Abstract
This article presents a cross-case comparative-historical and discourse analysis of Hitlerism in the 1920s–1930s and Trumpism and Bolsonarism in the 2010s–2020s. By examining their rhetoric and actions, it reveals enduring ideological continuities rooted in Counter-Enlightenment worldviews, with clear influences from Traditionalism and fascism that extend beyond their populist tactics. The research involved primary sources such as speeches, statements, and media coverage alongside secondary scholarship. The study highlights how their tactics serve to undermine democracy and consolidate authoritarian power. The article critically examines the overuse of the populism label, arguing it obscures deeper supremacist, fundamentalist, and authoritarian elements common to both historical and modern far-right movements. Ultimately, the analysis underscores the necessity of a nuanced, historically informed framework to understand and cope with contemporary reactionary politics. It calls for further research into the ideological connections and transnational networks sustaining these movements, emphasising the dangers posed by normalising authoritarian tendencies under simplistic categorisations.
Keywords
Introduction
Between 1919 and 1933, Hitlerism emerged and consolidated in Germany as a mass movement – Roger Griffin described it as a pervasive populist movement (cited in de la Torre, 2025: 16). Meanwhile, the Weimar Republic experienced deepening democratic backsliding until eventually collapsing. In the years before the Second World War (WWII), Adolf Hitler’s regime advanced divisive policies that dismantled democratic checks and balances, scapegoated social groups, and expanded political repression to secure domestic power. It also used aggressive tariffs, economic coercion, and propaganda to pressure foreign governments (Ryback, 2025). During this period, leaders, movements, and regimes elsewhere in Europe and the Americas embraced similar ideas, including Benito Mussolini’s Fascism in Italy, Francisco Franco in Spain, and both Integralism and the New State in Portugal and Brazil.
Nearly a century later, Donald J. Trump in the United States of America (USA) employs similar tactics, backed by a consolidated mass movement built around the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA)/“America First” doctrine, presented as patriotic and populist. Other actors sharing a similar ethos – though varying in influences and outcomes – include Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Javier Milei in Argentina, and mass movements like Bolsonarism in Brazil. In both contexts, the far right consolidated in mainstream politics using comparable populist tactics advancing Counter-Enlightenment worldviews. While the early 1900s far right drew on Traditionalism and shaped fascism, the 21st-century far right blends both Traditionalist and fascist adapted elements. 1
While caution against shallow analogies is necessary, the active parallels between Hitlerism in the 1920s–1930s and Trumpism and Bolsonarism warrant closer scrutiny. This article offers a comparative-historical and discourse analysis of their ideological and rhetorical strains challenging democratic institutions in the direction of authoritarianism, under different conditions and timelines. It exposes ideological continuities between historical fascism and the contemporary far right, masked by populist rhetoric. The cases of Hitler, Trump, and Jair Messias Bolsonaro were chosen for this article due to their similarity in terms of rhetoric and strategy, and their countries’ large populations and/or geopolitical relevance.
Through a close reading of key speeches, slogans, and political statements, and by situating these within their historical contexts, this article traces rhetorical strategies that frame authoritarian politics as popular will. While populism is treated here as a style of mobilisation rather than a full ideology (Weyland cited in de la Torre, 2025: 17–18; Mammone, 2009: 183; Villacañas, 2025: 137–139), the article argues that its effectiveness in Trumpism and Bolsonarism depends on deeper Counter-Enlightenment assumptions concerning authority, hierarchy, and the rejection of pluralist democracy. The next subsection further introduces the study’s theoretical framework and methodology. Then, there will be three main sections and the conclusion (The People Reduced to One; Towards a Different Type of “Democracy”; and Accelerationism). The “populist temptation” in the title refers both to the lure experienced by followers under charismatic leaders and to a tendency among analysts: explaining Trumpism and Bolsonarism solely through populism, overlooking their Counter-Enlightenment ideological roots.
Theoretical framework and methodology
From at least the 17h century onwards, the millenary medieval teleological order began to fracture in Europe after thinkers such as Spinoza and Voltaire intellectually challenged the foundational structure of the “Two Swords”, 2 detaching ethics from divine command towards the realm of material nature, thus advancing a new basis for society rooted in liberty and equality. This intellectual shift came to be broadly referred to as the Enlightenment (Israel, 2011: 3, 6–7, 940; Suranyi, 2015: 132–134). It influenced the Atlantic Revolutions of the late-18th and early-19th centuries, which were the first to successfully seize power and institutionalise principles such as emancipation, secularism, and equality before the law. 3 With that, a new paradigm emerged, setting apart the nascent democratic practices from the reaction at the hands of distinct thinkers and militants attempting to rehabilitate pre-Enlightenment norms and hierarchies who have come to be labelled as Counter-Enlightenment (Israel, 2011: 30, 80–82; Nussbaum, 2013: 378; Zafirovski, 2011: 11–14, 20–21, 26–27).
Traditionalism emerged in the 19th century as a major Counter-Enlightenment tradition – a political and social philosophy that emphasises the importance of transcendent moral principles, inherited social hierarchies, and the authority of religion, drawing early inspiration from thinkers such as Joseph de Maistre and Edmund Burke, aiming to preserve ancestral institutions above what they perceive as excessive rationalism and individualism and restore pre-Enlightenment values and beliefs (Sedgwick, 2023: 115, 360–361). Through thinkers like René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, Traditionalism also developed into a form of perennial philosophy that posits a timeless, sacred Tradition underlying all orthodox religions and condemns modernity for its rationalism, materialism, relativism, and secularism. This strand of thought advocates notions and practices “that are understood to have been handed down since time immemorial and are the basis for the proper order of things” (Sedgwick, 2023: 4).
Between the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries, Traditionalism was foundational for the emergence of Charles Maurras’ Action Française, the Italian Popular Party and Catholic Action in Italy, Carlism and the Franco regime in Spain, the Integralismo Lusitano and the Brazilian Integralist Action, which influenced the New State regimes in Portugal and Brazil respectively, among varied forms of Integralism across the world. In the mid-20th century, Traditionalism established itself as a far-right intellectual and political force with the politics of Julius Evola, who worked deliberately to influence Fascism and had contact with SS intellectual circles, including those linked to the Ahnenerbe (Sedgwick, 2023: 97–101, 115–118; Wolin, 2019 [2004]: 1–8). More recently, neo-Traditionalist figures such as Alexander Dugin, Olavo de Carvalho, and Steve Bannon have influenced significantly the ideological imaginary that led to the consolidation of Trumpism and Bolsonarism as mass movements. Traditionalism, the varied forms of integralism, and fascism are Counter-Enlightenment ideologies, as they reject principles like secularism, equality, and pluralism in favour of supremacism (hierarchy, racism), militarism, nationalism (Ritzer, 2011 [2000]: 9–11; Sedgwick, 2023: 24, 38, 97; Wolin, 2019 [2004]: 1–8).
Populism is a contested term used to describe various political stances – either left- or right-wing – that champion the “common people”, often against a perceived elite. Linked to anti-establishment sentiment, it emerged in the late 19th century and has since been extensively applied (Arditi, 2025: 9–12). This study adopts Kurt Weyland’s 2001 minimalist definition (cited in de la Torre, 2025: 17–18), which frames populism as a style or strategy in which leaders bypass traditional institutions to communicate directly with supporters. It also benefits from the insights and analysis of Mammone (2009), who concluded that populism is not “a proper ideology” (p. 183), and Villacañas (2025), who called it a mobilising political concept and “an epiphenomenon, a description of the surface” (pp. 137–139). Scholars disagree on its definition, 4 with some even suggesting that it be abandoned (Arditi, 2025: 9–12, 120–123; de la Torre, 2025: 15–16, 59).
Paxton (2004: 3) noted that, unlike conservatism, liberalism, and socialism – ideologies developed between the late 18th and mid-19th centuries – fascism was a latecomer, emerging in the 20th century as a major political innovation (and source of suffering). Fascism was an extreme expression of the Counter-Enlightenment, which was born from the cultural revolt against the principles of the Enlightenment (Sternhell et al., 1994 [1989]: 3, 251–252; Wolin, 2019 [2004]: 1–8). Fascists often dismissed the Right–Left political map rooted in the French Revolution’s National Assembly, claiming instead to be a third position uniting the nation (Paxton, 2004: 12; Wolin, 2019 [2004]: 1). Nonetheless, scholarly consensus holds that fascism is a revolutionary ideology – anti-communist, anti-socialist, and anti-liberal – representing a far-right innovation within the political spectrum (Davies and Lynch, 2005 [2002]: 4–5; Eatwell, 2010: 137–139, 154–156; Eco, 2020 [1995]: 16–26). 5
When comparing the political and social contexts of the 1920s–1930s and the 2010s–2020s, underlying and contingent parallels emerge. Underlying parallels refer to direct ideological links between interwar fascism and today’s reactionary politics, such as the rhetorical convergence between post-war neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups and more recent paleo-/neo-conservative and neo-Traditionalist thinkers, the European New Right (ENR), and the alt-right in shaping Trumpism and Bolsonarism. This connection is evident even if the elements are presented in adapted form. Contingent parallels denote similarities in relations and praxis between the interwar era and the 21st century in sociological and philosophical terms, such as Trump’s and Bolsonaro’s elections and dynamics involving internal and external actors resembling those that enabled Hitlerism’s consolidation during the Weimar Republic.
The analytical distinction adopted in this article therefore treats populism as a strategic mode of political articulation, while Counter-Enlightenment traditions provide the ideological grammar that gives such strategies their authoritarian direction and meaning. In order to better understand these parallels, this study offers an explanatory frame combining populism as style and Counter-Enlightenment ideological elements in rhetoric and praxis. A cross-case historical-comparative method highlights patterns of populist-authoritarian mobilisation, demonstrating ideological continuities across time and geography. The study combines comparative research designs (Most Similar Systems and Most Different Systems), coding recurring tropes, tracking lexical appropriation and semantic inversion, and tracing ideological connections. It critically examines the populist leader’s claim to be the voice of his people, as a rhetorical condensation symbol in authoritarian discourse.
The research for this study utilised both primary and secondary sources. Speeches, statements, documents, and legacy media coverage were analysed using critical discourse methods to reveal recurring narratives of supremacy, victimhood, and crisis. The speeches were selected for being pivotal and widely circulated, emblematic for revealing the parallels above mentioned. The study also draws on secondary sources from fascist studies and works on history, sociology, and political philosophy, focusing on the periods and places analysed. It benefits from insights and analysis by scholars acknowledged for conducting sound research. An inspiration for this study was Stokols and Gass’s (2016) article Leaked document: Trump will tell the nation, “I am your voice”, which was published by POLITICO in July 2016 previewing Trump’s speech before its delivery; thus, revealing clear purpose and premeditated intent from Trump.
The people reduced to one
Exploring the intellectual roots of the postmodern spirit and its ties to Counter-Enlightenment ideologies like fascism, Wolin (2019 [2004], xv) described Donald Trump as one of the leading 21st-century “prophets of deceit” among a new breed of political charlatans. In July 2016, Trump (cited in ABC News, 2016) delivered a speech at the Republican Party (GOP) National Convention in Cleveland as the party’s nominee for the USA presidential campaign, stating: Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. Never ever. My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now. [. . .] I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. [. . .] These are people who work hard but no longer have a voice. I am your voice.
Trump’s claim, “I am your voice”, appeared at least three times in the speech. Though he has long been part of the USA economic elite that shaped the current situation, his rhetoric resonated with economically insecure Americans uneasy about an increasingly multicultural society, casting him both as a national protector and an agent of change.
In Brazil, Bolsonaro (2019) echoed a variation of Trump’s claim during his inaugural address as president: “The elections gave a voice to those who were not heard. And the voice [. . .] was very clear. I am here [. . .] to commit myself to this desire for change”. Bolsonaro seemed indifferent to the fact that his Justice Minister appointee, judge Sergio Moro, had been responsible for sending Lula da Silva – then leading all polls – to prison. After the election, leaked evidence led Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) to rule Moro had colluded with prosecutors, annulling Lula’s sentence. About 14 months into the role, Moro resigned, accusing Bolsonaro of nepotism and interfering in Federal Police investigations (Feltran, 2020: 13; Nobre, 2022: 4, 107–108, 135–137; Rocha et al., 2021: 102, 122–123; Salgado and Gabardo, 2021: 736–737, 748; Zanin et al., 2022: 78–81).
The claim “I am your voice” epitomises a key feature of populist rhetoric: creating a direct, exclusive bond between leader and a unified “people”, bypassing institutions. This aligns with Max Weber’s (1978 [1968, 1921]: 241–244) idea of charismatic authority, where legitimacy stems from personal appeal, not institutional norms or formal rules. It acts as a synecdoche, condensing voter frustrations into one authoritative figure. Erich Fromm proposes that modern individuals often find freedom burdensome, overwhelmed by responsibility, alienation, and powerlessness. Those with dominant sado-masochistic tendencies may “escape from freedom” by submitting to narcissistic, authoritarian leaders (Fromm, 1969 [1941]: 62, 154–173, 185–186, 245–266, 278–283). Since 2016, many in the USA and Brazil have strongly embraced the populist appeals of Trump and Bolsonaro, adopting the leader’s voice across nearly all issues (Ahmed, 2023: 680, 683–684; Chancer and McLaughlin, 2024: 402–403, 406–407, 410; Feltran, 2020: 13, 18–19; Fromm, 1969 [1941]: 182; Pinheiro-Machado and Scalco, 2020: 22, 25–29).
Nearly a century before Trump and Bolsonaro, Adolf Hitler was another populist leader who deliberately sought to appear closely connected with the people he claimed to represent (de Berg, 2024: 38–39, 164). Though Austrian, Hitler saw himself as a German patriot. While recovering from a mustard gas war injury, he learned of the German November Revolution (Kershaw, 2008 [1998]: 59–60). His hatred of the Weimar Republic’s establishment between 1918 and 1919 led him to declare in Mein Kampf that “in the days that followed, I became aware of my own destiny” (Hitler, 1941 [1925]: 268). During those days, after singing Deutschland über alles and shouting “‘Heil’ with full voice” many times, “I knew just the same that my place would be there where my inner voice directed me”, Hitler (1941 [1925]: 212) stated. 6 Unable to accept Germany’s defeat in the First World War (WWI), he embraced the stab-in-the-back myth. 7 Hitler (1941 [1925]: 269) believed Emperor Wilhelm II “extended his hand to the leaders of Marxism without guessing that scoundrels are without honour” and claimed, “with the Jews, there is no bargaining – only the hard either-or”, resolving “to become a politician”. He represented and exacerbated the broader and prevailing supremacist far-right ethos of his time.
Hitler not only followed his inner voice but often claimed to be the voice or embodiment of the German people. This rhetoric was present during the Weimar Republic and central to the Nazi regime’s ideological framework. From the early 1920s, Hitler (1941 [1925]: 461) underscored that “regaining political self-preservation is a question of regaining our political will, [. . .] winning the broad masses”. He also stated that “the great masses’ receptive ability is very limited, [. . .]. Therefore, all effective propaganda must focus on a few points and repeat them as slogans until even the very last man is able to understand” (p. 234). He decided that “to win the masses, one must know the key to their hearts – not objectivity, which is weakness, but will, power, and strength” (Hitler, 1941 [1925]: 468). At least since August 1921 (pp. 856–857), Hitler (1941 [1925]: 482) understood that a successful movement needs “that force which is rooted in the inner unity and in the recognition of a head that represents this unity”. Hitler (1941 [1925]: 678) insisted his followers be trained “for strict discipline and fanatical conviction in the cause”, with each knowing “only a few but crucial viewpoints deeply ingrained in memory, so that he is completely imbued with the conviction that the victory of his movement and its doctrine is necessary”.
While this rhetoric conforms to a recognisable populist style of mass mobilisation, its political meaning is shaped by Counter-Enlightenment assumptions that redefine democracy not as plural participation but as submission to a unified national will. Prominent scholars in fascist and populist studies agree that Hitler was unquestionably a populist. Sternhell et al. (1994 [1989]: 14) described fascism as a “nationalist, populist, and revolutionary movement”. Müller (2016: 93) categorised both the Hitlerist movement and that of Mussolini as populist. Griffin, who cautioned me in 2023 against studying Bolsonarism in relation to fascism (pers. comm.), had asserted in 2020 that the Nazis built a widespread populist movement “to mobilize and unleash the dormant power of ‘the people’” (cited in de la Torre, 2025: 16). The variations of the “I am your voice” theme discussed here epitomise the classical populist playbook described by Carlos de la Torre (2025: 23). As a populist device, the claim “I am your voice” collapses representation into immediacy; as a Counter-Enlightenment gesture, it negates pluralism by transforming political authority into a single, sacralised will embodied by the leader. It is important to emphasise that rather than rejecting populist research, this article focuses on elements in Trumpism and Bolsonarism that echo Hitlerist rhetoric.
Towards a different type of “democracy”
Neo-Traditionalist strategist and convicted fraudster Steve Bannon views Trump as an unwitting agent in a necessary battle against the Enlightenment’s remnants. Bannon sees Trump’s leadership as part of a wider far-right populist movement aiming to dismantle liberal institutions (Betts, 2025; Spektorowski, 2025: 46–47). About a century earlier, Hitler (1941 [1925]: 260) declared in Mein Kampf that he and his fellow Germans fought in WWI for 4 years in vain due to “a mean act of banditry [. . .]. Not with the call ‘long live universal suffrage and the secret ballot’ had the young regiments once marched towards death in Flanders, but with the cry ‘Germany above all in the world’”. Ignoring Germany’s military defeat, Hitler (1941 [1925]: 99) argued that the noble goals of German soldiers were obstructed by the “monstrosity of filth and fire” of democracy, which he saw as “the forerunner of Marxism”.
Although Hitler’s claim was historically inaccurate, early forms of socialism did emerge aiming to deepen and strengthen driving principles of the Enlightenment indeed. Before Stalinism, socialist theory and uprisings explicitly advocated advanced democracy, with their emancipatory goals and revolutionary praxis influenced by the French Revolution or what Jonathan Israel called the Radical Enlightenment (Hobsbawm, 1996 [1962]: 21–22, 242–244, 294; Israel, 2010: 8–15; Matsui, 2022: 64–66, 162; Smaldone, 2020: 3–5, 26; Spicker, 2006: 159, 164). In contrast, interwar fascist movements were even more violent and pursued autocratic, supremacist aims from the outset, in principle; their intentions matched their actions (Bracher, 1971 [1969]: 47–48; Crowley, 2023: 55; Haslam et al., 2023: 9). Communist and liberal experiences like the Soviet Union and USA did become totalitarian or imperialist, and neoliberalism proved to be liberalism bereft of its ethical, civic, and political substance (Brown, 2015: 43–44, 110–111; Wolin, 2019 [2004], xiii), with globalism limited to trade – excluding people movement. This shows how Counter-Enlightenment politics can emerge in liberal states. However, the Enlightenment, like socialism and unlike fascism, still remains a principled project with unrealised potential (Freeden, 1998: 71; Israel, 2010: 8–15; Smaldone, 2020: 142, 175–178; Spicker, 2006: 94–95).
Hitler (1941 [1925]: 52–60, 98–105, 122, 141) equated democracy to “a crying shame [. . .] of our so-called ‘leaders’” who “hide behind the coat-tails of a so-called majority whenever important decisions arise!”. He viewed the Weimar Republic as a deceptive system fostering instability, corruption, and tyranny, denying it legitimacy. For him, a democrat is a coward who “anxiously begs for the consent of the majority for every action, securing accomplices to avoid responsibility” (p. 104). Instead, Hitler promoted a different notion – “the true Germanic democracy of the free choice of a leader” (pp. 116–117), that is, an anti-parliamentary system centred on electing the Führer once and for all (Hansen, 2022: 117, 121–124; Hitler, 1941 [1925]: 111–117). What distinguishes this from other populist invocations of popular sovereignty is not the rhetoric itself, but the Counter-Enlightenment redefinition of democracy as hierarchical, exclusionary, and ultimately incompatible with institutional pluralism.
After the failed Beerhall Putsch, Hitler dropped “Germanic democracy” in favour of Volksherrschaft (rule by the people), redefining political authority under ethnonationalist lens; from then on, he opposed plebiscites and universal suffrage altogether (Hansen, 2022: 125–128, 135–137). With his premature prison release, Hitler shifted strategy to propaganda alongside coercion and violence, declaring in 1930 his intent to defeat democracy “with the weapons of democracy” (cited in Bullock, 1964 [1962]: 162; Hansen, 2022: 130). In a 1933 national radio address marking the Nazi overthrow of the Weimar Republic, Hitler’s far-right populist propaganda specialist – appointed “Enlightenment” Minister of the Third Reich – boldly declared that “the year 1789 is hereby eradicated from history” (Joseph Goebbels cited in Bracher, 1971 [1969]: 10). Israel aptly called Nazism “the supreme Counter-Enlightenment” in his 2010 book (pp. x–xi).
In July 2022, Bolsonaro revealed his notion of democracy, echoing Hitler’s, while urging supporters to give him unconditional authority “one last time” as the crowd chanted “myth” at his party national convention during the electoral campaign: “We are the majority; we are ready to fight. I call on all of you now to take to the streets on 7 September for the last time, let’s take to the streets one last time” (cited in Albuquerque et al., 2022). At a Rio de Janeiro rally in April 2024 – organised to mobilise the Bolsonarist base amid STF investigations on Bolsonaro’s 2022–2023 attempted coup – he claimed an alleged “threat to democracy” (Folha de S. Paulo, 2024). Yet, Bolsonaro has consistently praised the 1964–1985 dictatorship over the decades, calling it democratic (Zanin, 2025 [2024]: 113–115). Here again, populism supplies the language of popular legitimacy, while Counter-Enlightenment ideology supplies the content: democracy is preserved in name but emptied of its pluralist and constitutional substance.
In the USA, Trump mentioned saving “democracy” four times during his 6 January 2021 speech, urging supporters to march on the Capitol as Congress certified the election results (Naylor, 2021). At the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, where he relaunched his White House bid, Trump framed his election as “the final battle for America” (cited in Smith, 2023). In 2025, President Trump left no room for doubt in an NBC News interview, stating, “I’m not joking” when pressed about his intention to remain in office after his second term despite the USA constitutional limits (cited in Donegan, 2025). Trump and Bannon, the White House Chief Strategist (appointed by Trump in his first term), echo Goebbels’s declaration to wipe 1789 from history. Their worldview, like Bolsonaro’s, operates within democratic forms while hollowing them, echoing Hitler’s “weapons of democracy” tactic. The ideological connection between Hitler, Goebbels, Bannon, Trump, and Bolsonaro lies in combining Counter-Enlightenment principles with populist mobilisation, rejecting pluralist democracy for authoritarian, mythic leadership.
Both interwar and contemporary far-right populists – Hitlerists, Trumpists, and Bolsonarists – used similar lexical appropriation and semantic inversion, hijacking Enlightenment terms to strip them of their original meaning (Lowenthal and Guterman, 1949: 30–32; Wodak, 2021 [2015]: 34–35, 68, 73, 90). Both cases illustrate a Counter-Enlightenment ethos that positions secularism, rationalism, and pluralism as threats and corrosive to national identity, social order, and authentic political will. The war of ideas represented by the clash between these worldviews can clearly be seen in the anti-democratic struggle of Hitler and Goebbels in 1920s–1930s Germany just as their contemporary counterparts in the USA and Brazil. Opposing the values upheld by liberal-democratic institutions, Nazi and Trumpist/Bolsonarist notions of “Enlightenment”, “freedom”, and “democracy” actually demand from followers ideological conformity under a single commanding voice within a supremacist, fundamentalist, hierarchical order.
At the CPAC above mentioned, Trump (cited in Smith, 2023) recalled telling supporters in 2016, “I am your voice”, then added: “I am your warrior, your justice, and your retribution”. He harboured deep grievances over being constrained in office. Trump’s framing of himself as “your retribution” followed his impeachment for the failed bid to overturn the 2020 election and criminal investigations, reinforcing a narrative of personal grievance translated into collective punishment (Aratani, 2024; Cassidy, 2023). 8 Having consolidated control over the GOP, Trump framed his return as a crusade against institutions he blamed for earlier defeats, signalling readiness to wield executive power aggressively (Liptak and Collins, 2024). At his election victory celebration at the West Palm Beach Convention Centre, the then-President-elect called his second-term mandate “unprecedented and powerful” (Trump cited in Liptak and Collins, 2024). On his first day back in office, Trump issued a sweeping pardon to nearly 1600 people convicted, on trial, or awaiting sentencing for crimes tied to the above-mentioned January 6 Capitol attack (Choi et al., 2025). 9 This move reflected both strategic calculation and ideological escalation, cementing his role as not just an executive leader but a figurehead of retribution and disruption in what he and his supporters frame as an existential struggle for the USA’s future.
In April 2020, President Bolsonaro declared, “I am, truly, the Constitution” while defending “democracy” and “freedom” a day after leading a pro-military coup-themed street rally (Carvalho, 2020). The previous day, standing on a truck before the Army headquarters during the coronavirus pandemic, he addressed a crowd calling for military intervention in Brazil, shouting slogans such as “the era of scoundrels is over”, “now it’s the people in power”, “we don’t want to negotiate anything”, and “enough of the old politics. Now it’s Brazil above all and God above everyone” (Bolsonaro cited in Carvalho, 2020). Beyond the explicit populism, the Bolsonarist slogan “Brazil above all” echoes nationalist rhetoric from German history through Hitlerism (Zanin, 2025 [2024]: 11, 25–35, 40–65, 78). 10
At a White House event for the National Governors Association, Trump falsely claimed two female boxers in the 2024 Olympics were transgender. He then referenced his recent executive order (EO) on transgender student-athletes, saying he had heard Maine would ignore it, and directly questioned Governor Janet Mills. When Mills replied she would follow state and federal laws, Trump declared, “we are the federal law” (cited in Benen, 2025), 11 warning her to comply and threatening to cut federal funding for Maine’s public schools. In fact, though Trump’s second term has only just begun, the scale of democratic backsliding has led prominent legal scholars to warn of a drift toward dictatorship. Legal scholars and political scientists told The Guardian that the “illegitimate power grab” (David Driesen cited in Tait, 2025) by Trumpism “is not unitary executive. This is something very different: This is dictatorship” (Bruce Ackerman cited in Tait, 2025).
On 22 January 1933, Hitler addressed a packed Berlin Sportpalast, including Nazi officials, creating the impression he was already in power and preparing government action (Domarus, 1990 [1962]: 220). He declared, “you must fuse your will with the will of millions of others, then you must merge with this great will. You must become a man and entrust yourself to a leader”, insisting that “the will of the people is expressed in a single voice” (Hitler cited in Domarus, 1990 [1962]: 221). Less than a week later, an arson attack destroyed the German parliament. Hitler was then appointed chancellor and managed to obtain from parliament authority to govern by decree through the Reichstag Fire Decree; other Gleichschaltung measures followed, such as the Enabling Act and the Law Against the Formation of Parties. 12
Hitlerism spent longer in opposition before seizing power than Trumpism or Bolsonarism. Once in office, however, Hitlerism rapidly consolidated authority, transforming the regime into fascist totalitarianism, whereas Trumpism and Bolsonarism failed – so far – to do so. Both destabilised their countries’ political systems during their first terms but could not change the regime, and their attempted coups collapsed after electoral defeat. Their failures may be linked to post-WWII checks and balances or the widespread condemnation of fascism’s legacy. Despite evident differences between the two contexts – in the pace, sequence, and intensity of democratic erosion – democracy has clearly declined in Brazil and the USA from between 2014 and 2016 onwards (Jardina and Mickey, 2022: 80–81; Sá e Silva, 2022: 274–275, 283, 289; Traver, 2024; Williamson, 2023). Global democracy was at a record low in 2024 (Lotz, 2025; Orvetti, 2002), with Trump’s rhetoric and actions likely to worsen the decline.
Accelerationism
Accelerationism in Trumpism and Bolsonarism should be understood as a radicalisation of populist mobilisation: populist appeals are retained as a legitimising style, while Counter-Enlightenment commitments justify the suspension of democratic restraint in the name of order and destiny. Bannon supports right-wing accelerationism – the notion that chaos and crisis can speed the collapse of liberal-democratic systems to enable supremacist, authoritarian order (Hermansson et al., 2020: 82; Miller-Idriss, 2022 [2020], xviii, 48). This mirrors the democratic backsliding of the Weimar Republic and the Nazis’ steady escalating steps towards fascist totalitarianism in the Third Reich. We outline six main periods from the rise of Hitlerism to the Holocaust, 13 though the last two are not relevant here. The 1926–1932 period, discussed above, saw Hitlerist mobilisation and propaganda in tireless opposition to the liberal democracy of the so-called “Weimar system” (Bracher, 1971 [1969]: 46, 126–127, 163, 185).
The 1933–1934 and 1935–1938 periods, analysed below, mark the Nazi imposition of economic nationalism, scapegoating, and escalating internal repression and militarisation in clear preparation for war. In his March 1933 Reichstag speech on the Enabling Act, Hitler framed Germany’s crisis as caused by internal decay from Marxism, which he claimed fragmented the nation and destroyed social cohesion. He rejected foreign press claims linking the Nazi rise to the Reichstag fire and promised swift vengeance, including public executions. Hitler denied democratic equality before the law to political opponents, limiting it to those supporting “national interests”. Finally, he argued that overcoming the economic crisis required absolutely authoritarian leadership to restore stability and public trust (Domarus, 1990 [1962]: 275–285).
Shortly before his second term began, Trump said, “your head will spin when you see what’s going to happen” (cited in Woodward, 2025). On day one, he signed 26 EOs, repealing 67 from Biden (Doan and Ingram, 2025). Hitler similarly pursued rapid, disorienting consolidation. He announced numerous directives formally establishing the Nazi dictatorship in Germany “on the all-important day of July 14, 1933” – the Bastille Day anniversary, which symbolises rebellion against absolutism (Bracher, 1971 [1969]: 225). As Hedges (2006: 201) notes, “days after taking power in 1933, Hitler banned all homosexual and lesbian organizations and ordered raids on their meeting places, culminating in the ransacking of Berlin’s Institute for Sexual Science”. The following table compares the directives of Trump’s second-term “Day One” and Hitler’s between 1933 and 1934 (Bracher, 1971 [1969]: 203–227, 253–289, 350–353; Evans, 2005: 55–59, 75–78, 87–95, 106–115; Hammond et al., 2025; Smith, 2025):
Trump’s second-term “Day One” blitz resembled Hitler’s early Gleichschaltung in scope and authoritarian intent, though unfolding under stronger institutional resistance. While Nazi decrees rapidly consolidated dictatorship, Trump’s actions aim to overwhelm checks and balances through sustained executive escalation rather than immediate regime transformation (Doan and Ingram, 2025; Smith-Schoenwalder, 2025). Later Trump’s EOs include the “Schedule F” reclassification, which in practice allows him to purge the civil service of perceived opponents (Bond, 2025). Additionally, his economic nationalism and aggressive foreign policies have imposed tariffs affecting at least 161 countries – Trump called it “liberation day” – echoing Hitler’s policies. In his 2025 inaugural speech, Trump also echoed the Nazi imperialist rhetoric of “living space” under a national-security pretence, vowing to expand USA territory through plans to annex sovereign territories such as Canada, Greenland, Gaza Strip, and the Panama Canal (Ryback, 2025; Toft, 2025; Watling and Hagopian, 2025).
In September 1933, Hitler gathered foreign diplomats and told them he “would be happy if the gentlemen would leave Nuremberg with the impression that the National Socialist Rule in Germany was not a rule of force or, much less, tyranny, but that here the voice of the people truly found its innermost and deepest expression” (cited in Domarus, 1990 [1962]: 356). In 2022, President Bolsonaro gathered foreign diplomats and falsely claimed Brazil’s electronic voting system was fraudulent. In response to Bolsonaro’s methodical campaign discrediting the electoral system, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) barred him from running for public office until 2030 (Phillips, 2023; Savarese, 2022). While Hitler sought to deflect accusations of tyranny, Bolsonaro aimed to cast doubt on election credibility. Both used high-profile diplomatic settings to mislead domestic and international audiences and influence public discourse. Bolsonaro faced legal repercussions, reflecting Brazil’s democratic resilience, but Hitler’s earlier acts had also drawn legal consequences during the Weimar Republic. By the time of Hitler’s meeting with diplomats, he had already dismantled the democratic system.
The first SOPADE report after the 1934 Röhm purge found Hitler’s position within the Storm Troopers and Nazi Party secure, with his popularity among the public even rising. 14 For many ordinary Germans, like the author of the following piece, Hitler became a figure of devotion; the text is almost a parody of the Lord’s Prayer: “Adolf Hitler, you are our great leader. Your name makes our enemies shudder, [. . .] your will alone be law on earth. Let us daily hear your voice” (Noakes and Pridham, 1983: 571). During the 2016 USA presidential campaign, Trump showed such confidence in his support that he claimed he could stand on NYC’s Fifth Avenue “and shoot somebody” without losing voters (Dwyer, 2016). Both examples show how charismatic leadership can engender intense personal loyalty beyond normal political rules and accountability. This dynamic reveals how populists sustain their base by presenting themselves as indispensable, unchallengeable authorities, relying on emotional and symbolic appeals over rational scrutiny.
In early 1936, Hitler spoke at a rally in Frankfurt am Main (Domarus, 1990 [1962]: 791) to campaign for the referendum on remilitarising the Rhineland. He used this language to persuade Germans to support remilitarisation just 18 years after WWI: “I am expecting your decision, and I know it will confirm that I am right! I will accept your decision as the voice of the people, which is the voice of God” (cited in Domarus, 1990 [1962]: 356). 15 Hitler’s coercive linking of German militarisation to religious authority illustrates the concept of political religion. 16 As history shows, that was one of the first steps taken by the Nazi towards war. In September, at the Reich Party Congress of Honour in Nuremberg, Hitler again took on a messianic role, telling the crowd: “once you heard the voice of a man, and that voice knocked at your hearts, it wakened you, and you followed that voice. [. . .] you simply heard a voice and followed it” (cited in Domarus, 1990 [1962]: 833). By framing his rise as an awakening, Hitler crafted a narrative of destiny and personal calling, casting himself as a divinely chosen guide. In the violent and oppressive context, Hitler’s self-messianic image was not mere vanity but also a political shield.
Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels delivered an annual national address on the eve of Hitler’s birthday. These radio speeches, called “Our Hitler”, were widely publicised in major newspapers and later included in collections of Goebbels’s writings (Bytwerk, 2008: 79). On 19 April 1937, Goebbels claimed Hitler was “so bound and united with his people that he can at any time and in any situation speak in its name. [. . .] He is in fact the bearer of the German national will. His voice is the voice of the people” (cited in Bytwerk, 2008: 81). The “Our Hitler” broadcasts served not just as propaganda but as ritualised reaffirmations of a sacralised political order, equating loyalty to the leader with loyalty to the nation.
In August 2025, President Trump ordered the National Guard into Washington, DC, taking control of the city’s police, claiming it would reduce crime, despite Mayor Muriel Bowser noting crime was already falling. Trump had also federalised California’s National Guard, deploying around 4000 troops to Los Angeles alongside 700 Marines, overruling Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, following protests sparked by violent, masked ICE raids. In response, California petitioned Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco to restore state control over its troops and stop federal military use within the state (Har and Rodriguez, 2025). Trump’s ongoing actions clearly display structural and rhetorical parallels with early Nazi consolidation, particularly in terms of executive assertiveness and use of emergency powers.
In reaction to Jair Bolsonaro’s trial at the STF for the 2022–2023 coup attempt, Brazilian MP Eduardo Bolsonaro (Jair’s son) and Paulo Figueiredo (grandson of Brazil’s last military dictator) have been lobbying in the USA since May 2025 alongside Bannon, GOP representatives and senior Trump officials against Justice Alexandre de Moraes and President Lula da Silva to seek a pardon for Bolsonaro. 17 Their lobbying created USA-Brazil tensions, targeting Brazil’s judicial independence and economy. In July, the USA revoked visas for Moraes, several judges, and their families, and imposed a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports, citing what Trump called a “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro. The Trump administration also sanctioned Moraes under the Magnitsky Act (Cleveland-Stout, 2025; Phillips, 2025).
In August 2025, the STF ordered Jair Bolsonaro’s preventive house arrest after he failed to comply with earlier judicial rulings (Cleveland-Stout, 2025; Phillips, 2025). In reaction, a national movement called “Brazil, React’ was formed by key Bolsonarists like evangelical pastor Silas Malafaia and several elected politicians and officials, organising protests in multiple cities and in parliament. The movement aims to rally popular support to pressure the STF and ultimately reinstate Bolsonaro. Maria do Carmo, a pre-candidate for Amazonas governor from Bolsonaro’s party, stated in her speech during a “Brazil, React” protest in Manaus: “They silenced you [Jair Bolsonaro], but they did not silence your voice, because the voice of the people is your voice” (Amazônia Press, 2025; Eiras et al., 2025).
Both Hitler’s early measures (1933–1934) and Trump’s 2025 directives, along with the lobbying of Eduardo Bolsonaro and Paulo Figueiredo in the USA, can be read as forms of authoritarian accelerationism: deliberate strategies to manufacture or intensify crises in order to overwhelm democratic institutions and favour authoritarian consolidation. In Hitler’s case, rapid legal overreach, purges, and orchestrated instability dismantled Weimar safeguards; in Trump’s, sweeping attacks on multiple institutional fronts aim to disorient opposition and normalise exceptional powers. The Bolsonaro-Figueiredo lobbying operates as a transnational extension of this method, seeking to provoke external economic and political pressure on Brazil, thereby compounding internal tensions and creating an existential risk that can be exploited to impose a regime change.
As a condensation symbol, the populist claim to be “the people’s voice” conflates identification with submission. By framing the leader’s voice as indistinguishable from the people’s, dissent becomes impracticable, and authoritarianism becomes reframed as a genuine form of popular sovereignty. This applies to Hitler, Trump, and Bolsonaro, in alignment with Weber’s concept of charismatic authority and Fromm’s insight that certain individuals prefer to escape from freedom by merging their will with the leader’s.
Conclusion
In influential strands of comparative research, Trumpism and Bolsonarism are treated as paradigmatic cases of right-wing populism, with fascism relegated to a closed historical chapter rather than considered as a repertoire of ideological motifs, political imaginaries, and practices capable of mutation and re-articulation (de la Torre, 2025: 1, 4–6; Griffin, 2022: 62, 73, 79, 85; Griffin, 2023; Matthews, 2020; Pereira, 2023: 18, 21). This classificatory preference is often defended on definitional grounds and with due historical caution, particularly in light of the Holocaust and the specificity of interwar fascism. However, this article shows that contemporary far-right movements reuse the populist playbook of their interwar predecessors. It thus challenges scholarly tendencies that restrict the term fascism to the various movements and regimes that emerged during the interwar period (which incidentally extricates populism from fascism), 18 while also treating other heuristic approaches to examine Trumpism and Bolsonarism beyond right-wing populism as methodologically illegitimate a priori (rather than as competing frameworks to be empirically tested).
This matters because scholarly classifications are not confined to academic debate: they travel into journalistic, legal, and public discourse, shaping how democratic erosion is interpreted, anticipated, or normalised. 19 The article’s title highlights the general public’s temptation to trust rhetoric from leaders like Trump and Bolsonaro, but also the temptation for analysts, journalists, and academics to limit themselves to treat the label “populist” as explanatorily sufficient, without further nuance. While much scholarship on populism acknowledges illiberal and authoritarian dimensions, the analytical primacy accorded to populism as a category can nonetheless function as a form of disciplinary boundary-setting. The present article does not reject the populism framework but argues that treating it as explanatorily sufficient can obscure deeper ideological continuities related to Counter-Enlightenment traditions. Overlooking such deeper ideological aspects weakens the analysis, blurring distinctions between moderate, radical, and extreme right-wing actors, thereby masking anti-democratic forces and normalising them in public discourse. These aspects are evident in moral panics, historical denialism, conspiracy theories, and fake news. By drawing these historical parallels through primary and credible secondary sources, this study urges a more historically grounded and ideologically nuanced framework to better understand and confront today’s reactionary threats to democracy. 20
As discussed above, populist leaders, including fascist ones, claim to represent the people, portraying themselves as the people’s voice. In reality, they suppress pluralism and impose a single voice – their own (Ben-Ghiat, 2020: 59; Finchelstein, 2017: 210). Both Hitler’s pre-WWII and Trumpist and Bolsonarist “I am your voice” formulations depict the leader as the authentic people’s representative and saviour of a sacred fatherland. The charismatic leader serves not just as a political figure but a psychological anchor, channelling individual anxieties into collective strength; the leader does not simply speak for the people – he encapsulates the people. This conflation can make authoritarianism feel like restoring agency rather than suppressing it.
The term “populism” has become overly elastic, often applied broadly and with limited analytical precision. Beyond populism as a performative communication strategy, both Trumpism and Bolsonarism function as political religion (Gentile, 2006: xv; Maier, 2007: 15), clearly shaped by Counter-Enlightenment ideologies like Traditionalism and fascism. Recognising populism as a political style rather than an ideology allows us to see how similar rhetorical techniques can serve different projects. As global democratic institutions face renewed pressure, scholarship should expose how authoritarian actors coordinate. This article aims to help by providing a framework to understand political tactics shared by Hitlerism, Trumpism, and Bolsonarism; 21 all seeking power through fear, myth, and force. Fortunately, a growing number of scholars now begin to avoid the label populism alone to describe the current reactionary wave. Future studies should examine how scholarly reliance on the populism label may normalise far-right ideologies in the public discourse and investigate direct ideological influences from Traditionalist and fascist thinkers. 22 Further studies are also needed to analyse responses from other political actors domestically and abroad, especially regarding appeasement.
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.