The Important Comparison Between Hitler and Trump Everyone Misses
We're all missing the one distinct comparison that really matters
Written by Dominick Skinner | Editor
When people compare Trump to Hitler, the conversation often gets stuck in clichés about charisma, rallies, or authoritarian actions, but what is rarely acknowledged is the most chilling parallel: both Hitler and Trump pursued scapegoating policies without the slightest regard for the economic survival of their own states. Both were willing to sabotage prosperity, dismantle industry, and destabilize food supplies so long as their ideological targets were persecuted. This is the heart of fascism, it is not about growth or strength, it is about domination, control, and hate, no matter the cost.
Hitler’s Germany provides the economic example in this case. At the height of a world war, when resources were stretched thin and defeat loomed, Hitler diverted trains, soldiers, and vast state infrastructure away from the battlefield in order to transport Jews and other targeted groups to ghettos and extermination camps. His obsession with annihilation outweighed military logic. Every trainload of people sent east to be killed was a train not carrying supplies to soldiers at the front and every guard assigned to a concentration camp was a guard not protecting his claimed homeland from invasion. Germany’s war machine was starved because Hitler’s regime valued crazy political ideology above survival. That choice, irrational on the surface, is a typical symptom of fascist rule, and was repeated in every fascist regime, regardless of where that regime was found.
Trump’s regime has followed the same pattern in its own way, although he does not command trains for mass deportations during wartime, but he does command federal agencies that tear workers out of industries crucial to the American economy.
His obsession with raids, deportations, and abductions has already gutted agriculture, manufacturing, and construction. The infamous raid on the Hyundai–LG battery plant in Georgia is a prime example. Federal agents stormed the site, arresting hundreds of foreign workers and halting a $7.6 billion project that was supposed to anchor America’s transition to electric vehicles. This was economic sabotage carried out in the name of xenophobic politics. The regime showed it was willing to undermine U.S. industry if it meant creating a spectacle of dominance over immigrants.
Across America’s farms, crops are rotting in the fields. In California, where vast stretches of agriculture depend on immigrant labor, workforce reductions of 20 to 40 percent have left harvests incomplete. Billions of dollars in produce are being lost, while prices for vegetables and fruit are climbing. This is a systemic shocks to the food supply, and they are happening because Trump’s fascist state prioritises abductions over abundance.
Tariffs and ICE Raids Are Driving America’s Farmers to the Brink
American farmers are being squeezed by a perfect storm of economic and political pressure. Trump’s sweeping new tariffs have severed access to key export markets, while aggressive ICE enforcement has scared much of the country’s agricultural workforce
What makes this even more horrible is the absurdity of the regime’s substitutes. When confronted with the crisis in agriculture, Trump suggested replacing immigrant labor with Medicaid recipients, while Florida made moves to replace those workers with child labour.
America’s industries are bleeding too. The tariffs imposed by the regime have beaten manufacturing to a pulp. Auto companies like Stellantis have laid off hundreds, citing tariff costs. Smaller manufacturers are folding under the weight of steel and copper import duties. Foreign investment, once the lifeline of U.S. growth, is being scared away by raids like the one in Georgia, with a 21% drop in such investments.
South Korea, a key ally, sent diplomats in outrage over the kidnapping and deportation of their citizens. Who wants to invest billions in a country where workers can be abducted by armed agents in the middle of construction? Trump’s America is no longer a safe harbour for industry, it is hostile to allies and industry, it is a completely unpredictable regime.
If the attacks on US farming, US industry and foreign investment weren’t enough, there are also the federal layoffs. Thousands of USDA staff have been cut, over 15,000 less employees than this time last year. The Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) has lost the personnel needed to enforce basic regulations.
These agencies once served as the backbone of rural infrastructure, food safety, and environmental protection. Now they are being dismantled. The effect is clear: weaken the state’s capacity, leave industries vulnerable, and consolidate power in the hands of the regime. A functioning state is an obstacle to fascism, so Trump is making sure the state stops functioning.
Just as Hitler sacrificed the German economy to feed his genocidal machine, Trump is sacrificing American prosperity to feed his authoritarian machine. The raids, the tariffs, the layoffs, they are not policies aimed at growth, they are acts of sabotage designed to break institutions and terrorise populations. The wannabe dictator has no interest in a thriving economy. He only cares about consolidating power.
This is why the comparison between Hitler and Trump matters so deeply. Fascism is not primarily about policy outcomes. It is about domination. It thrives on crisis, even when the crisis is self-inflicted. Hitler welcomed the chaos of war because it allowed him to accelerate persecution. Trump welcomes the chaos of raids and shortages because it keeps the nation off balance and reliant on his strongman persona. Both regimes embraced destruction as proof of their own power.
There is also an international cost. Hitler’s Germany alienated allies and dragged Europe into the abyss. Trump’s America is pushing away investors and alarming diplomatic partners. South Korea, Canada, Mexico, and Europe are already rethinking their economic ties. Trade wars and raids make the U.S. look unstable. The perception of stability is the foundation of American power. Trump is shattering it for the sake of his domestic crusade against immigrants. That is not nationalist strength. That is self-inflicted weakness. It is fascism feeding on its own host.
What Americans must understand is that this is not about immigration, or trade, or economic growth, it is about power. When a leader is willing to tear apart the economy for the sake of scapegoating, that leader is not a populist, not a conservative, not a nationalist. He is a fascist.
That is the important comparison between Hitler and Trump. Both sacrificed prosperity for persecution. Both turned the state into a machine of cruelty. Both proved that under fascism, the economy is never the point. The point is terror and absolute control, and unless America wakes up to that truth, history will not repeat itself. It will continue itself.