Spike Lee has never held back his opinion on ex-President Donald Trump (goodness, it feels good to type that!). Throughout Trump’s presidency, Lee utilised his platform as a prolific and politically conscious director to highlight the president’s bigoted policies and actions, even using his films to highlight the white supremacy that Trump’s campaign drew its life from. BlacKKKlansmen, for instance, ended by showing the infamous 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ marches in Charlottesville which lead to multiple injuries and the murder of Heather Heyer. The footage reinforced to viewers that racism in the USA is not dead and far from it. In fact, the assault on the Capitol on 6 January only serves to magnify the creeping threat of white supremacy in the United States, one that Lee continues to draw attention to. 

Lee’s latest comment has turned a few heads, due to his comparison of Trump to Adolf Hitler. Commenting during acceptance speech at a film critics’ awards show, recorded during the Jan 6th insurrection, Lee stated that ‘we are living in a very serious time in America… His president, President Agent Orange, will go down in history with the likes of Hitler … all his boys, they are going down on the wrong side of history.’ At first, this gave me pause, as many of Lee’s films and remarks normally do. Comparing the ex-leader of the free world to Hitler, one of the most notoriously evil men in history, is surely, a bit…? 

This pause lasted only a millisecond. You know what? I would say it is rather fitting, and honestly it should not be so difficult to explain why. 

Indeed, Trump’s 2017 comments in reference to the violence in Charlottesville that there were ‘very fine people, on both sides’ encapsulated what I believe to be the core of his philosophy early into his presidency: the preservation of traditional hierarchies of race. These values are familiar noise to those of Adolf Hitler. Trump’s actions, such as extreme use of the police force to disband BLM protesters in order to make way for a ridiculous photoshoot with a Bible, taking and incarcerating children from their parents at the border and the violent insurrection on 6 January, only to name a few, further justify Lee’s comparison. It seems, then, as if there is little need to go through the clear parallels between the two figures. Nevertheless I will exemplify what I see as one of the most egregious, in order to highlight why I stand firmly with Lee’s point of view.

Trump’s continued failure to denounce white supremacy, on multiple occasions, is the main justification warranting the Hitler comparison. Trump’s conservative and anti-immigration policies appealed to Neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other white supremacist groups, but more than that, he knew this and did not quash his association with these extremists. Doing so would mean losing a large part of his base. This is seemingly why Trump has refused, on so many occasions, to plainly stand against these racist groups, normally maintaining an air of indifference or feigning ignorance. One recent example of this can be found in the first debate between Trump and President Biden, where he was plainly asked to condemn white supremacists and violent right-wing groups – seemingly the easiest thing to do, right? Instead, the President told the Proud Boys, a far-right group often associated with violence, to ‘stand back and stand by.’

This moment was immediately celebrated by the Proud Boys’ social media platform, Telegram, seeing this as Trump encouraging their violent actions and not discouraging their bigoted beliefs in white supremacy. Trump’s refusal to stamp out his white nationalist base was a running theme throughout his presidency, and I believe inevitably contributed to the violence displayed on 6 January. Trump’s claims of voter fraud and ‘stolen’ elections spurred on this already dangerous extremist group, as he had been doing his entire term.

The cult of personality Trump has created through his bigoted claims at patriotism warrant Lee’s comparison, and the insurrection on 6 January was just another stark reminder of that. Indeed, the comparison is not only warranted but necessary, since leaders like Trump need to be highlighted as a warning to not only the USA but, the rest of the world. Really, it only takes a second to realise that Lee’s words serve a purpose in pulling attention to the dangers of Trumpism, and by extension fascism, that has already manifested itself multiple times in the past four years.

As we enter into a new era for the US under President Biden, some have said that we can look on with relief. However, every time you glance back at the last four years and what it has called attention too, the similarities to infamous and disgusting leaders are frightening. This is what Lee’s comments sparked in a straightforward, albeit provocative, manner. In refusing to hold back for a President who has continuously shown disrespect to the people he supposedly served, Lee exemplified how we, as the international community, should perceive and teach Trumpism in the future: in full, painful detail, reflective of the political climate of a divided America. 

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