Trump's "creation of a unified Reich"

He's channeling Hitler, while prominent senators, VP hopefuls, are embracing foreign authoritarians and calling for rounding up millions of people. The GOP is saying it all out loud--with a bullhorn.

Yesterday, Donald Trump’s Truth Social account shared a piece of neo-Nazi propaganda meant to speak directly to white supremacists, promoting the “creation of a unified Reich,” a phrase literally lifted right from newspapers of the early 20th century, before Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

The Trump campaign preposterously defended it by claiming an unnamed staffer put the video up while Trump was in court (Trump has previously stated only he and senior adviser Dan Scavino post on his account), but the campaign clearly didn’t see any reason to take the video down all day, even after media outlets reported on it. It was only quietly removed late this morning, after it was shared and viewed thousands and thousands of times.

In other words, Trump fully endorses it; make no mistake.

The Signorile Report is reader-supported. If you’ve valued reading The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism. Thanks!

This came a day after GOP Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, a top contender to be Trump’s running mate, went on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and, echoing Trump and the MAGA extremists, again openly embraced authoritarian Victor Orban, the Hungarian leader who has altered the Constitution of what was once a full democracy, gamed elections, and cracked down on minorities, including LGBTQ people, in brutal ways.

On the same day, GOP Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another reported VP contender, went on “Meet the Press” and said he not only fully supports Trump’s plan to round up 11 million people and put them in massive camps, facing deportation; he upped it to 30 million people, nauseatingly turning the deportation of migrants who are believed to be undocumented into a potential bidding war. Will the next GOP VP contender go for the deportation of 50 million people? Do I hear 60 million?

This is all so insanely abnormal and horrifying that I don’t think many of us know where to begin, certainly when it comes to what’s happened to the entire GOP.

Yes, Trump has always been clear about the brutality and open discrimination he wants to unleash. He promised a Muslim ban in 2016, for example, and he delivered. He also separated children from their parents at the border, following up on his promises of a harsh crackdown on immigrants.

But I don’t recall potential VP running mates in 2016—prominent politicians—lining up to outdo one another on embracing fascism. No, Trump actually had to choose from the bottom of the GOP barrel—and the bottom of the barrel, for the GOP, is really rock bottom—because few Republicans wanted to be his running mate.

Trump wound up with the failed, milquetoast governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, who’d been a national laughingstock a year earlier, after he signed a heinous anti-LGBTQ “religious freedom” bill into law and then went on ABC’s “This Week,” where he couldn’t defend it in a disastrous interview.

Corporations began pulling out of Indiana, and Pence and the GOP were forced to change the law, making sure it banned discrimination, angering religious conservatives. Pence’s approval plummeted in the state; he was derided nationally (even within the GOP) as a terrible politician, and it looked like his career would soon be over.

And that was the best that Trump could get for a running mate.

Now, however, prominent Republicans, some of whom have been on the political stage for many years, are bending over backwards to show Trump that they can be as extreme or more extreme than he is, grasping for power and doing whatever it takes to be his running mate.

When Vance praised Victor Orban and, in particular, the Hungarian autocrat’s government takeover of universities, CBS’s Margaret Brennan responded that Orban “rewrote the Constitution; he neutered the courts. He has tried to control the media. These are not necessarily conservative principles. So why would you want to mimic him?”

Vance replied, “Well, look. I’m not endorsing every single thing that Viktor Orban has ever done.”

That sounds eerily similar to Trump telling his chief of staff, John Kelly, while on a trip to Europe, that Hitler “did some good things.”

Rubio, for his part, refused to say he’d support the results of the 2024 election, like Vance and other VP contenders have said, something that’s now become a litmus test.

But Rubio went further when he stunningly invoked the idea of 25 to 30 million people being forcibly rounded up from homes, schools, and workplaces and sent off to the camps—almost 10% of the U.S. population!—when he told Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” that he completely supports Trump’s plans and thinks the number of 11 million undocumented people that has been reported is far too low.

KRISTEN WELKER: Donald Trump has said he's willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military to deport the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. It would be the largest deportation operation in American history. Do you support that plan?

SEN. MARCO RUBIO: 11 million? That was the number ten years ago. We're talking upwards of 20, 25, maybe 30 million. There's been almost 10 million people that have entered this country unlawfully in the last three years.

KRISTEN WELKER: Just to answer the question. Would you support it?

SEN. MARCO RUBIO: The number varies big time. I mean, it's another 9-10 million people just in the last three years. The answer to your question is yes. We cannot absorb 25, 30 million people who entered this country illegally.

This was a complete about face from 2016, when Rubio attacked Trump’s plans, saying it was “not reasonable to say you're going to round up and deport 11 million people.”

But now, prostrating himself before Trump to be his VP running mate, he told Welker that the problem is worse and so he’s changed his mind—and he used the word “invasion,” promoting white supremacist, antisemitic “great replacement” theory. By the way, there’s no evidence of the wildly overblown numbers Rubio is putting out there, as most research and surveys still show the number of undocumented immigrants to be closer to 11 million.

But Trump has also inflated the number, and we know that he and the MAGA extremists want to stop legal immigration as well—there are over 46 million foreign-born people in the U.S.—as he’s stated he wants people from “nice” countries like Denmark and Norway to come here. In other words, no more Brown, Black or Asian people.

Trump’s not hiding his reverence for Hitler and Mussollini, having called his perceived enemies on the left “vermin” and stating immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country," just like the two notorious European fascists did. And let’s not forget that Trump has dined with Nick Fuentes, an avowed antisemite, misogynist, homophobe, and racist influencer. Trump knew from that dinner and many other interactions with extremist supporters exactly what neo-Nazis want from him and how it’s a vote he needs to court.

And that’s what the video he posted does, nodding to them. The 30-second clip promotes hypothetical headlines about a Trump presidency if he wins, with headlines about his having deported millions and caused the economy to “boom.” The articles look like pre-World War II newspapers, with news of the time mixed in. There are references to “German industrial strength.”

One headline refers to Trump taking on “globalists,” a term used by the far right as an antisemitic dog whistle.

A sentence referring to “the creation of a unified Reich” can be seen three times in the video. The images are sometimes quick and blurry, but clear enough for the discerning white supremacist movement, hungry for recognition. This is beyond bonkers; it’s literally an admission that Nazi Germany is something to which Trump and MAGA are aspiring, at least in some capacity. You can’t argue anything else.

Except that the corporate media isn’t treating it that way. The Times story is very good in showing the connections to Nazi Germany—and Trump’s embrace of antisemitic tropes—but the story is buried way down on the home page, when it should be a banner headline.

The same goes for the rest of the media. If not for the Biden campaign slamming the video—campaign spokesperson James Singer said in a statement that Trump “is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a 'unified reich’’’—one wonders if much of the media would cover it at all. TV media is, of course, just caught up in 24/7 sensational trial coverage and can’t seem to handle two stories at once.

Every day we ask, How has all of this become normalized? How is it that a candidate can even make an allusion to the Nazis—let alone talk of a “unified Reich”—and it’s the 10th story buried down on the page?

And only in the case of Donald Trump. Because we know that if this were anyone else, and certainly if it were a Democrat or Joe Biden, it would be a massive story.

Our media and our entire political system are broken, but we’ve known that for a long time. Democrats and the Biden campaign have just got to hammer the message of Trump’s extremism over and over, as the danger is crystal clear, and ignore the pundits and reporters who say they’re focusing too much on Trump.

The upcoming presidential debate, and the increased focus on the campaign, will bring more opportunities to do that. Most Americans do not support Trump’s fascistic rhetoric and plans. They need to hear about them loudly and clearly