NYU Ethics Director slams Trump as 'proto-Hitlerite'

According to the Director of Medical Ethics at New York University, Donald Trump is “dangerous”, “a race baiting, evil, proto-Hitlerite”, and is “on the Hitler flightpath.”

Dr. Arthur Caplan, a Bioethics professor and the Director of Medical Ethics at New York University, coauthored an article for the Poynter Institute on Monday in which he criticized the media for giving GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump “permission to spew hate.”

As Caplan tells it: “[i]t seems unlikely [that Trump can win]...Of course that is what the media said about a funny-looking spewer of hate with an odd mustache who was dismissed as an awful public speaker and not a serious candidate in Germany in the 1930s.”

According to Caplan, Donald Trump’s recent comments about illegal immigrants, which Caplan characterizes as “racist rhetoric,” “should be viewed in the repugnant tradition of Hitler.”

Caplan does not limit his criticism to Trump. The sixteen Republicans vying for the party’s nomination, he says, are laying the groundwork for a Trump victory much like the thirty-seven political parties in the 1932 Reichstag elections enabled Hitler’s rise to power.

“In the Reichstag elections of November 1932, held months before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, there were 37 different political parties competing in a melee that bears some resemblance to today’s Republican primary. Given a long time to spread racist drivel to a public nervous about preserving their national identity from ‘non-Germans,’ Adolf Hitler won,” Caplan writes.

What’s more, Dr. Caplan—who, according to his faculty page, was named a 2001 USA Today Person of the year—continued his criticism on Twitter after the article went up.

To stop the “dangerous” Donald Trump from becoming President, Caplan says the media needs to begin taking Mr. Trump seriously and “hold him and the Republican Party accountable for the damage he does.”

In an email to Campus Reform, Caplan explained his fear of what a Trump Presidency might look like.

“The greatest danger is that a man willing to use racism to gain political support gets elected and then shapes his policies on poverty, immigration, criminal justice and jobs on the basis of his blatantly and dangerous racist views,” Caplan said.

Dr. Caplan isn’t the first college professor to liken a Republican presidential candidate to Adolf Hitler. Last week, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Sara Goldrick-Rab made headlines over comments she made comparing Wisconsin Governor and presidential candidate Scott Walker (R) to the mustachioed dictator.

The Trump campaign did not respond to Campus Reform’s request for comment.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @peterjhasson