TDS Watch: The Nation says Trump’s UN speech was “Hitler updated for the digital age”

Look, I’ll give the columnist this much: when you put “Hitler” in the headline and mean it, nobody’s gonna accuse you of understatement. Down here on the North Shore we call that a five-alarm rhetorical nor’easter — and The Nation just rang every bell.

What was said

On Friday, Sep 25, 2026, journalist Sasha Abramsky published a column in The Nation under the headline “Trump Impersonated Hitler at the United Nations.” The piece reacts to President Trump’s Sep 22 address to the U.N. General Assembly and to the White House’s fight with CNN, MS NOW, and Politico over press credentials.

Exact words from the column:

“This was, quite simply, Hitler updated for the digital age. I challenge you to find one sentence in that monstrosity of a UN speech that the German Führer would have wanted to distance himself from.”

And the closer:

“We had a choice in 2024; as a country, we chose the fascists.”

Along the way Abramsky also labels Trump “America’s wannabe king” and folds the press-access dispute into a Nazi/Stalin media-control frame.

Sources: The Nation, Sep 25, 2026 · Alto syndication stamp (Sep 25, 2026, 9:30 AM)

Context (not spin)

Disagree with the U.N. speech? Fine. Argue the Iran lines, the ICC shots, the tone, the policy — that’s what a free press is for. Argue the First Amendment fight over White House credentials in court, which is already happening.

What that is not: a Weimar cosplay. Calling a U.N. podium performance “Hitler updated for the digital age,” then telling readers America “chose the fascists,” isn’t analysis — it’s the rhetorical equivalent of calling every Marblehead fog bank the Blitz. When every Trump speech has to be 1933, people stop hearing the real arguments. The syndrome isn’t “criticism.” It’s the inability to criticize without hauling in the worst crime in modern history as the first draft of the lede.

MOAM’s diagnosis

Severity: TERMINAL.

You can hate the speech. You can sue over press access. You can vote the other way in November. What you don’t get to do — not if you want anybody outside the choir to keep listening — is stamp “Hitler” on the headline and “fascists” on the ballot box and call it journalism. That’s not holding power to account. That’s the ward talking over the story. Save Hitler for Hitler. Save the rest for the actual case file. Marblehead didn’t send boys to Europe so cable-era columnists could use that word as a lazy synonym for “guy I don’t like.”

MOAM Out.