Beyond Oil! Trump Models Himself after Adolf Hitler as the “Genius Leader”
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 19 Jan 2026
Maung Zarni - TRANSCEND Media Service
Read Mein Kampf to understand US fascism and Trump’s Hitlerite leadership.
10 Jan 2026 – Not long ago, a Ukrainian friend in Kyiv told me, “Donald Trump is not a President, but a businessman”. He knew. His country’s mineral resources – and the need to end the war with Russia on a more equitable term – were crucial elements in the high level ceasefire conversations between US and Russian Presidents – Trump and Vladimir Putin.
The operative word here is “transactional”. Many would agree. In Ukraine, it was the “critical raw minerals”, including titanium.
In Venezuela, under the Bolivarian socialist government, Trump has reportedly and repeatedly played up the quest for cheap oil from the country with the world’s known, but untapped crude oil reserve.
In Greenland, a Danish colony, for lack of a better word, Trump is reportedly bent on land grab, for whatever commercial, military or strategic reasons.
On Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, the renowned British journalist and founder of Zeteo, Mehdi Hasan was emphatic when he repeated the central argument, which he made in his Zeteo op-ed Trump’s Venezuela Attack: It’s All About the Oil, Stupid! , published the day of the Trump regime’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores from his home in Caracas.
However transactional, money-obsessed and exceedingly acquisitive Trump may be, there is something else – equally disdainful and unprincipled, and, in my view, extremely worrying – other than the old fashion colonial European resource and land grab.
Based on the emerging evidence, Trump is more than an old fashion imperialist.
There exists a chilling parallel between Adolf Hitler and Donald J. Trump, in so far as the two men’s worldview – of themselves, the countries and people – “races?” – they identify, and their respective missions.
It matters not that Trump has no known ideological doctrine, like Hitler and his Mein Kampf.
The truth is Trump doesn’t need to come up with his own “showpiece”. For he evidently draws substantive views and sentiments from Hitler’s genocidally racist and categorically anti-democratic view of politics, power and society.
Although I had never operated in Trump’s circle of wealth, access to power, and celebrity media during my 17-years (1988-2005), first as a university student, a campus organizer, and an educator I have followed the tales of Donald J. Trump, just as I have followed other household names in politics, media, culture, sports and academy. Over these 30-odd years, I have watched his TV interviews in different US media outlets.
What gives chill down my spine as a student of genocide – one of my three PhD advisers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison actually interrogated surrendered or captured Nazi SS officers in the US section of the Allied Occupied Germany in 1945, in his capacity as a German-fluent US military intelligence surveyor – is that Trump reportedly reads and keeps (or had kept) Hitler’s Mein Kampf by his bedside.
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Tags: Anglo America, Big Oil, Bullying, Canada, Cuba, Disaster Capitalism, Fascism, Greenland, Hegemony, Hitler, Imperialism, Invasion, Latin America Caribbean, Maduro, Military Capitalism, Occupation, Official Lies and Narratives, Oligarchy, Profits, Regime Change, Resources, South America, State Terrorism, Trump, USA, Venezuela
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One Response to “Beyond Oil! Trump Models Himself after Adolf Hitler as the “Genius Leader””
Write a comment to Antonio C.S. Rosa
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Prof. Hoosen Vawda comments:
Dear Professor Maung Zarni, Greetings from Durban. Trust, you had a wonderful beginning to the Gregorian New Year. I read your publication in the Transcend Media Service; “Beyond Oil! Trump Models Himself after Adolf Hitler as the ‘Genius Leader’” with personal interest, as a peace propagator and of its Hitlerian analogies, grounded in what the article actually claims and supported with relevant external reporting. Careful, evidence‑based critique of the paper highlights genuine concerns about Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric, but the claim that he “models himself after Hitler”, overreaches. Yes, Trump’s attacks on journalists echo early authoritarian attempts to intimidate the press, and his “poisoning the blood” remarks resemble language critics have long associated with Mein Kampf. But these are rhetorical overlaps, not evidence of ideological emulation.
Scholars caution that Trump and Hitler differ profoundly in ideology, structure, and historical context. Even the European magazine covers depicting Trump with Hitler‑style imagery are symbolic satire, not proof of self‑modelling. The author claims Trump’s worldview is “chillingly parallel” to Hitler’s without offering documented evidence of Trump explicitly modelling himself on Hitler.
The article instead relies on interpretive leaps from: Trump’s transactional foreign policy and Trump’s self‑perception as a “strong leader”, to Hitler’s racialised ideology and totalitarian philosophy.
While analogies can be helpful, the article seems to equate rhetorical style with ideological blueprint, which is methodologically weak. May I present the following counterexamples In support of my analysis of your text.
Historical counterexample 1: Richard Nixon.
Nixon weaponized state power, targeted journalists, and pushed authoritarian boundaries, yet historians never concluded he modelled himself on Hitler. His abuses were serious, but not ideological fascism.
Historical counterexample 2: Silvio Berlusconi.
Berlusconi dominated media, personalized authority, and cultivated a messianic political style. Critics compared him to Mussolini, but serious scholarship rejected any claim that he consciously emulated fascist doctrine.
Historical counterexample 3: Juan Perón.
Perón blended nationalism, populism, media control, and political cult‑building. He provoked constant comparisons to European fascists, yet Peronism was neither Nazi nor explicitly modelled on Hitler, it was a homegrown authoritarian populism with its own internal logic.
Bottom line: The article by Professor Maung Zarni argues that:
Trump’s foreign policy (Ukraine, Venezuela, Greenland) is resource‑driven and transactional, which we all unreservedly concur, with.
Trump’s worldview allegedly parallels Hitler’s racist, anti‑democratic worldview, though Trump lacks a formal ideology like Mein Kampf
Trump supposedly draws from Hitler’s sentiments even without an articulated doctrine.
This is an opinion piece, not investigative journalism, and uses historical analogy. as its primary argumentative tool. Authoritarian traits can appear across eras and leaders without implying a Hitlerian blueprint. Overstretching the analogy weakens critique rather than strengthening it.
Professor Zarni is invited to respond to the above, with further comments and I shall be happy to entertain them.
TMS Invited Comments to publications
Submitted by: Hoosen Vawda
Dated: Monday, 19th January 2026
Vawda@ukzn.ac.za
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