The Nazis of Hitler's Germany advanced the following program. These policies represented benchmarks that marked fascist Germany as a blot on Western civilization and the enemy of liberty. None of these benchmarks applies to the Trump administration.

Since the left in its propaganda campaigns has tried to compare President George W. Bush and now President Trump with Hitler and the Nazis (of the National Socialist Workers Party) here , here , here , here , and here , let us briefly survey the Nazi regime.

1. National Socialism (private property tightly controlled by government) was implemented as the official economic program for Germany.

2. Deutschland über Alles was the Nazi slogan, meaning "Germany over All." This was a slogan declaring Hitler's goals of conquest in Europe and the world (meaning Germany rules, not merely Germany first).

3. Aryan racial supremacy (opposed especially to Slavs, Jews, and gypsies) was made official policy, not merely a personal preference.

4. German foreign policy was moved forward based on the need for lebensraum ("living space"). In this, the government openly articulated its desire to expand geographically in Europe at the expense of neighboring entities.

5. Hitler's anti-French revenge motif was articulated in his German bestseller Mein Kampf. Hitler, a veteran of WWI, was shocked to his core by the humiliation of loss in WWI, the forced signing of the War Guilt Clause of the Treaty of Versailles, and French control over the Alsace-Lorraine after WWI.

6. The Nazi program revolved around the traditional role that a woman's place is in the home (Children, Kitchen, Church – Kinder, Küche, Kirche).

7. Under National Socialist governance, euthanasia was authorized to eliminate children with mental and developmental disabilities like Down syndrome.

8. Interest in Germanic pagan Gods was revived and combined with Hindu themes (the swastika, symbol of the Nazis, was Hindu in origin). Thus, Christianity was twisted and re-aligned with pre-Christian paganism that was offensive to many yet widely accepted.

9. Importantly, love of man for God and of each person for his neighbor no longer was promoted as the living ethic and metaphysic of Germany. Rather, the Nazis largely identified with Frederick Nietzsche's will to power theme, whereby humans are meant to evolve to a new stage of moral development. At this stage, God is dead, and the new, supposedly evolved (Aryan) personality type will implement the transvaluation of values, where bad is good and good is bad. This evolved person will be a type of übermensch (superman), a person of power, even without a big red letter S on his shirt. Adolf Hitler was to be understood as the personification and embodiment of the übermensch.

None of the above ideas even remotely resembles the policies or programs being advanced by President Trump. He has been busy de-regulating commerce, not tightening regulations. His program of America First is not a program of conquest, but a re-prioritization of our economic and political goals. Under Trump, we do not simply project ourselves as leaders of a new global consciousness where our sovereignty erodes and our wealth is re-distributed to struggling, corrupt economic basket cases or to prosperous economies too eager to take advantage of our largesse. Instead, he and his advisers want the USA to develop as a dynamic center for trade and manufacturing instead of simply shrugging and re-branding ourselves as a service economy.

Trump's political and economic policy is not to disparage or invalidate any racial or ethnic group. His desire to be cautious about immigration from Islamic countries is a realistic concern about domestic U.S. safety, and not based on animosity to Muslims. He is aware that in Islam, hijra (immigration) is a stage in promoting Islamic sharia law as the dominant political, legal, and religious framework of the world. This is clearly articulated in Islamic holy books and promoted by many Islamic leaders. The virulent thread of domestic terrorism is rife throughout the Islamic world, and both Europeans and Americans have already suffered excessively from this threat. We need strong Muslim-Americans to denounce this instead of immediately going on the defensive and crying Islamophobia before the police investigation has even taken place.

Although our president has publicly reprimanded various allies and various U.N. bodies such as the Human Rights Council, these reprimands have been under a pro-America rubric without any threat of conquest or harm to those countries. While the president has been truculent in his response to threats from others like Iran or North Kore,a instead of offering the low-key dissembling of President Barack Obama, which is so characteristic of the elitist rulers from the Ivy League, these reprimands have been purely defensive. Not one aggressive intention toward another sovereign entity in this world has issued forth from his mouth or from the actions or policies of this administration.

Nazi contempt for women is linked to the Nazi-Nietzschean "will to power," where the macho male alone is qualified for governmental or corporate leadership. There is nothing in Trump's corporate background in construction or his appointments made in the Oval Office that indicates that women have been excluded from leadership and policy-making roles, as was the case with the Nazis.

Lastly, President Trump has openly embraced our country's Christian heritage. His comments in public about Christianity and people of faith are uniformly complimentary. While we do not have a state established religion, our Christian values and heritage are central to the formation of our growth, power, and generosity. Trump's concern that religious rights under the First Amendment be faithfully balanced against and factored into judicial decisions upholding the due process rights of the 14th Amendment is clearly demonstrated by his judicial appointments.

For the above reasons, and because President Trump can be challenged in elections and is limited by our federalism as well as checks and balances, it is totally offensive and absurd to liken our president's administration to the Nazi cult; its vile leader; or its program of conquest, death, and hate.

Image: Louis P. Hirshman via Wikimedia Commons.