America's Hitler

Submission 7,704

Part of a series on J.D. Vance. [View Related Entries]

About

America's Hitler refers to a series of allegations that American politician J.D. Vance compared his 2024 presidential campaign running mate Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler during the lead-up to the 2016 United States presidential election. Following Vance's selection by Trump to be his Vice President nominee, the rumors about his statement comparing the former president with Hitler became a viral topic on the internet and widely covered by media outlets. In July 2024, Vance admitted calling Trump "America's Hitler," explaining he was skeptical of the politician back in 2016, telling Fox News, "President Trump was a great president and he changed my mind. I think he changed the minds of a lot of Americans."

Origin

On April 18th, 2022, @JoshforGeorgia, posted a private Facebook message exchanged between Josh McLaurin, a former roommate of the Republican Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, where Vance allegedly wrote, “We are the party of lower-education white people… Trump is the fruit of the [GOP]’s collective neglect.” Vance added Trump may be “America’s Hitler.” The tweet^[1] (seen below) has since been deleted.

X^[2] user @NoLieWithBTC tweeted about @JoshforGeorgia's post on the same day, amassing over 15,000 likes and 6,800 reposts in two years.

Spread

The alleged screenshot from a former roommate of J.D. Vance resurfaced on the same day Donald Trump announced the Ohio Senator as his Vice President nominee for the 2024 Presidential Election. Vance commented on his leaked text message to Fox News,^[3] saying he "recast himself as one of Trump’s staunchest MAGA allies over 18 months in the Senate after winning a 2022 race for an open seat in Ohio."

Jokes and memes related to J.D. Vance's "America's Hitler" quote became especially prevalent on X and Reddit used mainly as mockery against Vance and Trump. For example, on July 16th, 2024, Threads^[4] user @guy_fawkes_news posted an ironic inspirational photo quote depicting Vance saying "Trump might be America's Hitler," which received roughly 172 likes and 35 reposts in four months.

On October 1st, 2024, X^[5] user @mattxiv posted the Queen of Melrose 'My father gets a job at the palm restaurant' meme as if this was Vance's reply to a moderator on the CBS News 2024 Vice Presidential Debate that asked him about his comparison of Trump and Hitler. The tweet (seen below) amassed over 1.5 million views and 44,000 likes in a day.

On the same day, Redditor^[6] u/M1ck3yB1u posted a screenshot of Vance's face during the CBS News VP debate to the /r/PoliticalHumor subreddit, writing "The face you make when you are reminded you called Trump 'America’s Hitler.'" The post (seen below) garnered roughly 5,100 upvotes and 185 comments in a day.