Kamala raises alarm over Trump's fascist, Hitlerian longings

TOI correspondent from Washington: Struggling to rise above the political cacophony, Kamala Harris latched on to warnings from Donald Trump 's former aides about his dictatorial longings, warning Americans that he's an unstable and unhinged fascist .

At a CNN TownHall on Wednesday, Harris agreed with the assessment of Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly that Trump met the definition of a fascist dictator, saying it should serve as a "911 call to the American people” about how dangerous the MAGA supremo could be if he gets back to the White House.

“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions,” she later told reporters outside her vice-presidential residence. “Those who once tried to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses would no longer be there,... to rein him in.”

“It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler ,” Harris said. “The man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is.”

Kelly, a former marine general, is among several former Trump aides and associates who have said the MAGA leader admires the loyalty of Hitler's generals and wishes his own generals would be like them. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders,” The Atlantic magazine quoted Trump as saying in a private conversation.

Trump trashed such reports on his Truth Social platform, calling Kelly "a total degenerate... who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred!” “This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together. He was tough and dumb. The problem is his toughness morphed into weakness, because he became JELLO with time,” he wrote.

There is little indication that the latest salvo against Trump is changing the adulation for him from his MAGA base, the more extreme neo-Nazi sections of which admire Hitler in any case. The unanswered question though is whether it can sway the five per cent or so undecided voters 12 days before Election Day.

Polls show both candidates tied within the margin of error. While FiveThirtyEight's election dashboard shows Harris 1.6 points ahead in nationwide polling, a Wall Street Journal survey puts Trump ahead 47-45, a reversal of numbers from in a later-August survey, suggesting, according to some pundits, that Trump has gained momentum at her expense.

Harris' loss of momentum reports comes despite an ever-growing list of endorsements from her from Republican anti-trumpers, billionaires, and celebrities, and a massive financial advantage over Trump. One such celebrity, rock star Bruce Springsteen will kick off the battleground concert blitz on Thursday in Atlanta with Harris and Barack Obama. It is unclear if such celebrity backing will sway voters, some 25 million of whom have already voted in early polling.

The one positive sign for Harris though is her favorability rating with Americans is steady despite questions about her "likeabilit." According to FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver, an even number of US citizens hold favorable and unfavorable views of Harris—47.2 percent unfavorable vs. 46.6 percent favorable. By comparison, Trump's favorability rating is in the negative, with 52.2 percent of Americans holding an unfavorable view of him. But how that translates into voting is not clear. Many voters, it is believed, will hold their nose and vote for Trump, because they expect him to be a more decisive and strong President.

"If this election were a popularity contest, Kamala Harris would win," Silver wrote in a post on his blog