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Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is banking on retired General John Kelly, former President Trump’s chief of staff, to lend credibility to the Democrats’ desperate charge that Donald Trump is a fascist and an admirer of Adolf Hitler.

John Kelly’s Trump Derangement Syndrome has led him to make unsubstantiated accusations against Mr. Trump in the past, including his claims that the former president made disparaging remarks about the military, which have been debunked. But Kelly has crossed the line by smearing Trump as a fascist and Hitler-lover.

During on-the-record interviews with a New York Times reporter that were recorded, Mr. Kelly said that Mr. Trump “falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”  The retired general defined fascism as “a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy.”

We do not have to speculate what Donald Trump would be like if he wins the presidential election again. He has already served as president for four years and did not govern as “a far-right authoritarian” or “a dictatorial leader.” Mr. Trump did not forcibly suppress the opposition. Those are the Left’s specialties. Nor did the former president start any new wars like his Democrat and Republican predecessors had done. In fact, he was a peacemaker. The Abraham Accords come to mind.

John Kelly has disgraced his uniform by trivializing the evil fascism of the World War II-era Axis, comprised of Germany, Italy, and Japan, against which more than 400,000 brave members of the American military lost their lives fighting. Equating Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler recklessly blurs the uniquely evil depravity of the megalomaniac who was responsible for the murder of more than six million Jews and other minorities.

Mr. Kelly is repeating accusations that he has lodged against Donald Trump since he left his position at the White House. After all, this opportunist has a book to sell and wants to remain relevant somehow during the last days of this year’s presidential campaign.

Kamala Harris has tried to leverage Kelly’s accusations, saying “yes” when she was asked whether she considered Trump a “fascist,” much to the consternation of a Holocaust survivor. “I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes,” he said. “For her to accuse President Trump of being like Hitler is the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my 75 years of living in the United States.”

During his New York Times interviews, John Kelly claimed that Donald Trump lacked a fundamental understanding of basic American values. “He’s certainly the only president that has all but rejected what America is all about, and what makes America America, in terms of our Constitution, in terms of our values, the way we look at everything, to include family and government — he’s certainly the only president that I know of, certainly in my lifetime, that was like that,” Mr. Kelly said.

John Kelly is the one who has displayed a misunderstanding of American history in terms of the Constitution and American values. He praised the Confederate General Robert E. Lee as an “honorable man” who “gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country.” Not to Abraham Lincoln, of course, and the 360,222 Union soldiers who died defending their country. Kelly said that “the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”

A Civil War historian at Columbia University described John Kelly’s statement about the war as “the Jim Crow version of the causes of the Civil War. I mean, it tracks all of the major talking points of this pro-Confederate view of the Civil War.”

Mr. Kelly also has a condescending attitude toward Americans with no military background or connections. For example, during a press conference while serving in the Trump White House, he placed civilian journalists with military connections at the top of the White House press pyramid. He refused to take any questions from journalists who did not have a personal connection to a fallen soldier or who knew a Gold Star family. He then added insult to injury by condescendingly telling Americans who had not served in the military that he and his fellow service members, for whom he presumed to speak, felt sorry for them. The reason, Kelly claimed, was that these Americans (who make up most of the U.S. population) “never have experienced the wonderful joy you get in your heart when you do the kinds of things our servicemen and women do—not for any other reason than that they love this country.”

As if there are no other ways for Americans to do good works out of love of country other than solely military service!

In any event, Mr. Kelly had nothing but praise for Donald Trump when he was interviewed by NPR in 2018. Kelly called the president for whom he worked at the time “a super smart guy,” adding that “He’s very strong in terms of trade, taxes, business and he’s a quick study on everything else. He’s a pretty bright guy.”

The Kamala Harris campaign points out that Kelly’s accusations against Donald Trump are backed up by other former Trump officials. Thirteen of them wrote an open letter stating that they were “not surprised” by Kelly’s claims. “Donald Trump’s disdain for the American military and admiration for dictators like Hitler is rooted in his desire for absolute, unchecked power,” they declared. “For the good of our country, our democracy, and our Constitution, we are asking you to listen closely and carefully to General Kelly’s warning.”

These ex-staffers do not claim to have personally witnessed the comments Mr. Kelly attributed to Mr. Trump purporting to demonstrate the former president’s alleged infatuation with Adolf Hitler. But they piled on anyway.

Kelly’s recorded interviews with the New York Times and the open letter by the thirteen ex-staffers that immediately followed are reminiscent of what happened four years ago. That is when fifty-one former U.S. intelligence officers signed a letter falsely claiming that the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop scoop was Russian disinformation. This time the last-minute ploy may well not work.