Larry David Doesn't Realize That "Hitler" Has Been Running The USA Since 1932

In his satirical open letter published in the New York Times on April 21, 2025, titled “My Dinner With Adolf,” Larry David sharply criticizes Bill Maher for dining with President Donald Trump, drawing a provocative parallel by imagining himself dining with Adolf Hitler in 1939. David, a comedian known for “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” crafts a fictional narrative where he, a vocal critic of Hitler, accepts a dinner invitation and finds the dictator surprisingly “human” and “disarming,” mirroring Maher’s description of Trump as “gracious and measured” during their White House dinner on March 31, 2025. David’s piece mocks Maher’s attempt to humanize Trump, suggesting that such personal charm is irrelevant when dealing with figures capable of immense harm, as evidenced by his satirical conclusion where he gives Hitler a Nazi salute, highlighting the absurdity of overlooking dangerous ideologies for the sake of civility.

However, David’s critique appears oblivious to the broader historical context of the Imperial Presidency, a concept established by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, which has arguably rendered every U.S. president since then a “Hitler” in terms of centralized power. FDR’s presidency marked a significant expansion of executive authority, beginning with his aggressive use of executive orders to combat the Great Depression through the New Deal, setting a precedent for presidents to wield near-authoritarian control during crises. Over the past 90 years, this trend has continued, with leaders like Truman, Nixon, and Reagan further consolidating power—Truman with the Korean War, Nixon with the expansion of surveillance, and Reagan with economic deregulation—often bypassing Congress and eroding democratic checks, a pattern critics argue mirrors the autocratic tendencies David ascribes solely to Trump. By focusing on Trump’s dinner with Maher, David overlooks how the Imperial Presidency has normalized such “Hitler-like” authority across administrations, including those of presidents Maher and David might have supported, such as Obama, who expanded drone strikes and surveillance programs.

David’s satire, while biting, thus misses a deeper critique of systemic power in the U.S. presidency, instead fixating on a personal interaction that he frames as a moral failing. His letter implies that Maher’s willingness to engage with Trump is a unique capitulation, ignoring how the Imperial Presidency has long enabled presidents to act with impunity, from FDR’s internment of Japanese Americans to Bush’s PATRIOT Act and beyond. If David truly aimed to critique authoritarianism, he might have acknowledged that the “Hitler” he fears has been a structural feature of American governance for nearly a century, not a singular product of Trump’s persona. This oversight weakens his argument, as it fails to address the broader historical forces that have shaped the presidency into a role where every occupant, not just Trump, could be seen as wielding dictatorial power, rendering Maher’s dinner a symptom of a much larger, systemic issue.