I agree that it's not helpful, but only because most people really don't understand what the real comparisons are and their meanings. The only real differences between strongmen tactics since Mussolini are the periods of history. The comparisons to Hitler can also easily be seen with Mussolini, Franco, Gaddafi, Pinochet, Berlusconi, Putin, Erdogan, Modi, Orban, and others. All practiced the same tactics within their right-wing Parties. All exhibited the same populist personalities and used fear of the "outsider" as the primary mechanism. All hit on the same conservative talking points and attacked leftists, liberals, democrats, government, academics, free press, judiciary, minorities of all types, gender equality, homosexuals, and immigrants as "threats" to nation and culture. Most used national birth rates to reverse female empowerment (abortion). All are praised for being outsiders to their political systems who proclaim themselves as their nation's saviors. Most have criminal records or are facing investigations prior to or during ascent. All admonish experts and surround themselves with inadequate lackeys who always take the fall for them. All rigged elections when they had to. And all purposefully move their democracies to ruin to suit their own personal and economic needs. The mainstreaming of far-right political forces damages democracy and strongmen always reach out to each other for legitimacy.
1) Fascist Takeover Period (Mussolini, Hitler, Franco)
2) Military Coups Period during the Cold War (Gaddafi, Pinochet, Hussein, Barre, etc.)
3) New Authoritarian Ascents (Modi, Orban, Berlusconi, Putin, Erdogan, Trump)
The story of the strongman is typically always the same and the indicators are always so obvious to people on the "outside." Mussolini wrote the playbook. He loved promoting his masculinity by posing shirtless. So does Putin. Berlusconi was constantly on his knees for Putin. Trump is a fat-ass who can't praise Putin enough, thus he provides his followers with Internet trading cards with his head pasted on top of other men's bodies. Could Trump praise any global dictator enough during his tenure? Putin is the leader of the global right-wing. Trump, like so many of the others, belittle women as a show of dominance. He has a years-long record for viciously attacking the free press unless it shines on him. He has a long-record of attacking democratic institutions, academics, professionals, experts, and judges. The Trump Organization is suspected of helping autocrats and their cronies to launder money. His appeals to white male victimhood, national victimhood, and right-wing Christian victimhood has made it so that his followers have bonded with him to such a degree that they see no, or don't care at all about, any faults. Trump, like so many behind him, has become the "man" who can get away with what his followers dream that they could do. This is why they praise him for grabbing ***** whenever he feels like it, or fools the banks, or rages against those snooty experts, and bases on those dastardly liberals who dare tell them that they have to share the country with non-white conservative Christians.
What happened on January 6 was not about America. It was about Trump, and his right-wing Party knows it. That day showed that Trump is not just a "New Authoritarian," who had spent years using strongman tactics and the prior year trying to rig the election. He has no problem with a coup either. Trump just didn't have a Pentagon backing him, despite trying to stack it all summer.
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