Musings on 3/8/16: Trump's Curious Pattern of Admiring Evil People

Marrying his charisma and authoritarian style to his nationalistic, populist politicking makes for a surprisingly easy comparison of GOP front runner Donald Trump to Germany's fetid former fuhrer, Adolph Hitler. Indeed, Trump kept a copy of Hitler's book My New Order-a compendium of his speeches-at his bedside. (A Henry Ford reprise?) His recent practice of having audiences swear to vote for him is tantamount to the compulsory oaths during the Third Reich.

The Donald also recently tweeted this Mussolini quotation. 

“It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”

Before that, he seemed genuinely flattered that Russian President Vladimir Putin knows who he is.

This stands in comedic contrast to his daylong denial, last week, of knowing who former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke is. (He walked this back within 24 hours. Apparently, something exists that doesn't meet the Trump truth threshold.)

Hitler, Mussolini, and Putin are all examples of heads of state whose malignant intentions manifested in indisputably inhuman and immoral acts. So why would Trump be reading, tweeting and flushing about such people? The answer is his admiration of the type of power they exercised. Simply, it was raw. The SS, Blackshirts, and KGB wielded calculated, unpredictable, terrifying and complete power. It is this sort of power, unbridled and naked, that is surely the theme of Trump's sweetest fantasies. It is this sort of power that (in its non-violent form) has always been Trump's central pursuit. 

It is this sort of power that makes Trump admire evil people.