Democrats
DemocratsiStock

Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean compared the Republican Party to Adolf Hitler in an MSNBC interview on Thursday.

The former governor of Vermont and presidential candidate speaking on “The Beat” charged that Republicans were doing "essentially what Hitler did."

Dean claimed that the GOP had figured out how to exploit democracy to undermine America’s democratic system.

“We are watching something that we haven’t seen for a long time in this country, but it happens in many democracies, and it is the weak point of democracies when one side figures out how to use democracy to undermine democracy. So what these folks are doing, essentially, is what Hitler did,” he said, naming several European fascist regimes who came to power through elections.

Dean added, “Democracy dies because you no longer care about democracy. The Republicans have no commitment to democracy at this point.”

He then named a “very few” Republicans who according to him do care about democracy, listing vocal Trump critics Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Liz Cheney (R-WY).

“Most are running around subservient to somebody who never cared about democracy, and that’s Donald Trump,” he said. “So this next few years will determine whether the United States survives as the cradle of democracy.”

Dean went on to charge that Republicans are attacking democracy because they cannot win in a democratic system.

"My view of this is, actually, I end up being optimistic. And the reason I do is I think the Republicans have already lost this. The reason they are abandoning democracy is because they have no choice. They can’t win in a democracy. This is not going to go away. These folks will get old and die soon. Look at how old these people are that are carrying on like this for the most part.”