Santayana Was Right — Hitler Is Back!

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Many on the left and of course the mainstream media have thrown around the name “Hitler” applying it repeatedly to President Trump. While this is obviously a gross mischaracterization, a Hitler-esque individual has arisen in American politics, one who holds the same views and has similar intentions as the original regarding people of the Jewish faith.

The Hitler label clearly did not and does not apply to Trump. But does it correctly apply to Mamdani? What is the evidence?

Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in 1925, eight years before he became Chancellor of Germany. After ascending to this powerful position, he began to dismantle all the guardrails of a democratic society, turning Germany into a totalitarian regime adhering to Nazi principles, the same ones he laid out clearly eight years earlier for all to see.

Most Germans responded positively to his call to restore German pride after the damage done by the War Guilt Clause of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. German Jews also supported him, doubting he was serious with his call to destroy them and all “untermenschen” (inferior persons). After all, they were Germans! Because of their naivete and blinders, they paid for their willful ignorance with their lives. Other, non-Jewish Germans also turned a blind eye, simply not believing any German would actually do what was written in Mein Kampf. (Never mind that Hitler wasn’t German.)

Today in New York, we are witnessing a replay of 1930s Germany. Newly-elected New York City Mayor Mamdani has stated positions that emulate Hitler. Mamdani’s support of “from river to the sea” is a call to eradicate Jews as surely as Hitler’s showers at Auschwitz and Treblinka weren’t about cleanliness. Mamdani’s day one Executive Orders cancelled existing protections for Jewish religious freedom in NYC. With a stroke of his pen, Mamdani also scrapped the widely accepted definition of antisemitism without replacing it.

In “Democracy in America” (1820 and 1825), Alexis de Tocqueville explained the stunning success of the burgeoning U.S. by pointing to the personal freedoms and the can-do spirit of individual Americans. Mamdani said he wants to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Older Americans remember that the population of the U.S.S.R. were called “collectives,” not individual persons.

Mamdani said he “will govern as a Democratic Socialist...making no apology for what we believe” (anti-capitalist ideology). Hitler led the Nazi party, which stands for national socialism, likely the same as Democratic Socialism. Hitler replaced representative government with totalitarianism; Mamdani intends to do the same, “governing boldly and audaciously,” i.e., as a tyrant.

When asked how he intends to pay for free childcare, free bus travel, state-run food centers, etc., he will “tax the rich...so they pay their fair share.” This is code of wealth redistribution just like the Nazis justification for seizing Jewish properties.

Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s newly appointed Director of Office of Tenant Protection, is quite clear: she wants to take away property rights, “especially from white people, but some others as well,” saying their homes are a collective good, not a private one. This is how Hitler exonerated the theft of the homes of Jewish German families.

In his 1905 book, The Life of Reason, George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” He emphasized that memory of past mistakes prevents repeating them. New York is repeating the error of raising a modern-day Hitler — Mamdani — to power. Logically, this implies a lack of memory of what the first Hitler did.

There are very few of us (this author is one) old enough to have personal experience of Hitler and the Holocaust. Since most voters can’t have the memories of Hitler’s actions and the consequences, they must depend on non-experiential, indirect knowledge, i.e., education. Interestingly, the largest group supporting Mamdani were young, highly educated individuals. Exit polls suggested 33 percent of NYC Jewish (college educated) voters, along with a large contingent of Columbia students, graduates, faculty and affiliates, all supported Mamdani.

To explain their willingness, even eagerness, to elect a Hitler-clone, there are two possible conclusions, given the accuracy of Santayana’s aphorism. Either the educated never studied World War II and the Nazis, or they were taught a revisionist history that did not tell the full truth of what Hitler did.

When the current generation of New Yorkers, especially the young, educated, Jewish, and/or financially successful, experience the “warmth of collectivism” and lose their freedom and their possessions, one hopes they will be able to escape New York and its New Nazi before they lose their lives.

Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Pathology, and Decision Science; former Director of Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; former Director of New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange; and author of 14 books; latest is “Empower Patients – Two Doctors’ Cure for Healthcare.” Follow him on X.com @DrDeaneW or contact him at [email protected].

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