February 29, 2016

Donald Trump Just Compared Himself to Gandhi


After approvingly retweeting a quote from Benito Mussolini this weekend, Donald Trump on Monday invoked the words of another famous political leader in support of his campaign: Mahatma Gandhi. Trump, the GOP front-runner who has promised to build a wall to keep Mexican people out of the United States, floated the idea of a national registry for Muslim Americans, and suggested killing the families of terrorists, would seem to share little in common with the legendary anti-war activist who led India’s independence movement against British rule. Then again, both Trump and Gandhi made some pretty outlandish claims about black people.

Trump’s usage of this quote is not only strange because of the implied comparison; it’s also a misquote. Gandhi never said that. Rather, socialist leader Nicholas Klein did. 

This post has been updated to reflect that Trump misquoted Mahatma Gandhi.

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