Trump's "Hitler Speech" At CPAC-- On The Subject Of "Retribution"

(Photo credit, Philadelphia Daily News December 19 2015) 

Trump's "Hitler Speech" At CPAC-- On The Subject Of "Retribution"

Most of us have seen the headline which quotes Trump yesterday saying "I am your retribution." I haven't read the full speech as of now since I haven't had my breakfast yet. Which is fine, since I've spent too much of my time analyzing him over years to require any context. 

I will say this. Trump has Adolf Hitler as a model, even though his anti-semitism is not so overt, and he has announced no plans that I know of to build gas chambers and conduct mass sterilizations or deportations of Jews. But he truly admires Hitler's rise to power, his oratory, his imposition of dictatorship, his murder and jailing of opponents, the silencing of the press, persecuting of minorities, the banning of political parties, ad infinitum. How do we know this? Because he has told us innumerable times. 

Trump used to keep a book of Hitler speeches on his night table according to his ex-wife Ivana. He told his former Chief of Staff General Kelly at a D-Day commemoration in Europe "Hitler did some good things" and lamented that his own Generals are not as personally loyal to himself as Hitler's Generals were to him. When Kelly pointed out that Hitler's Generals tried to assassinate him three times and led the attempts to remove him, Trump refused to believe it, demonstrating not only a "fan-boy" worship of his Führer, but his astronomical historical illiteracy. 

Most people are aware that Hitler wrote a book in jail, having been convicted of treason after the Munich Putsch failed coup. It is called "Mein Kampf." How many people are aware that it was written in parts originally which were released as seperate volumes? And that Volume 1 was entitled....you guessed it.

["The first volume, entitled Die Abrechnung (“The Settlement [of Accounts],” or “Retribution”), was written in 1924 in the Bavarian fortress of Landsberg am Lech, where Hitler was imprisoned after the abortive Beer Hall Putsch of 1923.*  It treats the world of Hitler’s youth, the First World War, and the “betrayal” of Germany’s collapse in 1918; it also expresses Hitler’s racist ideology, identifying the Aryan as the “genius” race and the Jew as the “parasite,” and declares the need for Germans to seek living space (Lebensraum) in the East at the expense of the Slavs and the hated Marxists of Russia. It also calls for revenge against France."]

*Encyclopedia Britannica

Everything Hitler did in politics and in his mass brainwashing of the Germans was based on him being their instrument for retribution, or as derived from the French, "revanchism." Revenge for the betrayal through surrender in "The Great War," (The Stab In The Back") the chaotic aftermath with the Allies economic dismantling of Germany under the unfair Versailles Treaty, the damage done by hyperinflation of the Weimar period, the taking of German possessions, and so on. Linked at the bottom is a text of Hitler's speech defending his actions against the Jews by recounting his world view of how they alone were responsible for Germany's suffering, appealing to the shared sense of grievance and desire for retribution by those Germans affected, which only he alone could give them.  

So, Americans have no right to glibly dismiss this speech by Trump as theater, or simply to ignore it as the ravings of a washed up loser. While his targets for retribution are not limited to Jews, he is serious about making all of his personal enemies into targets, and playing upon the most base and violent tendencies in his aggrieved political base, with the intention of inciting violence on a scale unseen since the US Civil War. 

While commentators who are busy consulting with pollsters using analytics or covering his courtroom drama are writing Trump off as a candidate, be aware that electoral politics is not the sum and substance of his game. 

He is a cult leader. And you saw the power he has over his followers on January 6th, 2021. Just what in the actual f**k do you think he means when he says "I'm your retribution?" If Ivana were living, she would know. General Kelly knows. Trump's niece Mary knows. As do all in his family and inner circle who know him best. 

Last night Trump declared war on you. Don't laugh at or blow off what he said. The fact that CPAC left his speech for last tells you what message they intended to deliver. That's what we need to listen to.