Weimar Washington

Desmond Latham
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  • HISTÓRIA
  • SEMANAL

What if history isn’t repeating—but rhyming with unsettling precision? Weimar to Washington is a gripping, narrative-driven podcast that explores the ideological, cultural, and psychological parallels between the rise of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler and the modern political movement surrounding Donald Trump. Through sharp analysis and storytelling, the series examines how extreme conservatism and Traditionalist philosophy can reshape democracies from within. From the romanticization of a lost “Golden Age” to the weaponization of race, religion, and nostalgia, this episode traces the philosophical threads connecting past and present. The show dives into the architecture of power: how figures like Benito Mussolini, Viktor Orbán, and Jair Bolsonaro crafted narratives of national rebirth—and how similar patterns echo in contemporary America. It explores the role of Traditionalism, a little-understood ideology rooted in thinkers like Julius Evola, and how it reframes modern politics as a spiritual war for civilizational survival. At its core, this is a story about belief: how myths become movements, how grievance becomes identity, and how democracy can unravel when emotion overtakes reason. This isn’t just left vs right. It’s past vs present. Myth vs reality. And the question lingers—are we watching history unfold… or repeat?

Episódios

  1. 29 DE ABR.

    Episode 2 - The Shicklegrüber Drumpf Weave all Heil the Psychotic Autocrat

    So it is to Germany, and in particular Bavaria we travel. Both Hitler and Trump’s ancestors hail from that state. However, considering his origin and his early life, it would be difficult to imagine a more unlikely figure to succeed to the mantle of Führer than Adolf Hitler, and so too, it would be difficult to imagine a more unlikely figure to succeed to the mantle of American President than Donald Trump. History works in strange ways. Hitler’s could have been lumbered with the surname Shicklegrüber — In German, Shickelgrüber means a digger of drains and Sewers. Donald Trump’s real surname is Drumpf which has a Teutonic hillbilly origin. Both Hitler and Trump emerged from the margins of the established elite, carrying the sting of the demeaned outsider. Despite his desperate efforts to project the image of a blue-blooded aristocrat, Trump is not a product of the Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment. His Germanic roots placed him outside the closed circle of America’s old money—that world of inherited wealth, equestrian estates, and mink and manure prestige. His mother Mary Anne MacLeod was a domestic worker, more about her in a moment. By invoking his Scots mother, Trump has tried to overcome this sense of alienation and by purchasing a golf course in Scotland he has tried to reinsert himself as an Anglo-Saxon. He has tried very hard to be a WASP. Like Hitler, he channeled this exclusion into a powerful, vengeful populism. By framing themselves as the champions of the real people against a corrupt and snobbish center, both men turned their status as social outsiders into a weapon. They didn't just want a seat at the table; they wanted to flip it over. This shared resentment provides the fuel for the Traditionalist fire, where the Warrior rises to strike down the very establishment that once looked down on his bloodline. Furthermore, both Hitler and Trumps’ names are a sleight of hand, a hidden trick, a false identity and the families of both men dreamed up origin myths to obscure dark little secrets. The reason why the American President’s family were called Drumpf and not Trumpf, was because that’s how people of the Palatine region of Bavarian Germany pronounced their T which sounded like a D, whereas the more metropolitan Prussian or German would say Trumpf, the backwoods Bavarian’s pronounced it Drumpf. Hitler’s paternal ancestry was one upheaval after another – the men moving from village to village, from one job to another, avoiding firm ties and following a bohemian lifestyle in relations with women. That in essence, was how Trump’s grandfather had lived his life, shuffling back and forth between continents. Hitler’s grandfather Johan George Hiedler was a wandering man, a miller from lower Austria. After an early marriage doomed by death, he hitched up with a 47 year-old peasant women from the village of Strones, Maria Anna Shicklegrüber – who already had an illegitimate son named Alois. Anna died in 1847, and Johan Hiedler vanished from record books for 30 years. Then ha reappeared in the town of Weitra in a court case and had changed the spelling of his name from Hiedler, to Hitler. The word has a sharp biting ending which is a linguistic fluke - luckily for little Adolf. Johan Hitler testified before a notary that he was the father of Alois Shiklegrüber. The priest scratched out the name Shicklegrüber and wrote Alois Hitler. Had the 84 year-old wandering miller not made his unexpected reappearance to recognize paternity of his stepson Alois – 30 years after the death of the mother – Adolf Hitler would have been called Adolf Shicklegrüber. When Hitler returned to civilian life, like many veterans, he couldn’t fit in and began to obsess about Germany’s defeat. He developed a fanatical belief that the Germany Army had not been defeated but that it had been stabbed in the back by the political class at home. And at the top of the list of those to blame, were the Jews. For Trump, it's immigrants.

    20 min

  2. 21 DE ABR.

    Episode 1 - Priests, Warriors and Merchants: Traditionalism, Hitler and Trump

    This series takes a close look at the uncanny similarity between the growth of extreme conservatism and Traditionalism in Germany leading to the installation of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler, and the rise of extreme conservatism and traditionalism in the United States of America under Donald Trump. Just a quick note of clarification. I am not suggesting that there is an exact copy of fascism under way in America. Far from it. But there is a philosophical correlation between Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, and Donald Trump’s MAGA Administration. For an excellent introduction into Traditionalism the go-to book is ”War for Eternity: The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right”, by Benjamin Teitelbaum published in 2020 which offers deep insight. Traditionalists have risen to power in United States, a movement that has completely baffled the country’s intelligentsia and they appeared both transfixed and horrified by Donald Trump’s approach to both internal power and geopolitics. Even academia is apparently unable to comprehend how quickly the political establishment has been turned inside out and the narrative has devolved in a barrage of outrage postings on social media. The core cosmology that binds the Trump and Hitler administrations is a fixation on racial identity, driven by the desire to return their people to a mythical, lost origin. It was Hitler who told his audience that he would make Germany Great Again. Trump is parroting the German with the Make America Great Again narrative, but he wasn’t the first American to use this phrase. The slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again" was famously used by Ronald Reagan in 1980. Donald Trump trademarked the version but dropped the "Let's" and turned it into the central pillar of his 2016 campaign. While Reagan built his narrative on the concept of American as an honourable partner, Trump like Hitler has built his on the concept of total power — an autocratic reading. Traditionalists claim they are restoring a lost hierarchy of Priest, Warrior, and Merchant, while the reality is they are chasing a ghost—a Bloodline Mirage constructed to justify the dismantling of the modern state. By promising a return to this mythical origin, men like Secretary of Defence/slash/war Pete Hegseth offer a sense of belonging to those who feel discarded by progress. They replace the data of the academic with the truth of the blood, turning a blurred vision of history into a sharp weapon for the future. The myth continues, it says the race lies crushed beneath an alien yoke – and in this dream – a redeemer like Arthur shall return from exile or some distant sleep and drive out the usurper to win back for the people what they lost. The powerful messiah iconoclast returneth. Every broken people conjures a redeemer. Hitler. Trump. Mussolini. Putin. Orbán. Bolsonaro. Different countries, different centuries, different languages — but the same performance. The saviour descends. He alone sees the wound. He alone can heal it. And healing, in his hands, always requires a villain. Someone to blame. Someone to burn. The outsider. The immigrant. The Jew. The intellectual. The communist. The Muslim. The Black man, the transman, the feminist. The names change. The mechanism never does. There is a reason the thin skin of democracy shreds so quickly. It happens when calculated populism meets an aggressive rhetoric that dissolves all logic. Traditionalism is a philosophical-moral system emphasizing a perennial tradition or a true religion that humanity has forgotten. It emphasizes maintaining a society within its foundational forces. Those who adhere to its principles are called Traditionalists. They are far right nationalists and can become National Socialists. Trump is a national socialist, so is Steve Bannon and Pete Hegseth. So was Adolf Hitler. Traditionalists argue that the Intellectual is a product of the "Dark Age" or Kali Yuga - the end times.

    26 min
  • 2 episódios

Sobre

What if history isn’t repeating—but rhyming with unsettling precision? Weimar to Washington is a gripping, narrative-driven podcast that explores the ideological, cultural, and psychological parallels between the rise of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler and the modern political movement surrounding Donald Trump. Through sharp analysis and storytelling, the series examines how extreme conservatism and Traditionalist philosophy can reshape democracies from within. From the romanticization of a lost “Golden Age” to the weaponization of race, religion, and nostalgia, this episode traces the philosophical threads connecting past and present. The show dives into the architecture of power: how figures like Benito Mussolini, Viktor Orbán, and Jair Bolsonaro crafted narratives of national rebirth—and how similar patterns echo in contemporary America. It explores the role of Traditionalism, a little-understood ideology rooted in thinkers like Julius Evola, and how it reframes modern politics as a spiritual war for civilizational survival. At its core, this is a story about belief: how myths become movements, how grievance becomes identity, and how democracy can unravel when emotion overtakes reason. This isn’t just left vs right. It’s past vs present. Myth vs reality. And the question lingers—are we watching history unfold… or repeat?

Informações

  • Criado por
    Desmond Latham
  • Anos de atividade
    2 mil
  • Episódios
    2
  • Classificação
    Livre
  • Copyright
    © Desmond Latham
  • Site do podcast
    Weimar Washington