Shortly after Trump’s reelection earlier this month, an old friend of the family, herself quite liberal, asked me, “Do you see Trump as the antichrist, as do I, and this war in the Middle East to be the end of the world now?”
Since she is a well-educated, thinking person, I asked her why she held to those views, which led to a fruitful conversation.
But her fears represented the fears of many other left-leaning Americans for whom Trump’s victory effectively spelled the end of American freedoms. That’s because, according to their expectations and fears, Trump will declare war on all his political opponents and deport anyone who dares to stand in his way.
That’s why headlines like this have been common for many months now, this one from the Atlantic on October 18: “Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.”
So, not just like Hitler, but like all three of these dangerous despots. (For similar rhetoric dating back to 2016, see here.)
More recently, on November 20, the College Fix reported on a professor who claimed that Trump was a “Hitler-brandishing, anti-abortion criminal.”
No wonder Vox ran an article on November 6 carrying this dire headline: “Donald Trump has won — and American democracy is now in grave danger.” The subtitle actually claimed that “Trump’s second term poses an existential threat to the republic,” before stating, “But there’s still good reason for hope.”
Indeed, we are told that, “In nearly every conceivable way, a second Trump administration will likely be more dangerous than the first, a term that ended in over 1 million deaths from Covid-19 and a riot at the Capitol. A predictable crisis — a president consolidating power in his own hands and using it to punish his enemies — looms on the horizon, with many unpredictable crises likely waiting in the wings.”
Time to pack your bags and flee while you still have time.
As for any reason for hope, “it’s possible that — if people take the gravity of the threat seriously — the republic may come out intact on the other side.”
How heartening.
Little wonder, then, that shortly after the elections, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow claimed that Americans had “let democracy go” and opted for a “strongman, authoritarian system,” calling on her viewers to be “a thorn in the side to anyone who tries to turn this country into some tin-pot tyranny.”
But what happens if and when Trump turns out not to be Hitler? What happens if and when he doesn’t take power into his own hands and overrule our constitution? What happens if and when he acts as president rather than dictator and tyrant?
To be sure, I’m not expecting him to become a Mr. Rogers type figure, oozing with sweetness and devoid of a nasty mean-spirited side.
But I’m also not expecting him to be Hitler, trashing our democratic processes, invading other nations in a brazen attempt to take over the world, and setting up concentration camps for those whom he deems unfit for society.
And that leads to the very real question which I ask in all seriousness, rather than to mock those who genuinely dislike and fear President Trump. What happens if and when he turns out not to be Hitler?
This reminds me of a story I related in my recent book Hearts of Compassion, Backbones of Steel: How to Discuss Controversial Topics with Love and Kindness.
In the late 1980s I heard a remarkable testimony from a friend of ours who at that time was in her mid-sixties. She was a bright-eyed, silver-haired woman who reminded me of Barbara Bush, the wife of George H. W. Bush. She had a Ph.D. in Biology and was on the front lines of the pro-life movement, participating in Operation Rescue events in which she and scores (or hundreds) of others would sit peacefully in front of an abortion clinic, praying and worshiping, until police arrested them and carried them away.
On one occasion, she had traveled from Maryland, where she lived, to Buffalo, New York to participate in a major Operation Rescue event, and as always, she soon found herself arrested and sitting on a police bus, along with the other Christian women. But the police also made a mistake and arrested a zealous female abortion supporter, confusing her with the Christian protesters. Can you imagine how she felt sitting on the same bus with these other women, women whom she believed to be hateful and potentially violent? Our friend told us that the woman sat there shaking in fear. What was going to happen to her?
The other women then began to reach out to her, sharing their own hearts with her, telling their own stories, and giving her the gospel. That very day she became a follower of Jesus.
To be sure, I’m not comparing Trump to these pro-life Christian women whose demeanor was the opposite of what the pro-abortion protester was expecting. But I am saying that as the Trump presidency unfolds in 2025, the extreme nature of the anti-Trump rhetoric, which has clearly been over the top, might just highlight his good accomplishments all the more.
Let’s pray that it will be so, for the good of all Americans.