Trump and Hitler: A wise voice from the past says, “mutatis mutandis they are the same”

Victor Nuovo and me on Aldeburgh beach, summer 1998

Some of you may recall that shortly Before Trump’s election victory in November 2024, John Kelly (the retired marine general who was Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff between 2017 and 2019) described Trump as fitting “into the general definition of fascist” and “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”

Well, as we can all clearly now see, Kelly was right, Trump is a fascist, and he’s consciously, and consistently, leading the US in the direction of becoming an authoritarian, if not an actual fascist, state.

Why do I mention this now? Well, it is because, this afternoon, as I was sorting through some old photos, I came across one taken in the summer of 1998 on the beach in Aldeburgh. It shows me with the American philosopher, Victor Nouvo (1931-2023), who was my philosophy tutor at Oxford. Victor became, for me, not only a sensitive philosophical mentor, but also a great friend. Victor died just a couple of years ago, on 5th October 2023, and I still miss his presence in my life, not least of all through our twice yearly flurries of emails, often about our shared love of Lucretius and Spinoza, but sometimes about aspects of political philosophy.

Anyway, finding this photo served to remind me that Victor was extremely angered and deeply depressed by what had happened to the US during Trump’s first term as President between 2017-2021, and I cannot but feel that it was a blessing for him that he did not live to see Trump’s second term. As I looked at the photo, fondly remembering that lovely summer’s day and our friendship, I remembered that, ten years later, he wrote to me on the 8th November 2016, the day of that fateful first election victory:

“Needless to say, the outcome of today’s election will be fateful. If Trump wins, it is the end of the American republic. I have no difficulty comparing him to Hitler; mutatis mutandis they are the same; and this could be our nation’s 1933, except I suspect the American military will make the difference. I predict that if Trump is elected, there will be a military coup in six months as a response to his recklessness. But then, we will become another banana republic. When it comes to political theory, I have become a convinced follower of Hobbes, Machiavelli, and Spinoza.

But perhaps this is all overwrought. All the reliable predictors say that Hillary [Clinton] will win. But whether she will be able as president to put the demons back into the bottle and fix the stopper remains to be seen. I’ve never been a great admirer of the American experiment and believe that it would have been better for us and for Britain if we just evolved as did Canada. But things are as they are.”

I truly fear that Victor will turn out to be right (although what the role of the military will play in this remains unclear), and that the American republic really is ending before our very eyes . . .