Tom Nichols: That 1930s Feeling

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/republican-party-nazi-problem/686055/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/Oo8Hm

Over the past few months, during his agency’s chaotic crackdowns in Chicago and Minneapolis, the U.S. Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino has worn an unusual uniform: a wide-lapel greatcoat with brass buttons and stars along one sleeve. It looks like it was taken right off the shoulders of a Wehrmacht officer in the 1930s. Bovino’s choice of garment is more than tough-guy cosplay (German media noted the aesthetic immediately). The coat symbolizes a trend: The Republicans, it seems, have a bit of a Nazi problem.

By this, I mean that some Republicans are deploying Nazi imagery and rhetoric, and espouse ideas associated with the Nazi Party during its rise to power in the early 1930s. A few recent examples: An ICE lawyer linked to a white-supremacist social-media account that praised Hitler was apparently allowed to return to federal court. Members of the national Young Republicans organization were caught in a group chat laughing about their love for Hitler. Vice President J. D. Vance shrugged off that controversy, instead of condemning the growing influence of anti-Semites in his party. (In December, at Turning Point USA’s conference, Vance said, “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform.”)

Even federal agencies are modeling Nazi phrasing. The Department of Homeland Security used an anthem beloved by neo-Nazi groups, “By God We’ll Have Our Home Again,” in a recruitment ad. The Labor Department hung a giant banner of Donald Trump’s face from its headquarters, as if Washington were Berlin in 1936, and posted expressions on social media such as “America is for Americans”—an obvious riff on the Nazi slogan “Germany for the Germans”—and “Americanism Will Prevail,” in a font reminiscent of Third Reich documents.

Trump, of course, openly pines to be a dictator. In his first term, he reportedly told his chief of staff, General John Kelly, that he wished he had generals who were as loyal as Hitler’s military leaders. (The president was perhaps unaware of how often the führer’s officers tried to kill him.) More recently, the White House’s official X account supported Trump’s pursuit of Greenland by posting a meme with the caption “Which way, Greenland man?” That is not merely a clunky turn of phrase; it’s an echo of Which Way Western Man?, the title of a 1978 book by the American neo-Nazi William Gayley Simpson, a former Presbyterian minister who called for America to expel its Jewish citizens.

*snip*

[chouchou]

1. Little nasty scummy Men with little nasty scummy thoughts.

I want the next President to sweep the floor with a train-load of Clorox so the filth will be no more..

[efhmc]

2. "A bit"?

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Indeed.

Where did all the money come from to put all these bozos in power?

[dalton99a]

4. Trump IS a dictator. A lawless dictator with unlimited public funds and power.

[cksmithy]

5. A very good read. Helps to explain how we got to this point.

If you are younger than 45/50 years of age and didn't get a well rounded history education, the gop nazi problem article explains how we got here.
Sadly, I lived through everything he explains. My father who supported Adlai Stevenson, a progressive in the 1952 and 1956 elections for president, he eventually changed and supported George Wallace for president in 1968. It was a church, that changed his mind.