The warning Anne Frank offers us about Trump

Trump is vowing to "liberate" us from the US.

Anne Frank and family in 1941

We live in an America where far too many people don’t believe “it” can happen here. That “it” is an American form of fascism ushered in by Trump and his MAGA movement. That means far too many Americans are not paying attention to what Trump is promising his supporters he will do if he wins, including his repeated vow to “liberate our country” from those he views as political enemies. (And yes, that is LITERALLY what Trump has been promising his supporters—and they love it.)

It was those lines of Trump’s speech that popped into my mind last week when I was on vacation in Amsterdam and visited the Anne Frank House. As a reminder, Anne was born in Germany in 1929 and lived there until she was five. But in 1933, just six months after Hitler came to power, her father Otto travelled to Amsterdam with an eye to moving his family there. Hitler had not hidden his views from the German people about how he blamed the Jews for everything from losing World War I (“The Stab in the Back myth”) to economic woes.  Otto Frank took Hitler literally and by December 1933, the family was in The Netherlands.

Tragically, though, for the Franks and countless other Jews, the Nazis later began conquering other lands in Europe.  That prompted Otto to explore moving his family to the United States or the United Kingdom. But before that could happen, the Nazis took control of The Netherlands in 1940. By 1942, being Jewish in Amsterdam had become so dangerous that the Frank family went into hiding in the apartment located behind the business offices where Otto had worked. This location—which Anne referred to as “The Secret Annex”—was where the family hid for two years and where Anne wrote her famous diary capturing her and her family’s fears, hopes, and experiences.

The family, though, was discovered in August 1944 by the Nazis. They were arrested and sent to various concentration camps. Anne died at the age of 15 in March 1945, shortly before British troops liberated the Bergen-Belsen death camp where she was imprisoned. Anne’s mother and sister would also die in concentration camps—with only the father Otto surviving. After the war ended, the father was presented with Anne’s writings, which he had published to warn the world about the horrors of The Holocaust.

There are many lessons humanity must take from The Holocaust.  In the case of 2024 United States, one lesson from Anne Frank and her family is that we must not dismiss Trump’s increasingly dangerous rhetoric as simply overheated campaign speeches—especially given Trump’s record of embracing political violence and his public admiration of dictators.  Rather we must understand that Trump is intentionally following the fascist playbook—and increasingly Hitler’s own.

Last year, Trump parroted Hitler’s claim that immigrants and other non-Aryans  were “blood poisoning” the nation. That’s when Trump declared that immigrants coming to the U.S. are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Just last week, Trump shared on social media a post that stated if Trump wins in 2024, America will see a “unified Reich." Obviously, that conjures up Hitler’s creation of a “Third Reich.”

Trump’s celebration of those who waged the Jan 6 attack follows Hitler’s own tactics after his own failed attempted coup in 1923 known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler would later publicly honor those killed in that failed attempt to seize power by making them martyrs for the cause and celebrating them publicly as heroes.

Very alarmingly, Trump’s vow to pardon those who committed the Jan 6 attack is intended to encourage future violence by MAGA when he needs their help—as authoritarian expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat explained to me. In fact, on Monday, Trump promised to provide immunity to police officers who help him with his planned mass deportations if he wins in 2024.

Trump—also taking a page from Hitler—has waged a concerted campaign to dehumanize those he views as political opponents.  For example, in November, he referred to those who oppose him as “vermin”—that is the exact dehumanizing term employed in Nazi rhetoric. 

And on Monday, Trump again dehumanized those he views as political adversaries by writing on social media that he was wishing a happy Memorial Day to all including “the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country.” Trump is doing his best to label all of us who oppose him as less than human.  This is not an accident, it’s by design.

This again conjures up Hitler who did the same to the Jews, which laid the groundwork for enacting laws to bar Jews from working in various fields to stripping them of citizenship. Hitler’s drumbeat of vile smears of Jews as the enemy of the nation prompted organized violence attacks against them by the Nazi faithful after Hitler took power in 1933. This all paved the way for The Holocaust.

But before the genocide of the Jews began, Hitler first created concentration camps “for Communists, Socialists, German liberals and anyone considered an enemy of the Reich.”  These early camps served as “temporary” detention centers for political opponents who were at first incarcerated without trial. Later, between 1933 and 1939, Nazi controlled sham criminal courts sentenced tens of thousands of Germans to prison for "political crimes."

All of this is why we must be aware of what Trump is promising his supporters to do if he wins because he means it. One of the most alarming is Trump’s repeated pledge at his rallies to “liberate” America from you and me.  It began with his CPAC speech in 2023 when Trump described his fellow countrymen and women as the true threat to the nation. Trump told the cheering crowd: “We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists. We will throw off the political class that hates our country.” Building to a crescendo, he then went after RINOs and Biden, finally bellowing, “We will liberate America from these villains and scoundrels once and for all.”

Trump has repeated that very promise online and at rally after rally. For example, in January, Trump released an ad calling 2024 “the final battle,” he then repeated his pledge to “liberate America from these villains once and for all” from his political opponents.

A few months ago at CPAC 2024, Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric, telling the MAGA faithful, “For hard-working Americans, November 5 will be our new liberation day.” But for the rest of us who oppose him, Trump vowed it will be our “judgement Day.”

And a few weeks ago at a rally in Wisconsin, Trump urged his supporters to join in this battle, declaring, “With you and my side,” we can “liberate” America from his opponents. He added that, “Like those patriots before us, we will not bend, we will not break, we will not yield. We will never give in.”

When have you ever heard an American political figure speak about “liberating” America from those who politically oppose him?! You can’t find it because we never had an aspiring fascist—who has pledged to be a dictator on “day one”— lead one of the two main political parties.

The lesson from Anne Frank’s family is that you must take Trump’s rhetoric literally. His supporters do. And if Trump wins, he will believe he has a mandate to “liberate” all who oppose him from this nation. What that will look like is unclear. But given Trump’s affinity for Hitler, history warns us of what he—and his MAGA supporters--may do.

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