AP Textbook Chart Goes Viral After Donald Trump Compared to Hitler

A political chart in an AP American Government textbook has gone viral online. Posted in early April, the chart places various political figures on a grid to illustrate the spectrum of ideologies in a country. Critics and humorists have zeroed in on Donald Trump being positioned near Adolf Hitler on the authoritarian axis.

The chart also places other political figures across its grid. It shows Barack Obama leaning more conservative, while depicting Bernie Sanders as more centrist than anything else. This has ignited online debate about the validity of such charts and their place in high school textbooks, where students are still forming political views.

Given that most school systems, even AP courses in high schools, end up referring to textbooks over all else, it is often the case that these texts are assigned authority over real-world happenings. Critics say that placing Donald Trump next to Hitler might send the wrong message to the students who are studying the text, or prevent them from forming their own opinions, given the authority that is often assigned to the text.

Trump’s ideological similarities have been the subject of many articles. These media outlets have been decried by conservative loyalists, who have parroted Trump’s claims about the media giving him bad coverage or being politically motivated in bad faith. More recently, the United States was rife with ‘No Kings’ protests against Donald Trump, as a section of the public was displeased with his domestic and foreign policy, which were hurting the economically disenfranchised in the country, along with everyday Americans.

According to former White House chief of staff and retired Marine general John Kelly, Donald Trump has said that Hitler might have done some good. The discourse in the public space in the United States has often seen the two figures compared, especially with Donald Trump’s attacks on the media and the various policies that he has put in place that seem more aligned with his agenda than with the United States.

There have also been talks about the conservative movement and republicans distancing themselves from MAGA, which has largely become more aligned with Donald Trump than it has with the values that hold the Republican Party together. A main point of contention between the two factions came after the very public mishandling of the Epstein Files, which Trump and his allies have tried to leave behind for quite some time.