Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden may or may not be correct in predicting that Joe Biden will lose the 2024 presidential election, but he’s dead wrong in prophesying that American democracy will easily survive another Trump presidency.

In his recent controversial op-ed in the Bangor Daily News, Golden not only predicted that Trump would win the upcoming election but stated that he’s “OK with that.” Doomsayers, he argued, ignore “the strength of our democracy,” which “has withstood civil war, world wars, acts of terrorism and technological and societal changes that would make the Founders’ heads spin.”

Golden concluded, in a thunderous note of optimism, that our system will be safeguarded in the wake of a Trump victory by “hundreds of millions of freedom-loving Americans who won’t let anyone take away our constitutional rights as citizens of the greatest democracy in history.”

This may be great Fourth of July rhetoric, but it’s utterly unsound historical analysis.

As a longtime student of U.S. and European history, I can honestly say that this is the first time in my nearly 77-year lifetime that I’ve feared for the survival of our democracy.

My concern, unlike Golden, is not whether we can keep anyone from taking away our constitutional rights but whether we will simply give them away because we ignore, underestimate or even embrace the threat Trump poses.

It’s important to bear in mind that the most violent and vicious authoritarian regime in modern history, Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, arose from a constitutional parliamentary democracy — the Weimar Republic — and that Hitler didn’t seize power but rather attained it through lawful means. The position of chancellor (prime minister) was constitutionally ceded to him in 1932 and 1933 by German voters devastated by massive unemployment during the Great Depression and by manipulative political leaders who thought him a crude, naïve blow-hard they could easily exploit and control.

A recently published book, “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power,” by Timothy W. Ryback, describes the months leading up to Hitler’s appointment as chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933. Ryback details the self-serving machinations and self-deluded thinking of Weimar politicians who unwittingly played a role in Hitler’s ascension to absolute power.

It didn’t take long after entering office for Hitler to completely dismantle the Weimar constitution. Within two months, he was able, thanks to a new law passed by the Reichstag (parliament), to suspend constitutional processes, abolish civil liberties, and arbitrarily kill or imprison political opponents. In its place, he instituted governance by fiat and terror. And there was no shortage of collaborators eager to assist him.

There are, of course, differences between the Weimar Republic and the United States.

Weimar had enjoyed only a brief history, lasting slightly more than 14 years, while the U.S. has had a republican form of government spanning 248 years. In the 1918-1933 period, Germans were more comfortable than Americans are with authoritarianism, having lived in a society long steeped in it. Germany’s extreme political factions resorted to violence more often than those of the U.S. with both right- and left-wing parties being supported by large armed militias. Finally, the German economy had been jolted by several shocks far more severe than America’s inflation, and many Germans craved an all-powerful leader to set things right.

Even taking into account these differences, the authoritarian parallels between Hitler and Trump, based on their words and actions, are unmistakable.

Both posed as messianic saviors promising to rid the “people” of the evil, secretive forces undermining their society (Jews and Bolsheviks in Hitler’s worldview, and immigrants, leftists and liberal elites in Trump’s). Both believed in the infallibility of their own intuitive ideas as the guiding principle for governing. Both demanded complete and unquestioning loyalty and were extremely vindictive against those who opposed or criticized them. Both glorified state-sponsored violence. Both were habitual liars, who knew that oft-repeated falsehoods were powerful tools of mass persuasion.

Finally, though both were utterly contemptuous of the rule of law, they readily exploited the vulnerabilities of their country’s legal systems to avoid accountability for their personal lawlessness. Hitler was able to convert a potential death sentence for treason into a comfortable nine-month incarceration after leading a failed insurrection against the Bavarian government in 1923. But Trump has yet to stand trial for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and has succeeded in obtaining a Supreme Court decision potentially immunizing him from prosecution.

We don’t have to wonder what Trump plans to do if he’s elected in 2024. He’s told us he will be a “dictator on day one.” He will “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” He will purge all federal employees who are not pro-Trump. We just have to ask who will go along with this.

If Golden doesn’t want to look to history, all he has to do is look around the House chamber at his Republican colleagues to figure out the answer to that question.

Elliott Epstein is a trial lawyer with Shukie & Segovias in Lewiston. His Rearview Mirror column, which has appeared in the Sun Journal for 17 years, analyzes current events in an historical context. He is also the author of “Lucifer’s Child,” a book about the notorious 1984 child murder of Angela Palmer. He may be contacted at [email protected]