The caption reads, “I’ve decided to accept God, but he has to become Italian.” The German here for “accept,” “gelten lassen,” could also be translated as “allow.” Source: Simpicissimus, May 3, 1926, http://www.simplicissimus.info.
The question might still seem hyperbolic to many, but sober, historically informed analysis along such lines can be informative for understanding both present and past
Don’t be a Sucker (1947)
There is an infectious simplicity about this film, which rings true politically in these times, even if the history it tells was more complicated.
From the historian who brought us Ordinary Men:
But Hitler was a fixated ideologue with a strong party organization, while Trump is an opportunistic narcissist driven above all by the need for adulation. Hitler was the “little corporal,” the man of the people, who feigned austerity, while Trump is a billionaire who flaunts his wealth and luxurious life-style. Ultimately, Trump seems far more a hybrid of Berlusconi and Putin, potentially merging kleptocracy and autocracy, than the reincarnation of an ideologically driven, war-mongering, and genocidal dictator.
I would suggest that a major source of our unease — beyond Trump’s personal unfitness for the presidency — is not that Trump is going to attempt to construct some fascist-style dictatorship, but rather that the trends that are manifested in his triumph represent a threat to our democracy that has arrived from an unexpected direction. That is what has left me, in any case, bewildered and unprepared.
I recommend reading Browning’s whole piece. See also the earlier comments by the sociologist and political scientist Theda Skopol, “A guide to rebuilding the Democratic Party, from the ground up,” Vox, January 5, 2017, which is about much more than the Democratic Party. She understands something that conservatives of various stripes have long acted on, but which Democrats have ignored to everyone’s detriment.
It is no surprise that the American face of fascism would take on the forms of celebrity television and the casino greeter’s come-on, since that is as much our symbolic scene as nostalgic re-creations of Roman splendors once were Italy’s.
— Adam Gopnik, “Being Honest about Trump,” The New Yorker, July 14, 2016