Basically the movie predicted Trump’s rise to power. Some present day Germans recognize him for the hateful monster he is, but many Germans are oblivious and become his brainwashed cult followers. In the movie, present day Hitler 2.0 says the very same hateful things about minorities as the original Hitler did in the 1930s. Present day Hitler 2.0 quickly gains a right-wing nationalist following and becomes a celebrity with his own TV show, because “he says what everyone is thinking” about foreigners and immigrants. It’s a comedy that imagines what it would be like if Hitler suddenly showed up in present day Germany: In 2015 it was turned into a blockbuster movie. In 2012, a German novelist wrote a bestselling book, called Look Who’s Back.
But I still go back to Germany at least once a year, to visit friends and family. And for the past six years, I’ve been living in Los Angeles. Then I lived in Pennsylvania and Florida for a couple of years. I’ve lived my entire adult life in this country, and became a US citizen. I thought the inscription on the Statue of Liberty was America’s national motto. The movies I watched as a teenager had made it seem like America is a big melting pot, where everyone is welcome.
I had no idea there was this much racial tension and xenophobia in America. The first thing I noticed, when I immigrated to the US 30 years ago, was the casual racism. Actually living in America was surprisingly different from just watching it in my favorite movies. Growing up in Germany, I thought I knew everything there is to know about America, until I moved to New York in my early 20s. MAGA believes the same thing about themselves and liberals. Nazis thought they were righteous and good, and that they were eradicating evil. They hate liberals with the same intensity, and for the same absurd reasons, as the Nazis hated the Jews. Americans underestimate just how dangerous Trump really is.