When I listen to voices on the liberal left shout that President Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again movement are “just like Hitler,” I cannot help but shake my head. Not because history should never be referenced, but because the irony is staggering. The very principles many progressive leaders are pushing for America have already been tested in human history, and the results were catastrophic. Some of the most destructive leaders the world has ever known, including Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong, rose to power by promising sweeping social change, national renewal, and economic relief. They did not rise by openly threatening genocide in the beginning. They rose by selling hope, fairness, and the illusion of a better future.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and much of the modern liberal left promote similar promises: equality enforced through government control, economic redistribution, and the belief that the state can repair society if only the “right people” are placed in charge. The danger is not simply in the promises themselves, but in the historical pattern those promises often follow. Over and over again, history has shown that utopian promises, no matter how compassionate they sound, can become a gateway to dictatorship, oppression, mass murder, and even genocide.
At its core, this is not simply about political parties. It is about human nature and the repeating cycle of history. Tyrants rarely gain power by declaring evil openly. They gain power by promising rescue. They promise to punish corrupt elites. They promise to redistribute wealth. They promise to eliminate injustice. They present themselves as the only ones capable of restoring order, justice, and national pride. People who have not studied history often embrace those promises, willingly trading liberty for security and freedom for comfort.
Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Adolf Hitler did not merely advocate government programs or redistribution. They built entire systems of brutal political repression, including secret police, forced labor camps, mass purges, censorship, propaganda, and one-party rule. That is the chilling truth: the path to tyranny is rarely sudden. It is gradual. Power expands in the name of compassion, justice, and protection, but it does not stop expanding once it is obtained. Promises are made that can never truly be kept, and when those promises fail, the leaders do not surrender power. Instead, they tighten their grip.
Once government becomes too large, too centralized, and too powerful, opposition is no longer treated as disagreement. It is treated as danger. Political enemies are labeled immoral, hateful, or “enemies of the people.” Liberty does not collapse all at once. It erodes slowly, piece by piece, until people wake up one day and realize they no longer recognize their own country. That is why the warning often attributed to Thomas Jefferson still echoes as a message every generation must remember: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Freedom is never permanently secured. It must be defended, protected, and guarded, or it will be stolen under the disguise of progress.
The Bible gives an even clearer truth, one that history has proven again and again. Proverbs 29:2 (KJV) declares: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” This is not merely a spiritual statement. It is a reality written across nations and centuries. When leaders honor righteousness, justice, and truth, a nation flourishes. When wickedness takes the throne, people suffer, families weaken, and freedom fades.
That is why we must be cautious of leaders who promise sweeping solutions and radical transformation. History teaches a painful lesson: the road to oppression is often paved with promises that sounded compassionate, fair, and hopeful at the beginning. The solution is not blind loyalty to any politician. The solution is a people who know history, value liberty, defend truth, and refuse to surrender their God-given rights in exchange for temporary comfort. A nation that forgets these lessons will repeat them, and a people who refuse vigilance will eventually inherit mourning.