He's baaaack! (originally written Jan. 25, 2017)

Just when you thought that fascism, Nazis and Adolf Hitler were resigned to the pages of history, you are mistaken. All are back in the guise of talking points of the über Left which are being used to demonize America's 45th President.

I can't help but think this Nazi (German abbreviation for national socialism) revival is the brainchild of Hollywood and is their own special contribution to the new war on Trump, and by extension, all conservatives. If you remember the movie, 'Wag the dog,' the heroes were a rogue, presumably Democratic Party, operative (Robert DeNiro) and a Hollywood movie producer (Dustin Hoffman). Both collaborated to create a phony war to divert attention from a philandering President (remind you of anyone from the nineties?).

Adolf Hitler's name used to be taboo much less used in comparisons made to living people. The only two times in the recent past that I can recall they were made was about Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin and then about the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. These were horrible men, no doubt about it, and they certainly earned their comparisons.

It seems that Hitler has been redeemed, like a celebrity completing a six-month de-tox stint at a rehab center. The press has told itself, "It's okay. Hitler's brutality has passed its expiration date. We can now dust him off, prop him up and start talking about the similarities between Der Führer and Der President." So the gloves have come off and Hitler is now relevant again. I'm sure that the families and descendents of the six million plus people that were brutally murdered in gas chambers all across Europe in the 30s and 40s will be overjoyed to hear that the most despised man in the 20th and 21st centuries has become gentrified. Glad, too, must be all the German people that have spent the last seventy years trying to push Hitler into the background.

No, he's back, also in TV shows like 'Hunting Hitler' where a retired CIA operative and his staff of former Special Forces employees and researchers have tracked the Chancellor's escape from his bunker in Berlin in April of 1945 by airplane to Spain and then by submarine to Argentina and finally overland to Chile. It seems the fascination with this truly satanic individual has not abated over time, and until we find his mummified body dressed as a lowly shepherd sitting on a Chilean mountainside we won't be satisfied. There are even people who claim that he's still alive! Let's see, that would make him 128 years old this coming April 20th. This propensity for Hitler comparisons to our President has taken on a life of its own thanks to the  mainstream media and its lackeys. On inauguration day, they (Chris Matthews and others) started by comparing the President's patriotic  call of, "America first" in our dealings on trade and international affairs as being, wait for it..."Hitlerian" and harkened back to his (Hitler's) persecution of the Jews!

I was recently interviewed by a foreign radio station and my American opponent (Chairman of the Democrats Abroad organization in that country) was asked how he viewed the inauguration. He said he was profoundly ashamed to be an American. He was then asked why to which he responded, "Because I saw a replay of Nazi Germany of the 30s (the 'America First' quote) when Hitler was persecuting and rounding up the Jews. It was horrifying." I was then asked what I thought about the quote. I said that it was innocent enough and certainly not reminiscent of something like, "Deutschland über alles" (Germany above everything else). It was normal that any head of state would put his/her people's welfare and well-being first, and that it was high time that an American President admitted that we have national interests which we will prioritize higher than someone else's.

Well, this explanation only inflamed my opponent, and he began to ratchet up his argument by playing the 'personal card' by saying that he was Jewish and that he took this suggestion to put America first as code for a kind of return to Aryan supremacy and that his party was not going to stand for it.

The interview ended, thankfully, before his head could explode at the mere thought of four years of Donald Trump and before I lost my patience with him. I'll admit, that that experience and the recent quotes from Chris Matthews and others worry me. I'm more than a little concerned about the future of compromise when one side of the aisle thinks that the other side is sitting behind their desks  wearing armbands and sporting toothbrush moustaches...and is busy preparing a hostile takeover of America.

To all those who are even thinking of comparing anyone in America, let alone our 45th President, to Adolf Hitler, do yourself a favor and read the "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" or better yet I'll put you in touch with a Jewish friend of mine who survived four concentration camps during WWII and whose story I told in a book entitled, "My name is Aron." He'll set you straight about the differences between the two men.

Stephan Helgesen is a retired diplomat and now political strategist and author. He has written six books and over 600 articles on topics ranging from politics to economics to social trends. He can be reached at: stephan@stephanhelgesen.com