Trump claims he’s never read Mein Kampf as he repeats anti-immigrant rhetoric

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 321 points – Trump claims he’s never read Mein Kampf as he repeats anti-immigrant rhetoric
independent.co.uk

Donald Trump has now denied ever having read Adolf Hitler’s 1925 memoir-manifesto Mein Kampf as he faces a firestorm over his recent run of anti-immigrant comments, which have been likened to the Nazi leader’s infamous “blood and soil” rhetoric.

The former president returned to the campaign trail in Waterloo, Iowa, on Tuesday evening where he doubled down on his earlier inflammatory remarks.

“It’s crazy, what’s going on. They’re ruining our country. And it’s true. They are destroying the blood of our country. That’s what they’re doing. They are destroying our country,” he said.

“They don’t like it when I said that,” he added, before denying browsing Hitler’s book.

“And I never read Mein Kampf. They said, ‘Oh, Hitler said that’. In a much different way,” he said.

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Because it was actually a book of Hitler's speeches that he loved to read.

Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed

Additionally, Trump wanted US military generals to emulate generals of the third Reich and treat him like he was Hitler:

It turned out that the generals had rules, standards, and expertise, not blind loyalty. The President’s loud complaint to John Kelly one day was typical: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”
“Which generals?” Kelly asked.
“The German generals in World War II,” Trump responded.
“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said.
But, of course, Trump did not know that. “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the President replied. In his version of history, the generals of the Third Reich had been completely subservient to Hitler; this was the model he wanted for his military. Kelly told Trump that there were no such American generals, but the President was determined to test the proposition.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/inside-the-war-between-trump-and-his-generals

Then there's this:

Donald Trump appears to take aspects of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office, Ivana told a friend, he clicks his heels and says, “Heil Hitler,” possibly as a family joke.

Trump seems to aspire to be Hitler-like, and he even tried to take supreme dictatorial power through populism, lies and propaganda like Hitler did.

I am more shocked by the fact that that motherfucker reads books at all.

The fact that he reads so little yet keeps this book close to his bed is telling.

It's easy to believe he's never read Mein Kampf. It's easy to believe he's never read a book at all. He might have read his own book, maybe.

I would believe that he hired someone to read it and then give him the cliff notes and he just kept interrupting the guy when he was trying to explain it to him.

Is there an audiobook version?

“They don’t like it when I said that” is one of an entire genre of Trump “they” statements. Goes along with “they like to use that word” and other claims about “they”.

"In America there is no us and them. There is only us." - Bill Clinton

“(…) we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!” - Bill Clinton, maybe, kinda…

4 more...

I totally believe that he hasn't read it, or isn't capable of reading it. But I bet someone read it to him.

He hasn't even read The Art of the Deal."

But, in fairness, I wouldn't either.

“And I never read Mein Kampf. They said, ‘Oh, Hitler said that’. In a much different way,” he said.

Note how he never says that what Hitler said or did was bad, but rather that he said what Hitler said in a different way.

I long for the days when something like this would be absolutely, unequivocally disqualifying.

Sounds like he's thinks the problem is plagiarism rather than similarity of content.

Exactly. "But but I changed the words around!!"

Seriously. We went from "you spelled potato wrong or screamed slightly weird so no presidency for you" to "you're quoting Hitler? Well, no big deal. It looks like you're still the frontrunner for your party."

Trump is a bad person and so is everyone who supports him.

If you ever wondered what you would do if you found yourself in Germany in the 1930s, now you know.

Voting for trump doesn’t mean you want the president to commit atrocities against your fellow citizens, but it does mean that a politician promising to do so isn’t a deal breaker

I very much believe he hasn't read it. In fact I'd be surprised if anyone in his circle of cronies has read it. It's so badly written.

It's a stream of consciousness completely devoid of structure. Sentences drag out for five lines and paragraphs go on for more than a page. There is often a change of subject along the way, forcing you to go back and re-read the garbage you couldn't hold onto the first time around.

It took me four weeks to get halfway through and I'm quite an avid reader.

Came here to say exactly this. He’s never read that book and he doesn’t truly grasp the reason the book was written or the history behind it. He has no clue as to the context.

And it’s an awful book, like you said. Not just for what it advocates but it’s just so badly written. It’s fucking awful. You made it further than I did.

People just refuse to get it. Racist speech is animal-level shit which is always the same even across languages and cultures. You don't need to have read it before or even heard it before to reproduce it. If you find yourself calling someone dirty, calling them rats or rodents or vermin or pigs or whatever your local equivalent, or really just judging anyone based on your preferred stereotypes, you may be doing the thing you say you hate.

You don't need to read that book to know this stuff. He's putting his ignorance of on full display. Ignorance of some of the most important AND MOST OBVIOUS and accessible historical periods ...

It's fascism 101. I wish people were more well read with history. The path these neo conservatives are going is going to end in suffering. What happens when your authoritarian leader rids themselves of their undesirables? They turn on you and make damn sure you can't fight back and rebel just so they can stay in power. It's always the same story.

I was talking to my dad once and he practically quoted something Michael Savage had said like 2 weeks before (it had come up on a polisci class, I don’t listen to that drivel) and when I told him as much, he said he doesn’t listen to him. Which I believe.

My point is, trump has definitely never read Mein Kampf, the man can’t read at all. But I’m confident that Mein Kampf has been parroted to him countless times.

I believe him. I don't think he's ever read a book at all. Plenty of morons manage to be racist all by themselves.

I believe him, he's too much of a dumbass to remember anything he's read in a book.

But the people that are feeding him the garbage he spews on the other hand...

Trump, I don’t think anyone is accusing you of having read a book

Uh huh.

The natural reaction if that were true would be to take a step back and re-evaluate your rhetoric and why you're being compared to one of the most evil people in history.

He's read it cover to cover and loves it. That's why the parallels are narrowing and becoming extremely clear. And why he's not phased at the comparison.

Believing Donald Trump has not read a book is easy, and this book is no exception. I have no problem believing he didn't read it.

Now Steven Miller on the other hand...

I believe Stephen Miller has it memorized and creeps into Trump's bedroom through the window while he's sleeping and whispers it into his ear, and has been doing this every night for 6 years. I can picture this clearly.

Yup, this line probably wasn't just stumbled upon randomly in his rotting brain, it was fed to him from one of his white nationalist speech goons. And it's possible they too didn't get it straight from Hitler but just read it on a neo-Nazi thought piece and found it compelling. Most white nationalists aren't studying the foundational texts, but they all seem to know the same words.

>implying Trump has read even one book

Anything longer than 280 characters at a time, and he has to take a McDonalds break.

Hey, even an edgelord moron will attempt a read at mein Kemp or whatever edgy book. Doesn't mean he understood or read too deeply into it

It’s not a hard book to understand from what I’ve heard. It’s an edgelord screed of a manifesto written from a prison for attempting to overthrow a democratically elected government

He doesn’t read. The question we should be asking ourselves is who is telling him to say it, and what is their true agenda?

I don't think Trump reads many books overall. He probably just heard the quote somewhere and didn't bother to check it before using it as his own. I'm writing this off as an unsurprising symptom of his lack of intelligence.

Trump, rather famously, can only be confirmed to have owned one book, and it is Mein Kampf.

That said, I can indeed still believe he didn't finish it, even if he remembers a couple quotes.

Honestly, for me, it is more bothersome and terrifying if he is coming to this rhetoric through a convergent mentality as opposed to parroting a past fascist dictator.

His mother, wife, and ex-few are immigrants. Although, I guess in the case of his mother, she did play a party in destroying the country.

He doesn't strike me as the reading type, but I'm pretty sure he listens to people who read it.

This is like Michael Keaton’s character in The Other Guys where he keeps quoting TLC and denies he knows anything about it.

On the one hand, Mein Kampf is not a comic book, so it might be a bit above Trumps reading capabilities. On the other hand, he has more than enough minions happy enough to read it to him, and explain all the three-syllables-or-more words to him in a pacient manner. I wonder how many Leni Riefenstahl movies he has watched, though, dreaming to be the star...

Of course he didint read it, he listened to the audio book.

But no comment on whether his dad read it to him when he was a kid

All snuggled under the covers with just his orange forehead peeking out over his eyes so he could see the pictures, as he drifted off to sleep each night. Yeah, I could see that.

The guy can't even hold a Bible up the right way. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he doesn't read any book above a third grade level, and even then only if it features tons of ego-stroking, comically flattering images of himself.

Why would he? He probably gets his sick reference game from Miller and the rest of the gang

I had to read an excerpt from Mein Kampf for school (my only thought the entire time I was reading it was "good God, people were swayed by this?")

Maybe Trump didn't but the alternative is that he came up with those ideas independently which is Really Not Better

As if he'd read any book! He's had his people read it, to write his speach that he will read off the teleprompter (more or less)

I’m fucking shocked he’s ever read a book at all.

Hey, hi. Can we stop talking about the fucking peanut? He lied, he lies, he will lie. There, I've covered all news stories about the orange dreamsicle. You're all caught up forever.

If he stops being relevant to American politics, then sure

Sure. But this Mein Kampf story has happened before (unless I'm crazy, but this is like the third time around) and there's nothing new here. Trump's goal is attention. He will say anything for attention. Ignore this nothing story, we already know he's a fascist. Anyone who doesn't, probably isn't going to. So, stop giving him your attention, unless it's about his various trials or crimes. Stop watching so they stop making this shit. His base is such a small percent that no one, except grifters, sell to them. So, stop giving him attention.

Unfortunately, he has more support in the Republican primary than the other 5 candidates combined. Ignoring him won't make him go away.

thud thud thud

Yep. You got me. Better give him all your attention so that all the news sites know to cover everything he says and does, so that he takes over the nation's attention again. Need to do it, he might win the election. Need to check if the fascist is a fascist, especially when everyone knows he's a fascist. Look at all the social norms he's stepping on, him, the fascist, is corroding the foundation of our society. The Fascist. Must keep giving him attention or otherwise he might win. /s

I'm not saying ignore him. I'm saying give your attention to the things he DOESN'T want attention on. And definitely less than hanging on his every fucking word.

it's just a book. much like any other book, it doesnt have any power unless it's granted it. look at the Koran, for example.

True, but it is the thoughts of Hitler before he came to power, before the decisions that constitute the planning of the Holocaust were made, before he destroyed his country and killed millions of people in industrialized state sanctioned murder. And this presidential candidate sure sounds a lot like that book.