Neither of those stances are terribly comforting, but with regards to Trump himself, the most valid criticism of the man is that he doesn't distance himself from these groups and people as fast as he should. But it's debatable whether that means he has a deep abiding love for the tenets of white nationalism, or a casual disinterest in anything to do with equality (or anything else), or if he just really likes it when people say nice things about him, and is reluctant to criticize anyone who does.
Still, comparisons to Hitler do crop up every now and then. These are brutally hyperbolic -- Hitler has a few attempted genocides to his name -- and are rightfully shot down as soon as they appear. Hyperbole is a dangerous game, possibly the most dangerous game of all, so we shouldn't encourage that kind of nonsense too much.
Besides, the Russians hate Nazis. They'd never let it happen.
We have to rely on that now.
A few months ago, there was this thing on social media where any time Trump said or did something terrifying, so like a couple times a day, people would begin mocking it or sobbing hysterically over it. All normal so far. But then, about an hour after the first wave of reactions would come a second wave of wise, chin-stroking types, who would shrewdly claim "This is just a distraction people! We really need to focus on XX," where XX was whatever that person always is going on about. The dumb tweets were distracting from the Muslim travel ban, which was distracting from the Russia investigations, which was distracting from the new health care law, which was distracting from the obstruction-of-justice investigation, which was distracting from the pee tape, and so on.
Chris Bucholz
