TWO REPORTERS

Are there really similarities between Hitler and Trump?

David K. Shipler & Daniel Zwerdling

Hitler and the Nazis assaulted universities, museums and art institutions; purged them of people that Hitler perceived as enemies; and rewrote textbooks and museum exhibits to tell Hitler's (fake) version of history. Sound familiar? Historian Joan Clinefelter, who just retired from the University of Northern Colorado, says that there are major differences between Hitler in his early days and Trump.  "But I think they have the same ultimate goal," Clinefelter tells us, "which is ideological purity, sort of a cultural cleansing of history [and] of culture - so that it only gives the message that they believe is appropriate - and getting rid of anybody who has any sort of dissenting point of view."