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Letter: Here’s how Trump and Hitler are alike

(Carolyn Kaster | AP)  President Donald Trump arrives at the White House in Washington as he returns from Louisville, Ky., on Aug. 21, 2019.

(Carolyn Kaster | AP) President Donald Trump arrives at the White House in Washington as he returns from Louisville, Ky., on Aug. 21, 2019.

As a retired USAF officer raised in the 1940s Nazi occupied Netherlands, I believe I am uniquely qualified to assert that President Trump and Adolf Hitler share similar ideologies and use similar tactics for their own personal gain.

In order to solidify power, Hitler abolished the judiciary in Germany. President Trump is in the process of stacking the federal courts (including the Supreme Court) with judges who share his ideology. The same effect results — no justice.

Hitler had his concentration camps with Reinhard Heydrich to oversee them. Trump has his detention centers with Stephen Miller in charge. Same effect.

Hitler was a racist. Jews, gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals and the afflicted were sent to the camps. Trump’s ban on Muslims, his tirade against four congresswomen of color who stood up to him, his rhetoric regarding Baltimore’s black people — asserting that they are somehow subhuman — clearly brand him as a white supremacist racist.

Both Hitler and Trump demanded personal loyalty instead of loyalty to country and constitution.

The similarities are staggering and ominous. I draw these parallels because I was there then and I am here now, and I need to do what I can to prevent a repeat of the horrors of the past.

Frederik Weller, Sandy

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