Seriously? David Duke Claims Trump Comparisons Improve Hitler’s Image

By Alexandra Simone | March 21, 2016

Could Donald Trump be rehabilitating Hitler’s image? White supremacist and former leader of the KKK, David Duke, sure thinks so. Four days ago, Right Wing Watch–a project started by People for the American Way that reports on activities of right-wing political organizations in order to highlight the risks of intolerant views–posted a short clip from Duke’s radio show, in which, Duke shares his views on Donald Trump and media intent on bashing Trump for his platforms on racial issues.

Duke starts off his rant about Trump by claiming that,

The reason there’s a war on Donald Trump is because there’s a war on the real America, there’s a war on the European-American majority of the United States of America.

He goes on to point out that, rather than Donald Trump perpetuating hatred and racism, it’s actually the media and their portrayal of Trump’s candidacy that does so. To a certain extent, sure, some media outlets do cast a negative light on Trump.

There are ads that highlight his nasty language.

There are ads that attack him for the Trump University scam.

There are even ads that attack Trump for not being as conservative as he purports to be.

But part of the problem with Duke’s argument–other than the fact that he is an avid white supremacist who whole-heartedly believes that white people are being actively discriminated against by the cultural melting pot America is becoming–is that Trump has time and time again used violence inciting and racist language in his speeches. The way attack ads against Trump are structured may play up his negative features, but they aren’t making things up.

Some of the recent criticisms of Trump  compare him to Hitler in the way he uses rhetoric to promote racist ideals and the way his speeches and rallies have begun to stir up violence.

Went to the Trump rally just to see how crazy it would be……..this is insane pic.twitter.com/QFwSwmNoI0

— Alex Satterly (@alex_satterly) March 19, 2016

In a recent article from the Wrap, a holocaust survivor explained that, although Trump hasn’t provided us with enough reasons to be worried about a Hitleresque regime yet, he is unsettling and the situation seems like it could get ugly. John Kasich released an ad that highlights the ways in which Trump’s discussion of race isolates groups of people the same way Hitler’s early rhetoric against Jewish people did, before his mass genocide began.

A Huffington Post reporter weighed in on this comparison, drawing a parallel between a recent Trump rally, where Trump asked supporters to raise their hands and swear to vote for him, to scenes from Nazi Germany.

Now the real kicker of Duke’s argument comes at around the 50-second mark when Duke states that, in comparing Trump to Hitler, all of his opponents are actually just rehabilitating Hitler’s image:

The truth is, by the way, they might be rehabilitating that fellow with the mustache back there in Germany.

He even claims that these commercials comparing Trump to Hitler aren’t going to have the effect people want: they will actually boost Hitler’s image instead of defaming Trump.

This claim is outrageous and it’s important to keep in mind that it’s coming from a man who, when addressing “European” people not two minutes later, said,

The government is purposefully wiping you out and your families and your children and your future. They are purposefully transforming this country into a Third World nation.

Duke clearly has some opinions about our country that are blatantly untrue and, if he really thinks that comparing Donald Trump and Hitler is going to improve the public’s perception of the largest, most racist mass murderer in the history of humankind, he’s even more out of touch with reality than it previously seemed. The good news? After all the confusion over whether or not Trump was willing to denounce Duke and the KKK a few weeks ago, he finally got around to making a crystal clear disavowal of the two. But the thought of comparing anyone to Hitler and having it improve Hitler’s reputation is obviously ridiculous.