Moments after former President Donald Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt during a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, “Reichstag fire” began trending on social media.
Reichstag fire is said to be the symbol of the rise of Nazi Germany after someone burned down the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament, in 1933. Adolf Hitler accused communists of invoking the fire to stage a coup. In response, the dictator called for the Reichstag Fire Decree, which took civil liberties away from people who opposed the Nazis.
Trump critics have often likened the former president to Hitler, claiming he follows the playbook of the dictator’s regime.
The iconic photo attached to this article will go down in history— but anti-Trumpers will accuse the president of staging the attack so he can have his own “Reichstag fire” moment.
This is not the first time Trump has been accused of invoking Hitler and the Nazi regime.
Last week, Bruce Bartlett, a former official in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, warned that he bet Trump is “planning the American equivalent of the Reichstag fire to justify violence against the left.”
Hours after the attempted assassination, Bartlett wrote, “Looks like we just had our Reichstag fire” on X.
Looks like we just had our Reichstag fire. https://t.co/99aW13V9nN
— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) July 13, 2024
In 2021, just days before the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill protests, Gen. Mark Milley accused Trump of leading the “country to the brink of its own “Reichstag moment.”
The next year, twice-failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has also compared a Trump rally to a Hitler rally.
There has NEVER been a dictator who rose to power who did not stage a false flag event. It is literally in the dictator playbook. The Reichstag fire was well timed. When is the RNC convention again?
— Chuck Satterlee (@ComicsChuck) July 13, 2024
#ReichstagFire Key event in Nazi dictatorship.
— renesees (@renesees) July 13, 2024
. #ReichstagFire reworked.
— blakkrrox (@blakkrrox) July 14, 2024
Firmly keep your focus on what you could all lose in November.