At an event in Texas put on by The Texas Tribune, Hillary Clinton compared a recent Trump rally in Ohio, where attendees raised their arms and pointed their index fingers towards the sky in some kind of salute associated with the QAnon movement, to events associated with the rise and temporary dominance inside Germany of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
“I remember as a young student trying to figure out, how did people get basically drawn in by Hitler?” Clinton said at the gathering. “How did that happen? I’d watch newsreels, and I’d see this guy standing up there ranting and raving, and people shouting and raising their arms. I thought, ‘What’s happened to these people? Why did they believe that?’ You saw the rally in Ohio the other night. Trump is there ranting and raving for more than an hour, and you have these rows of young men with their arms raised. I thought, what is going on? So there is a real pressure, and I think it is fair to say we’re in a struggle between democracy and autocracy.” Check out her remarks below:
“You have these rows of young men with their arms raised.” Hillary Clinton compares Trump rally to how Nazis were drawn to Hitler. pic.twitter.com/sEfiQAfLG2
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) September 23, 2022
QAnon refers, of course, to a dangerous and delusional conspiracy theory alleging some secret fight against Satan-worshiping cannibals among the country’s elite, and the one-finger salutes at a recent Trump event — which rally attendees tried to replicate at a subsequent North Carolina rally, where event staff asked them to stop — were meant, at least by some, to reference the slogan “Where We Go One, We Go All,” which is a QAnon rallying cry. PBS journalist Lisa Desjardins said, as shared by Business Insider, that she spoke with attendees at the North Carolina event who confirmed they intended an association with QAnon in raising their fingers. One of those at the event called making the gesture his “Constitutional right” and expressed anger that event staff tried to shut it down. QAnon is linked to multiple murders, including a case last year out of California where a man killed his two very young children in connection to concerns about what he called “serpent DNA” from his wife.
Trump’s camp wasn’t thrilled about Clinton’s comparison. “It’s pathetic, it’s divisive, and it is further cementing her legacy of cringe,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich ranted after Clinton’s recent comments. It’s remarkable for anyone associated with Trump to try and lecture anyone else about divisiveness. Has he looked in the mirror?
