Trump’s Stab-in-the-Back Myth
Tearing another page from Hitler’s book.
Erich Ludendorff birthed the “stab-in-the-back” myth. Adolf Hitler perfected it. Donald Trump is resurrecting it.
Trump lost the presidential election of 2020; Joe Biden won it.
But in the three weeks since the election, Trump has refused to admit his defeat, and he has dispatched a legion of sycophantic attorneys and surrogates to peddle the myth that he would have won reelection if not for traitorous Democrats and local election officials in battleground states.
He’s saying that he was stabbed in the back, and his followers believe him.
Trump knows he lost. And he will leave office on January 20, 2021. But he wants to cast doubt on the election results and emerge as a martyr for his millions of supporters. Whether he goes on to become some right-wing media mogul or disappears into the pantheon of political has-beens, Trump is just trying to salve his battered ego.
But Trump’s self-soothing is dangerous for democracy, and history proves it.
In late summer 1918, generals Paul Von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff were trying to hold the German lines in France together. The United States had entered World War I in 1917, and American troops had already helped French and British…
