German Carnival Mocks Trump With “Make Fascism Great Again” Float, And They’re Not Far Off

Credit: Peter Hild
Credit: Peter Hild

Each year Germany has Carnival season, a time of year in which German cities hold festivals and parades with floats representative of the current era. This year, the city of Düsseldorf made a float that captures how many Germans (and Europeans and Americans, of course) view GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and his political ideologies.

The float featured Trump’s face positioned in a very whiny demeanor with blue around his eyes to represent his tears over losing the Iowa caucus to presidential candidate Ted Cruz. What really makes the figure stand out, however, is his hair, which reads “Make Fascism Great Again.” This is, of course, a play on Trump’s slogan to “Make America Great Again,” something that many of the conservative voters seems to blindly agree with.

Another stunning but subtle detail is Trump’s shoulder decal. A button saying “Trump 2016” is prominent over a red band, which covers a black uniform he dons on his shoulder. This might seem like he’s just wearing a button in support of himself, but the colors and the red band are symbolic of the Nazi Party during Hitler’s regime.

Germans really are the experts on the matter of the terrible rise and fall of Nazism, and it’s no wonder they are comparing Trump to Hitler. Though the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, the group actually had fascist ideologies and policies. Here’s a brief breakdown of fascism (Nazism) with a relevant Donald Trump quote or action for a better comparison:

Credit: Breitbart
Credit: Breitbart

Fascism emphasizes a myth of national or racial rebirth after a period of decline or destruction: Trump’s signature quote, “Make America Great Again,” emphasizes this point because it suggests that America was once great and has seen a period of decline. He states that he can make the nation great “again,” indicating that he is in favor of rebirth.

Fascism tends to celebrate masculinity and the regenerative power of violence: Trump has been criticized for his sexist statements in regards to the women he has interacted with. In particular, he has tweeted about the outstanding amount of unreported sexual assaults in the military and says, “What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?” It’s possible that they expected them to control themselves and respect each other and not assault one another like decent human beings. But for a sexist like Trump, men apparently shouldn’t be blamed for not controlling themselves once women were introduced into the military, but instead those who decided to let them commingle are to blame.

Additionally, Trump’s rallies have become a pinnacle for violence, as videos of his supporters harming protestors have become rampant and all too common online. These violent acts usually occur as the protestors are being escorted out at Trump’s own request, and yet Trump has yet to ask his supporters not to engage in this awful behavior. In fact, he has even told them that he will “defend you in court.” Then there’s the well-known fact that he has several times announced his support for waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” which is a torture tactic that is considered an international war crime.

Fascism promotes racial superiority doctrines, ethnic persecution, and genocide: Where do we begin on this one? For one, Trump recently came under fire because of his aloof refusal to disavow David Duke and the KKK. He pretended to not know who David Duke was, although he is quoted as speaking about Duke years ago and the former Grand Wizard of the KKK endorsed Trump as a president, and then said that he would have to review the KKK and white supremacists before making a decision about them.

As for ethnic persecution, he came out in December of 2015 to announce that he was “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” This came after he had already said that he was willing to run surveillance on mosques and require that all Muslims be entered into a database. This sounds like a modern way of legally requiring that all Jewish citizens wear the Star of David in order to identify them, which was forced on Jewish people during World War II in order to more easily persecute them. Sound familiar?

Trump essentially plans on engaging in genocide because he has said things like, “I would bomb the s— out of them.” By “them,” he is referring to the terrorist group ISIS who is known to be integrated among citizens in Iraq and Syria. If he were to truly bomb them blindly, he would be killing innocent civilians indiscriminately along with ISIS members and committing mass murder with a method that is actually likely to cause ISIS to multiply rapidly.

Credit: CNN
Credit: CNN

With such language, Donald Trump is certainly alluding to similar reform that Hitler and the Nazi Party advocated for and executed while they held power in Germany. As we know now, this rhetoric changed from language to action in an extremely lethal and sad way, and it would be terrible if Trump were to be elected president only to attempt to engage in the same horrific actions.


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