Of all the crazy revelations about Donald Trump, arguably the one that seems most alarming, is that he has a fondness for reading Hitler speeches. Now the charge was made by his first wife Ivana relating to his divorce proceedings, but when asked about it, Trump’s denial was less than reassuring:
Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist. “Did your cousin John give you the Hitler speeches?” I asked Trump. Trump hesitated. “Who told you that?” “I don’t remember,” I said. “Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he’s a Jew.” (“I did give him a book about Hitler,” Marty Davis said. “But it was My New Order, Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I’m not Jewish.”) Later, Trump returned to this subject. “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”
Now lots of ordinary people read Hitler for valid reasons, such as innocent historical fascination. But it seems particularly strange in light of Trump’s bizarre refusal to denounce David Duke, even as he apparently lies about knowing about the former KKK grand wizard.
And if you’re inclined to cruise down parts of the information superhighway where it’s a good idea not to roll down the window, you’ll see that Stormfront and lots of other racists think this detail is pretty significant.
