High Hitler and Drug-Addicted Trump Supporters

Business Insider recently reported on data analysis that showed that Donald Trump’s strongest support came from counties with the highest rates of overdose death rates. Check the research, here. 

Now comes this interesting connection to Nazi Germany. The connection to which I refer is the delusional role that drugs play in mass politics.
For readers who might miss the story, the New York Times has a lengthy report today on Norman Ohler’s new book, “Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany.” The book took five years to research.

Here are key quotes from the NYT article:

The most vivid portrait of abuse and withdrawal in “Blitzed” is that of Hitler, who for years was regularly injected by his personal physician with powerful opiates, like Eukodal, a brand of oxycodone once praised by William S. Burroughs as “truly awful.” For a few undoubtedly euphoric months, Hitler was also getting swabs of high-grade cocaine, a sedation and stimulation combo that Mr. Ohler likens to a “classic speedball.”

….

Red, white and blue tubes of pills, sold under the trade name Pervitin, caught the attention of a doctor at the Academy of Military Medicine in Berlin, who would oversee the logistics of ferrying millions of pills to troops. Hopped-up soldiers would sprint tirelessly through the Ardennes at the onset of war, an adrenalized performance that left Winston Churchill “dumbfounded,” as he wrote in his memoirs. A German general would later gloat that his men had stayed awake for 17 straight days.

“I think that’s an exaggeration,” Mr. Ohler said, “but meth was crucial to that campaign.”

….

“Historians have tried to explain Hitler’s tremors that started in 1945 by saying that he suffered from Parkinson’s,” Mr. Ohler said. “I wouldn’t rule it out, but there’s no proof of it. I think Hitler was suffering from cold turkey.”

Mr. Ohler believes that Hitler’s drug consumption prolonged the war, by enabling his delusions.