Here’s the only problem with comparing the Trump regime to Nazis: we have our own homegrown analogy, our heritage of slavery, and the enforcers of that oppression.
“Slave catchers” just isn’t as catchy as “Gestapo”, in addition to making white people uncomfortable. But it is more accurate. The Nazis were inspired by purely American racism, from the genocide against Native Americans and the reservation system to the use of concentration camps (tip o’ the hat to the British in the Boer War for that one, too). We have a lot of sins we should be more conscious of. It’s troubling how often we have targeted people on the basis of race: Native Americans, Black people, Japanese Americans…we’ve had special state-endorsed treatments for people of color throughout our history.




