It’s hard to imagine now, but Adolf Hitler — the world’s most reviled dictator, responsible for the genocide of six million Jews — had plenty of American friends.
In fact, a 2018 award-winning book by Bradley W. Hart, appropriately called “Hitler’s American Friends,” details the eclectic and disparate groups of Americans who were intrigued by Hitler’s ideas, and more than happy to help seed them here.
From German-Americans who joined the Bund, to William Dudley Pelley’s Silver Shirts, right-wing radio host Father Charles Coughlin, and the famous flight pioneer Charles Lindbergh, all helped spread Nazi propaganda leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Perhaps even more unimaginably, , today we have a modern-day version of Hitler’s American friends.
Despite history’s decisive verdict on Hitler, these people aren’t hiding in basements or meeting in secret. They aren’t fringe or subculture. Apparently, they aren’t ashamed to be associated with neo-Nazism, antisemitism, or even Hitler himself.
They have podcasts and hold rallies. They post antisemitic memes on social media. They are proud in their unabashed bigotry and defense of the world’s most terrible person.
One, Scott McKay, claims that Jews were behind 9/11 and the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, that they set up a banking system “in exchange for the blood sacrifice of a child,” among other wild assertions, and he’s praised Hitler for “actually fighting the same people that we’re trying to take down today.”
Nothing to see here.
Another unsavory character, Charlie Ward, similarly praises Hitler for “warning us” about Jews, regularly posts antisemitic garbage, and has alleged that the so-called Jewish media lied about the Holocaust.
This is fine, right?
Most Americans would walk five miles over broken glass to keep their distance from these grotesque figures. Most politically-savvy surrogates would consider a rally populated with Hitler supporters to be a liability — especially if their principle is, you know, running for president.
But not Team Trump. The former president’s son and daughter-in-law are reportedly joining these two at the Trump National Doral resort in Miami this weekend.
Eric Trump, Lara Trump, former California Rep. Devin Nunes, former Trump advisors Peter Navarro and Mike Flynn, My Pillow guy Mike Lindell and convicted felon Roger Stone may not actually call themselves Hitler’s American friends.
But they are, as of today, happy to appear alongside some self-avowed antisemites and Hitler promoters at an upcoming stop on the “ReAwaken America” tour.
This event, in a way, completes the circle that began more than eight years ago.
Trump’s early flirtation with the previously underground and politically homeless cohort of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and conspiracy theorists ushered them into a new Republican Party that had, under Ronald Reagan, firmly attempted to relocate them into the dustbin of history.
It began somewhat casually in 2015, when Trump retweeted a pro-Trump meme of Pepe, a cartoon frog that had been used by some on the alt-right to glorify Hitler and the KKK. It’s possible he didn’t know of the underlying themes, but in 2016, he retweeted another antisemitic graphic, this one featuring Hillary Clinton on a backdrop of $100 bills, with a six-pointed star that read “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” The image was traced to a white supremacist message board. Trump again denied he knew what it meant.
Also in 2016, upon learning that the longtime and infamous racist and antisemite David Duke had endorsed him, Trump implausibly responded: “I just don’t know anything about him.”
S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.
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