This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC studios and the New Yorker.

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnick.

Just recently, Adam Gobnick published an essay in the New Yorker

about Adolf Hitler's Rise to Power in the Early 30s.

By way of reviewing a book about the ascent of German fascism, Adam discussed the ways

that Hitler exploited the weaknesses of a democratic system to gain power as a fascist. He wrote about the enablers in the German press and

in the German military. And while I was reading Adam's essay, all I could really

think about was our present predicament, the return of Donald Trump in the

2024 elections.

Now, Adam never mentions once Donald Trump in his essay, and, the subtext is blaring out its warning at full volume.

It would be foolish to say, and Gopnik does not say,

that Trump equals Hitler, that Nazism equals MAGA.

And yet as the saying goes, history may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

Since losing the 2020 election and refusing the peaceful transfer of power

Trump has put the rule of law itself on his enemies list. He thunders about

terminating articles of the Constitution.

He holds up a mob of insurrectionists as political martyrs and hostages.

He says he'll round up his enemies whom he dehumanizes as a vermin.

And he's joked about being a dictator, if only just for one day.

So how seriously should we take this, and what historical comparison is legitimate?

Adam Gopner came by the office recently to discuss it all with us.

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