Why Are Trump Supporters Such Bad People?

Would Donald Trump supporters follow Hitler?
https://www.registerguard.com/story/opinion/columns/2021/07/04/guest-view-would-donald-trump-supporters-follow-hitler/7782419002/

Growing up Jewish in the 1950s, the long shadow of the Holocaust still loomed. My mother, in her wisdom, told me the German people were good, like anyone else, and that all nationalities had good and bad people.

But I remained troubled. How could millions follow Adolf Hitler, the most evil person in history? Decades later, I thought I was on the verge of an answer.

An assignment for NPR took me into the Oregon State Prison and a face-to-face meeting with a neo-Nazi skinhead who beat a Black man to death with a baseball bat. I expected to stare into the face of evil. Instead I discovered a kid who had been conned by a neo-Nazi leader. The 23-year old killer still didn’t get that he had thrown his own life away as well as someone else’s. I felt closer to an answer, but one duped kid doesn’t explain the mass hysteria that was Nazi Germany.

Now, however, the followers of Donald Trump have made it clear. Comparing Trump to Hitler may be a bridge too far. But my comparison is not between Hitler and Trump. It’s about their followers.

Polls consistently show Trump unable to top 42% popular support. Hitler peaked at 37%, but his followers were rabid in their devotion. And Hitler’s propaganda machine convinced the German people to blame the Jews for their woes. It wasn’t difficult. Jews had been blamed for centuries.

Likewise, most Trump supporters are devoted to him. And they are convinced immigrants, Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Jews are getting all the breaks while they, mostly white, are losing out. And this, too, plays on centuries of fears. Today, too many white Americans see non-whites as threats that must be stopped.

Hitler vowed to return Germany to its place in the world. Make America great again is Trump’s mantra.

Hitler believed the bigger the lie the more people would embrace it. Trump took his playbook from Hitler and continues to spread the most far-fetched lie in history. Just as millions in Germany bought Hitler’s lies, millions in America swallow Trump’s con.