A photo shared by the Clay County Republican Party of Minnesota explicitly compares Bernie Sanders to Adolf Hitler. The post was shared by the Republican Party affiliate late on Sunday night; you can see it above. The post features a photo of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders side by side with a photo of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Above the photos, a caption reads, “Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat its mistakes.”
There is a series of bullet points below the photos of Sanders and Hitler, apparently intended to highlight the similarities between the two men. The first bullet point beneath Hitler reads, “Believed state power would fix Germany.” The first point under Sanders’ photo reads, “Believes state power will fix America.”
The Facebook post also says that both Hitler and Sanders “promised a political revolution,” wanted a “heavily regulated economy,” and called themselves socialists. It says that Hitler “blamed Jews for America’s problems” and that Sanders “blames the rich for America’s problems.” The post does not mention that Bernie Sanders is Jewish.
Sanders, an independent senator who describes himself as a Democratic Socialist, recently announced that he will seek the Democratic nomination for the White House in 2020. Sanders has said he will push for a number of progressive positions, like creating a Medicare-for-all system of healthcare to cover all Americans. The Vermont senator also pledged to introduce a $15 minimum wage and to expand the estate tax. Sanders says that he has a plan to make community college free for all students, and to make four-year colleges free for students whose families fall beneath a certain income threshold. Sanders has also said he strongly supports a Green New Deal, which would involve shifting American jobs away from fossil fuel industries and toward jobs in renewable energy.
Sanders officially joined the already-crowded race for the Democratic nomination to the White House last week, after months of speculation over whether the 77 year old senator would enter the contest. Sanders ran a hard-fought race for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton in 2016, eventually losing to Clinton.