First Trump was likened to Hitler. Then he retweeted Mussolini

GlobalPost

It's been a big weekend for Trump and fascist dictators.

On Saturday, former Mexican President Felipe Calderon likened the Republican party frontrunner to Adolf Hitler — which you'd think would be the reviled dictator comparison to end all reviled dictator comparisons. 

But that Trump. He can't let anyone outperform him, even when it comes to drawing the closest possible linkage between himself and some of the most repugnant political movements in world history.

Trump outdid himself yet again, this time by unwittingly endorsing Benito Mussolini's words on Twitter.

First came Calderon. The Mexican president from 2006 to 2012 called Trump's campaign racist and said Trump was preying on people's fears and biases in much the same way as the infamous head of the Nazis.

"I think his logic of exalting white supremacy isn't even acting against immigration — Donald Trump is the descendant of migrants — it is acting and speaking against immigrants who have a different skin color than him, which is frankly racist and is a bit like the exploitation of raw nerves that Hitler did in his day," Calderon told reporters in Mexico City.

Calderon's words echoed those of his predecessor, Vicente Fox, who previously called Trump "crazy" and a "false prophet," and in a refreshingly direct turn of events, used an expletive to make his point that no, Mexico would not build that wall Trump talked about.

But with Super Tuesday on the horizon and Trump poised to claim the Republican party's nomination for president, the shameless self-promoter had to beat these Mexican leaders at their own game.

On Sunday, Trump retweeted a quote attributed to Mussolini from an account that compared the two men.

The quote — “It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep” — was initially sent by a parody Twitter account, @ilduce2016, which Gawker has owned up to creating. They came up with idea to launch an account that solely tweeted Mussolini quotes at Trump. The icon has Mussolini's face and Trump's hair. 

"We came up with the idea for that Mussolini bot under the assumption that Trump would retweet just about anything, no matter how dubious or vile the source, as long as it sounded like praise for himself," Gawker said in a post.

On Sunday, that dream came true. 

On NBC's Meet the Press show, Trump said he didn't necessarily want to be associated with fascism but that he definitely wanted "to be associated with interesting quotes."

"Mussolini was Mussolini... What difference does it make?" Trump said. "It got your attention, didn't it?"

Yes, Trump. Yes, it did.

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