The theory of political leadership that Donald Trump shares with Adolf Hitler

There. He came out and said it. “I alone,” averred Donald Trump in his speech Thursday night accepting the Republican nomination for president, can save America, save the world, save you.

Rarely in modern political memory has a candidate so personalized a candidacy. Certainly, no other U.S. political figure comes to mind who dared make such an exclusive claim on truth and light.  A savior complex may have befallen some of them, but who was bold enough to voice it so plainly as Trump?

That does not mean there is no historical precedent for campaigning — and ruling — on a platform of messianic certainty, though. One man who did it was Adolf Hitler.

I know: Likening any modern politician to Hitler is a dodgy errand. And while people have been making the comparison this year, it’s usually unfair and inapt. Hitler was ultimate evil. Trump is no mass murderer; Trump is no Nazi; Trump has launched no wars.

But to any serious student of Hitler’s frightening and unforeseen rise to power in Germany, the recurring echoes in Trump’s speeches, interviews and his underlying thinking have become too blatant to overlook. ...