Scott Walker is not the only GOP presidential candidate being compared to a Nazi dictator. A professor at New York University recently claimed Donald Trump’s “racist rhetoric should be viewed in the repugnant tradition of Hitler.”

Dr. Arthur Caplan, who also directs the medical ethics division at NYU, wrote a commentary piece published this week by the Poynter Institute entitled, “The danger of laughing at Donald Trump.”

Trump continues to generate headlines, from his controversial comments about Mexican immigrants, to his more recent attack on Sen. John McCain for being a “captured” POW.

Caplan said it seems unlikely that Trump will win, but points out that the media said the same thing about Hitler in the 1930s.

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

Caplan also tweeted that Trump is "on the Hitler flightpath."


Caplan warns the news media against using Trump’s antics for entertainment value.

“While he is certainly entertaining, demoting him to the entertainment pages was clearly a big mistake,” he writes. "Instead of laughing at Trump’s buffoonery, news organizations need to hold him and the Republican Party accountable for the damage he does.”

Trump has proved that he shouldn’t be underestimated as a candidate – he is has recently topped several national polls of Republican voters.

Believe it or not, this is actually the second instance of a college professor comparing one of the GOP presidential candidates to Hitler. A professor at the University of Wisconsin recently compared Scott Walker to Hitler.

(h/t Campus Reform)