The fascism unleashed upon Germany beginning in January 1933 with the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor, the youngest ever, and that which unfolded within America with the second inauguration of Trump in January 2025 as President, the oldest ever, exhibited many sinister similarities, but also definite differences during their first 100 days of respective repressive rule. By May 1933 democracy in Germany was dead and buried; but American democracy, one in reality never fully identical with American ideals, still remained alive, though deeply wounded and increasingly afflicted, after 100 days of incessant blows from the Trump regime. The difference offers the antifascist resistance in the USA an opportunity for victory if a viable broad-based united front can be resolutely developed and firmly maintained.
Day One
In the evening of January 30, a bitterly cold winter day, the victorious Nazis staged a massive torchlight parade through Berlin's Brandenburg Gate that lasted over four hours and included some 30,000 uniformed Storm Troopers (SA). Perhaps as many as 1 million Berliners, around one-fourth of the city population, turned out to witness the Nazi spectacle. Among them were a few protestors who were summarily beaten up by the SA, a small taste of what was in store for dissenters. The march ended at the Presidential Palace and Reich Chancellory where Hitler and President Hindenburg stood together as a symbol of national reconciliation in what was portrayed as the "rebirth of the nation". Among the songs echoing from the massive crowd was the Song of Germany with its infamous opening refrain of "Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles". Several other large pro-Nazi rallies were held across Germany in subsequent days, as were a few sporadic counter-demonstrations organized by Social Democrats and Communists.
By contrast, the parade celebrating Trump's second inauguration, also on a bitterly cold day, was held indoors at the Capital One Arena. The inauguration ceremony itself was also held indoors, at the Capitol Rotunda, the site of a violent Trump-inspired putsch attempt four years earlier. Several major corporations and individual billionaires donated $1 million each to help fund the extravaganza attended by a number of authoritarian foreign leaders, including the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany. Similar to the nationalistic themes sounded at Hitler's installment, Trump claimed his presidency marked the "beginning of a Golden Age for America". As was also the case for the Fuhrer, Trump gave voice that day to the Messiah myth claiming that his life was spared from an assassin's bullet because he "was saved by God to make America great again".
Fascist Laws and Orders
Within a week after he moved into the Reich Chancellory, Hitler reportedly declared "I'm never leaving here", and then promulgated a series of anti-democratic orders to ensure fascist rule in perpetuity. The first major one came on the day after the convenient burning of the Reichstag on February 27, which provoked Hitler to declare at the scene of the crime, "We will show no mercy anymore; whoever gets in our way will be slaughtered." The "Reichstag Fire Decree for the Protection of the People and State" nullified many civil liberties; expanded protective custody; and sanctioned removal of state governments. It was used to imprison anyone considered an opponent of Nazism and suppress publications deemed unfriendly to the Nazi cause. Significantly extending the repression was the "Malicious Practices Act" of March 21 and the "Enabling Act" of March 23. On April 7, six days after a nationwide boycott of businesses owned by Jews, the Hitler regime enacted the "Law for Restoration of Professional Civil Service", which purged all Jews as well as those German citizens considered disloyal from civil service and teaching positions. Thousands of Germans immediately lost their jobs and others lost government contracts, as the mythical "peoples' community" (Volksgemeinschaft) was systemically converted into a racist Aryan "community of blood" (Blutgemeinschaft), exemplified by the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Damaged Offspring" enacted in mid-July. May Day 1933 in Nazi Germany was anything but a celebration of labor militancy and liberation from capitalist class rule. The Hitler regime declared this "Day of National Labor" to be a grand celebration of a rejuvenated nation, one that attracted the active participation of millions throughout the country. On the next day, the Nazis outlawed all free trade unions and integrated all German workers into a newly created German Labor Front led by a rabid anti-Communist. By May 9, day 100 of the Hitler dictatorship, there was no democracy or viable open opposition left in Germany; any resistance was driven underground or in exile. The fascist regime of terror proceeded triumphantly with a massive book burning on day 101.
Similar to Hitler's stated intent to protect the German people from "criminals" with the draconian Reichstag Fire Decree and Enabling Act, Trump resorted to the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act to protect the American people from allegedly vicious criminal gangs of foreigners, particularly Venezuelans. With the approval of SCOTUS, despite due process violations and cases of mistaken identity, those rounded up under provisions of the AEA were typically sent to the notorious concentration camp, CECOT, in El Salvador, likely never to return. Trump's intense antagonism toward immigrants manifested itself on his first day in office when he announced his intent to end birthright citizenship; declared a national emergency on the US-Mexican border; and barred asylum for people arriving through the southern border. In mid-February, he fired 18 immigration judges; eliminated federal funds for undocumented immigrants; and proposed using US military bases to detain targeted immigrants. In early March, he designated English as the official US language, and announced plans to send an additional 3,000 troops to the southwestern border. Underscoring the racist nature of his immigration policies, he offered white South African farmers expedited US citizenship, but expelled the black South African ambassador after his government criticized Trump's policies. In late March, Homeland Security revoked temporary protected status (TPS) for 532,000 people of color (Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans) and ordered their exit by late April. In early April, he revoked visas held by South Sudanese passport holders. Especially harshly targeted for deportation were pro-Palestinian students, activists whom Trump's Attorney General Bondi ominously called "domestic terrorists".
Purging the federal government of employees deemed disloyal was nearly a daily occurrence during Trump's first 100 days, as was seeking retribution from law firms and officials critical of Trump's actions. In late January, Trump fired the NLRB general counselor, a Democratic board member; fired dozens of Inspectors General; and removed Democratic EEOC members. In early February, he fired 60 State Department contractors; fired the Director of CFPB; ordered AG Bondi to lead a task force designed to "eradicate anti-Christian bias" in the federal government; fired the head of the FEC; appointed loyalists as members of an independent advisory board on espionage; fired the inspector general for USAID; fired several workers at FEMA; directed that all Biden-era US Attorneys be terminated. In mid-March, he fired 19 workers at NASA; replaced the top lawyer for the IRS; and fired two Democratic managers at the FTC. In early April, he fired the Vice Admiral in Greenland who was critical of Vice President Vance; and he removed a DOJ lawyer who questioned the decision to unlawfully deport a Maryland man to El Salvador. After a meeting with far-right activist Laura Loomer, who claimed the head of NSA was disloyal, he fired him. In March, Trump targeted a series of law firms perceived as foes, including the one at which Kamala Harris' husband worked.
Project 2025, euphemistically called "Mandate for Leadership" by its misanthropic composers, the far-right Heritage Foundation, is a handbook for dismantling democracy and undermining social welfare in America, and its notorious recommendations have been largely followed by the Trump regime during its first 100 days. On January 24, Trump reinstated an anti-abortion policy and revoked two Biden directives designed to improve access to abortion. On February 13 he asked RFKJr to study the safety of the abortion pill, mifepristone. Project 2025 calls for ending medication abortion, and the Nazis considered abortion (by Aryan women) to be murder. Also in accordance with Project 2025, Trump signed an executive order to abolish the Department of Education (which he identified as a "big con job") on March 20, and sharply reduced staffing at NOAA in late February. On the chopping block erected by the Heritage Foundation were also Head Start; federal student loans; climate change protection; child labor protection; EPA Office of Environmental Justice; and food assistance programs.
Adding to the long list of draconian measures to be enacted were the anti-democratic recommendations of the Capital Research Center, a right-wing think tank with access to Trump's White House. Founded during the Reagan years by a former Vice President of the Heritage Foundation and funded in large measure by the far-right Koch family, CRC drew up a hit lest of 150 groups it considers "pro-terrorist" and recommends their dissolution. Exclusively included in its cross hairs is a good section of the American left, such as National Lawyers Guild; Democratic Socialists of America; CAIR; Jewish Voice for Peace; Code Pink; Black Alliance for Peace; and Center for Constitutional Rights. Especially singled out for deportation are members of Students for Justice in Palestine, "the group by far most responsible for the current anti-Israel protest movement", according to the CRC. After having provided testimony before several congressional hearings in 2024, CRC President, Scott Walter, briefed White House officials about his research findings and deportation recommendations in late March 2025. Shortly afterwards, several pro-Palestinian activists were arrested and deported.
Whitewashing History
The Nazi doctrine of Aryan supremacy necessarily denigrated other racial and ethnic groups as inferior, even subhuman, and also devalued the role of liberating ideals and revolutionary movements, such as The Enlightenment and the 1789 French Revolution. In April 1933 Hitler's newly appointed Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, declared that the whole aim of the new regime was "to erase 1789 from memory". To accomplish this monumental scrubbing of history and culture, books antithetical to Nazi ideology were routinely burned; non-Aryan educators banned; pedagogy restructured; and scholastic texts rewritten. Within its first year, the Hitler regime enacted a series of discriminatory laws directed against non-Aryans. On April 25, the "Law Against Overcrowding Schools and Institutions in Higher Education" severely restricted academic admission of non-Aryans. A few weeks later, an "Expert Committee on Questions of Population and Racial Policy", a conglomeration of prominent Nazi white supremacists under Heinrich Himmler, established the framework for marginalization of non-Aryans and implementation of eugenics. Within a month the sterilization law was passed.
On his first day in office, Trump issued an order "Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness" designed "to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure that future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of American heroes"; he then proceeded to rename the highest mountain in Alaska Mt. McKinley and declared that the Gulf of Mexico be called the Gulf of America. A week later, he issued an order "Celebrating America's 250th Birthday", which established Task Force 250, housed in the Department of Defense, to take "actions to honor the history of our great Nation, including the naming of 250 Americans to he honored in the National Garden of American Heroes. With the executive order "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History", enacted in early April, Trump ironically asserts that over the past decade there has been "a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth", and then proceeds to do exactly that. "It is the policy of my Administration", he states, "to restore federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing". To begin to accomplish this whitewashing of American history he ordered that all "improper ideology" be removed from the Smithsonian museums and National Zoo, and that funding for any exhibit or programs that "degrade shared American values" or "divide Americans based on race" be prohibited.
Restricting Sexuality
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