Mike Huckabee Comparison Of Donald Trump And Churchill Slammed By Internet Users

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee posted a tweet Tuesday in which he compared President Donald Trump with late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

In an earlier tweet Huckabee stated that he went to see the film “The Darkest Hour,” which talks about Churchill’s stint as prime minister of United Kingdom during the Second World War. He stated that the movie reminded of “what real leadership looked like.”

In his second tweet, he went on to state that Churchill was despised by his own party, the opposition and also the press. He said that in Donald Trump “we have a Churchill.”

According to a report by The Hill, Huckabee in the tweet also compared former U.S. President Barack Obama to Churchill’s predecessor Neville Chamberlain, who was subjected to massive criticism for agreeing to surrender Czechoslovakia to Germany, which was under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler at that time.

However, historians said that it was not right to compare Trump with Churchill though both leaders shared certain characteristics.

Dr. Susan Pedersen, a professor of British history at Colombia University, told the New York Times that it is was a true fact that Churchill made enemies before the Second World War and he was also “more self-regarding and less inclined to compromise than most successful British politicians.”

However, Pedersen termed the comparison of Churchill and Trump “ridiculous.”

Timothy Riley, director and chief curator of the National Churchill Museum, Missouri, said Churchill “was bold and passionate about his beliefs.” Trump had similar characteristics of Churchill where he was not afraid to speak his own mind and ruffle a few feathers along the way, he added.

However, Riley stated that for Churchill, “the greatest task, his ‘supreme task,’ was to bring countries together to support peace and prosperity and, during the Second World War, to defeat tyranny.”

The comparison of Trump to Churchill did not sit well with many Twitter users.

This was not the first time Huckabee made similar statements. In July 2015, with regard to the Republican Party’s stand towards Middle East, he reportedly stated, “This is not time for a Chamberlain. This is time for a Churchill. We either stand against evil or we don’t.”

Also, this was not the first time that Trump’s comparison with other world leaders drew criticism. In a NBC report in October, Trump was compared to former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

The article said Trump’s brand of conservatism was quite close to that of Reagan's. It also stated that Trump’s “active leadership style and his combination of populism with market economies” were close to Reagan’s “words and deeds.”

In a report in The Federalist, author Tom Nichols stated that the comparison between Trump and Reagan was an “insult” to the former president.