John Kelly, one-time chief of staff to Donald Trump, says his former boss frequently praised Adolph Hitler, and if re-elected, would prefer to govern as a dictator

Adolf Hitler addresses Nazi officials (Flicker)

 

Donald Trump's chief of staff from 2017-19 has issued a blistering critique of his former boss, labeling him a "fascist" who craves "absolute power" and will "govern like a dictator." John F. Kelly, a former U.S. Marine general, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, and secretary of homeland security (under Trump) has no shortage of credibility -- and his words could be damaging, even devastating, to Trump's hopes of being re-elected on Nov. 5. Kelly also said Trump had expressed admiration for Adolph Hitler, claiming several times that the late Nazi leader had "done some good things."

Stephanie Kaloi, of Yahoo News!, has the lowdown on Kelly's brutal takedown of a candidate who is used to tossing out insults, rather than being on the receiving end of them. Under the headline "Trump’s Former Chief of Staff John Kelly Warns He’s the ‘Definition of Fascist,’" Kaloi writes:

Donald Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist” his former chief of staff John Kelly told The New York Times in an expansive interview published Tuesday.

Kelly opted to read a definition of fascism that he found online to support this conclusion. “Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said. “So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America.”

“The former president is in the far-right area, he’s an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly added.

In their time working together Kelly also observed that Trump “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.” Trump sought a kind of absolute power, he continued, and “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted.”

Kelly has spoken out against Trump before, but he was not planning on adding his voice to the pre-election chorus of analysts and critics this year. But he changed his mind when Trump started talking about using the power of the U.S. government to go after his perceived rivals for political reasons, likely without a hint of due process. Kelly's words now make it clear that he believes Trump should never again be allowed anywhere near the White House. Kaloi writes:

Kelly didn’t always plan to speak against Trump, but the latter’s repeated “enemy within” comments prompted him to take action. “And I think this issue of using the military on — to go after — American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing — even to say it for political purposes to get elected — I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it,” the former Marine general added.

Trump has proven himself to be an extraordinarily selfish person, with little understanding of sacrifice, especially for one's country. The thought of such a person serving as commander in chief, overseeing U.S. military personnel, became a growing concern for Kelly. He has seen how Trump's self-centered personality plays out, in up-close terms. From the Yahoo! report: 

Kelly was equally concerned about another aspect of who Trump is as a person: his general lack of empathy. The pair were touring Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day 2017 near where Kelly’s own son, who was killed in 2010 while serving in Afghanistan, was buried.

Trump asked Kelly “what was in it” for servicemen and women who died in combat.

“‘And I thought he was asking one of these rhetorical kind of, you know, questions,’ Mr. Kelly said. ‘But I didn’t realize he was serious — he just didn’t see what the point was. As I got to know him, again, this selflessness is something he just didn’t understand. What’s in it for them?'”

Kelly’s interview was published the same day The Atlantic reported Trump said in a private conversation at the White House, “I need the kind of generals Hitler had.”

The outlet also noted Trump’s “desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution” as well as his “denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.”

Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent for the presidency, has made Trump's selfishness -- and especially his alleged admiration of Hitler -- issues in the 2024 campaign. Kaloi writes:

Retired General and Vietnam veteran Barry McCaffrey told The Atlantic, “The military is a foreign country to him. He doesn’t understand the customs or codes. It doesn’t penetrate. It starts with the fact that he thinks it’s foolish to do anything that doesn’t directly benefit himself.”

Days before, The Atlantic published another piece that was more pointed: In “Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini” Anne Applebaum writes that specific words used by Trump “belong to a particular tradition” — a tradition carried out by the aforementioned fascists and authoritarians. Chinese politician Mao Zedong and Cambodian leader Pol Pot also used similar rhetoric about their political foes and perceived enemies.

“In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same,” Applebaum wrote. “If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals, if you speak of squashing them or cleansing them as if they were pests or bacteria, then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them.”

Kamala Harris touched on Trump’s fascist leanings during a town hall hosted by Charlamagne Tha God. After a caller named Bobby said he was worried Trump would use the Alien Enemies Act to “put anyone that doesn’t look white in camps” (the Act was last used to intern Japanese-Americans during World War II), Harris answered, “He is running full-time on a campaign that is about instilling fear, not about hope, not about optimism, not about the future, but about fear. And so this is yet another example.”

Trump “would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem,” she added. “And he’s running his campaign in a way that he does these rallies — where people, by the way, walk out — to try and instill fear around an issue, where he actually could be part of a solution but he chooses not to, because he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem, and we’ve got to call it out and see it for what it is.”