Jewish. “Have you no shame.” No, they do not. Look at their cast of evil misfits and buffoons, Crocket, Rafkin, Maxine, the Squad, and on and on and the hate and lies they spew. Good grief!

    1. Yes I remember the “Warmonger” chants about Barry Goldwater. “Vote for Barry Goldwater and we will be in a war” (Vietnam). The joke after he lost was: “Well, I voted for Goldwater and sure enough we are in a War!” Barry probably would have ended it in a Year.

      1. I was just reminded that Barry Goldwater was only half Jewish and had been raised as an Episcopalian, but as Groucho Marx quipped when his daughter who was half Jewish was being denied entry to a motel swimming pool, can she go up in the water to her
        waist.

  5. The Democrats have nothing to run on so they’ve resorted to foul language and name calling. It’s truly pathetic to see that party circling the drain.

    1. But if Trump continues with his inane tariff nonsense and destroys everyones’ retirement accounts – as he is presently now doing – the Democrats will have something BIG to run on. Because after all “it’s all about the economy, stupid.”

  6. The Democrats would embrace the Devil if that would help the Democrats gain or maintain power. They have only one principle – whatever it takes to win, to hell with the facts. Elimination of a race or type of people flows naturally from their support of abortion. After one group is allowed to be killed, the next group is dehumanized and targeted. It is all quite logical. The only time the Democrats have use for logic is when it serves their purposes.

    1. John L. I agree with your comment with one exception: I would say that many Progressive Democrats have (possibly unknowingly to some) embraced the Devil, literally. From a spiritual perspective, they twist the words of truth from others to fit their lies about reality that they perpetuate. They are blatant liars. In Jesus debate with (Ironically) Jewish people purporting to follow him recorded in the Biblical Book of the Apostle John (Chapter 8, verses 31-47), he said to those who “had believed him”, that “if you abide in my word, you are my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. They responded “How is it that you say, “you will become free” and called themselves “offspring of Abraham”. Jesus goes on to explain they are not doing the works (behaving) like Abraham, but like their spiritual father, the devil, and your will is to do what your “father” desires and then describes what the devil is like: a murderer, does not stand in the truth and has no truth within him, is a liar and the father of lies.

      Yes, voiciferous Progressive Democratic leaders like Pritzker, Maxine, Schiff, AOC and so many others and those that follow them passionately, fit Jesus description very well. So, I would argue, they have truly “embraced the Devil” as their father to maintain power. They love to call others what they actually behave like (threats to Democracy, Nazi’s, Hitler, etc.). Jesus said, “Whoever is of God HEARS the words of God”. We truly are in a not just political, but spiritual battle!

      1. Agreed with the exception that most of them don’t actually know who the devil is. They worship at the alter of BLM, ANTIFA, Climate Change, and racsim.

      2. Fully agree with you, Steve. When the Progressive Democrats look in the mirror, they see only themselves, not the Devil within. They can see, yet they are blind.

  7. Thank you Mr. Huntley for your powerful and knowledgeable article. I’m in disbelief that the Democrats have the nerve to compare President Trump to Hitler and migrants who come to our Country legally to illegal immigrants.

  8. Powerful. If someone were to trace all of the Adolf Hitler documentaries, Holocaust documentaries and movies I’ve watched, they might call me a Nazi, too. But Jewish people, I think, would not. They would likely say, “never forget” and give me a thumbs up. Hamas IS Hitlerism. Hamas, not the Palestinian people, needs to be wiped out just as evil does. Israel does not respond lightly, nor should they.

  9. Great writing, as always. The thing that bothers me the most when I hear people compare Trump to Hitler is that many of them know so little about WWII history and what Hitler actually did that they don’t have the knowledge to make the comparisons.

    It’s like one of the (sic) “protesters) at an anti-Israel rally- this young woman was asked what river was being referred to in the motto she was screaming “From the river to the sea”. This moron replied “The Nile”.

    Kinda sums up the brains of many of these clowns, many of whom are elected (sic) “officials”.

  10. Governor (?) inherited money Judas Jew is like all other Leftists. Where his father was the epidemy of an American success story, his kids (with the exception of one), are so morally bankrupt and corrupt, it’s astounding. He and his siblings personify the traitor instinct of Soros and his family, along with the Hollywood elite from Reiner to the head of Disney.
    There is a tendency to forget that Hitler and his regime were Socialists.

  11. Oh yes, JB and his slobbering mouth comparing President Trump to Hitler is truly amazing, and the Local (wink-wink) Journalists say nothing about it!
    Hey, Disney-owned ABC7 didn’t mention the downtown kids’ takeover Friday night while it was happening. They did, however, run the lame story for the 8th time that day about an overturned cattle truck in Indiana! Funny that NBC5 carried it as their opening story at 10 pm. They have gotten to be LAME!! Done watching ABC7 market the news.

  12. Mr Hundley, besides killing 6 million Jews, why would you leave out the estimated 5 million others that Hitler killed?! Most were Poles, Slavs and Russians, also including political prisoners, Catholic priests, gypsies and homosexuals. Their lives were every bit as precious as the Jews.

    Nevertheless, Hitler pales in comparison to other 20th century genocidal maniacs like Stalin and Mao. They reigned much longer and destroyed many millions more than even Hitler. The left generally ignores Mao, Stalin and Lenin because a condemnation of Communism is inconvenient for them— fellow travelers. (Hitler of course was a socialist too).

  13. Saw a pic of Gov Toilets with his sibling. on an FB page yesterday. Also massively overfed, and I guess identifies as a woman. The state if Illinois is his private fiefdom. Glad I got out. Have a number of Jewish friends who think Donald is the Devil incarnate. Yet he fights antisemitism every day. Huh? Trump derangement syndrome for sure. Sad sad sad.
    Great column. Always enjoy your well thought out insights.

  14. The Dems have no compassion or nothing for the illegals. Just they want to use them for their ends, e.g., 1. use them to show increased census numbers to guarantee them enough house seats and hence power, and 2. to use them for illegal voting for (for them, Democrats).

  15. Gone are the days of good Dems like Paul Simon and Stevenson. Nowadays Dems are freaks and have no ideals excepting for their own sad desire of survival on someone else’s tax dollars.

  16. I used to enjoy Tucker Carlson’s commentaries. He was erudite and smart and had his pulse on a lot of the political issues of the day. But I don’t know WTF happened to him: Putin admirer; apologist for Russia’s imperial land grabs; the fictitious Ukrainian biolabs; the Jan. 6 conspiracy…the list goes on. But now, according to this article, TC asserts that Churchill rather than Hitler is the evil character in WWII. That is simply crazy talk. Man, when does the crap ever stop?

    1. The facts are: China did not allow the US to have military bases on its borders with Vietnam. The US did not allow the USSR to place nuclear missiles on its (ocean) borders in Cuba. Russia will not allow NATO to amass its military on the Ukraine border. This explains the invasion of the Ukraine. Crimea is a major shipping hub due to its proximity to the sea. If you look into history especially WW2 you realize control of these ports could determine the outcomes of war. Biolabs or not.

      1. Yes. What was Cuba to America in 1961, is now Ukraine to Russia. Is it too hard for the DemoRats to understand this and not to follow Bidens and Obamas? After all they claim to be (more) educated than MAGA Republicans!

  18. Funny/not funny how the party of Jews is the party who participates in the expansion of Palestinian terrorism….against Jews of the M.E..

    If anyone can tell me WTH is going on with that, pls respond.

  20. The ultimate irony … the elephant in the room so to speak …. is the vast majority of Jews are Democrats or far left progressives. In fact if one were to remove orthodox Jews from the cohort, I would estimate that well over 90% of Jews are Democrats or far left progressives. Furthermore, many of these very same Jews – though not explicitly condoning the events of Oct 7 – are more sympathetic to Hamas and the Palestinians than they are to Israel. I know. Very inconvenient.

    1. Yes, American Jews historically vote Democrat, and some prominent Jews have been radicals, e.g. Saul Alinsky. But do you think that is starting to change? I recently had a short conversation with a non practicing Jewish family friend who has shifted her vote.

      How any Jew could be sympathetic to Hamas boggles the mind.

      Didn’t know Goldwater was Jewish. Well, Jewish father, actually, and raised Episcopalian.

      2. The intellectual Godfather of the “New Left” – the progenitor of today’s campus insanity – was Jewish: Herbert Marcuse. And that even ignores the other “giant” of extreme left insanity: Noam Chomsky. Some? Maybe. But highly influential.

        How any Jew could be sympathetic to Hamas? Take a look at Jewish Voices for Peace or IfNotNow.

        The “Jewish Gene” is via the mother. So by traditional Jewish cultural traditions Goldwater was never Jewish.

        Are Jews in general starting to change their political outlook? Based upon my limited sample of close secular Jewish friends and colleagues – as well as family – definitely not. In fact with the rise of Trump, just the opposite.

  21. Pritzker is a first class jerk. He actually thinks he can be elected president by following the defeated Democrats down the commode. Steve, thanks for reminding me about the dangers of invoking Hitler’s name in order to smear Trump. One of your best columns ever.

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