It was clear, as soon as Donald Trump announced his rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden, that to Make America Great Again he would have a thunderclap echo from the infamous rally of American Nazis in that arena on February 20, 1939. That night, the Garden was packed with more than 20,000. A portrait of George Washington commanded the stage. American and Nazi flags and swastikas were on display. The crowd gave “sieg heils”.

The American Nazis gathered to keep America pure from alien influences, and to bring America closer to Hitler’s Germany and his vision of the world. James Wheeler-Hill, the Nazi party’s national secretary, was as clear as day: “If George Washington were alive today, he would be friends with Adolf Hitler.”

Trump wants to come home to Madison Square Garden to continue his fight for America First to purge the country of alien influences and radical left extremism.

The creators on an Academy Award-winning film of that 1939 event, A Night at the Garden, have written: “Every one of the characteristics of Donald Trump’s rallies is present in the film above: the same vicious denunciation of the press, the same appeals to patriotism and white nationalism, the same urging that the audience, the only ‘true’ Americans, need to ‘take their country back’ from a despised minority (just substitute ‘illegals’ or ‘liberals’ for ‘Jewish’ here).”

When Trump has been called out on his flirting with Nazis in America – when he said there were “good people on both sides” in the Nazi march and violence, leaving one dead, in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017; when he had dinner with white supremacists and antisemites; when he instructed the extremist Proud Boys in the middle of a presidential debate with Joe Biden in 2020 to “stand back and stand by” – he denies knowing who they are, their intent, their racism. Trump never accepts that he is complicit.

But Trump has no restraint in being antisemitic. “If I don’t win this election, the Jewish people will have a lot to do with the loss.” He has described Jews as “voting for the enemy”. In his closing arguments in the campaign, Trump has declared war on “the enemy within” that must be put down with military force.

‘Now I realise he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.’

General Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Donald Trump.

For the Jews, he makes it personal. “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”

Trump faces his full house crowd in New York not only as a former president, but as a fascist. In recent days, two military veterans, General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff in the White House, have both gone on the record on their views of Trump’s character, and why he should never be elected to returned to power.