How Trump used fascist propaganda to radicalize his Qanon death cult

Americans underestimate just how dangerous Trump really is.

MAGA is a death cult. They hate liberals with the same intensity, and for the same absurd reasons, as the Nazis hated the Jews. Nazis thought they were righteous and good, and that they were eradicating evil. MAGA believes the same thing about themselves and liberals. They don’t want to co-exist.

Growing up in Germany, I thought I knew everything there is to know about America, until I moved to New York in my early 20s. Actually living in America was surprisingly different from just watching it in my favorite movies.

The first thing I noticed, when I immigrated to the US 30 years ago, was the casual racism. I had no idea there was this much racial tension and xenophobia in America. The movies I watched as a teenager had made it seem like America is a big melting pot, where everyone is welcome. I thought the inscription on the Statue of Liberty was America’s national motto. Now I know better.

I’ve lived my entire adult life in this country, and became a US citizen. America is my home. I lived in New York for 16 years. Then I lived in Pennsylvania and Florida for a couple of years. And for the past six years, I’ve been living in Los Angeles. But I still go back to Germany at least once a year, to visit friends and family.

In 2012, a German novelist wrote a bestselling book, called Look Who’s Back. In 2015 it was turned into a blockbuster movie. It’s a comedy that imagines what it would be like if Hitler suddenly showed up in present day Germany:

Present day Hitler 2.0 quickly gains a right-wing nationalist following and becomes a celebrity with his own TV show, because “he says what everyone is thinking” about foreigners and immigrants.

In the movie, present day Hitler 2.0 says the very same hateful things about minorities as the original Hitler did in the 1930s. Some present day Germans recognize him for the hateful monster he is, but many Germans are oblivious and become his brainwashed cult followers.