‘It took the Nazis one month’: Pritzker compares Trump’s policies to 1930s Germany
Republicans condemned J.B. Pritzker’s remarks as ‘juvenile and dangerous’
Ilinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Aug. 20, 2024. Photo by Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh February 20, 2025
Illinois’ Democratic Governor, J.B. Pritzker, drew a parallel between the Nazi regime of the 1930s and the policies of the Trump administration in a speech on Wednesday warning against authoritarian tactics. His remarks sparked sharp backlash from state Republicans, who condemned them as “juvenile and dangerous.”
“The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight,” Pritzker, who is Jewish, said in his annual State of the State address. “It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.”
Pritzker said that although he does not “invoke the specter of Nazis lightly,” his deep understanding of history compels him to speak out against Trump’s actions since returning to the presidency, particularly his harsh immigration measures and mass deportation orders.
“If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this,” he told lawmakers. “It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.”
Republican lawmakers immediately criticized Pritzker’s remarks.
“To call Trump and Republicans Nazis is dangerous political grandstanding and will only incite the violence he claims to condemn,” said Adam Niemerg, a Republican member of the Illinois House of Representatives.
Pritzker, who was on the shortlist for vice president last year and hosted the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, called out GOP Holocaust analogies during his reelection bid in 2022. Darren Bailey, the Republican nominee for governor and Niemerg’s predecessor in the state legislature, came under fire for past comments comparing the death of Jews in the Holocaust to the “life that has been lost with abortion since its legalization.” Bailey doubled down on his remarks during the campaign claiming Jewish leaders “have told me that I’m right.” Pritzker highlighted the remarks in a television ad and called the “false equivalence” disqualifying.
A Pritzker spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In his Wednesday speech, the two-term Illinois Democrat, who helped create the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center before becoming governor in 2019, recounted the infamous 1978 attempt by neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, then home to one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors.
“The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika-clad young men goose-stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population — so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps,” he said. But from that dark moment came resilience. Skokie residents mobilized to ensure the Holocaust’s memory was preserved, beginning with a storefront in 1981 and growing into a major institution for Holocaust education three decades later.
“Here’s what I’ve learned,” Pritzker said. “The root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed — a seed of distrust and hate and blame.”
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