MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews equated the victory of Bernie Sanders and his supporters in the Nevada Democratic presidential primary to the Nazi victory over France in 1940. Although Matthews later apologized to Sanders, the initial claim was not only reprehensible, but shows that Matthews doesn’t really know or understand history.

In the early 1930s, the Nazis were a minority party. In fear of a takeover of the parliament by the communists, German President Paul von Hindenburg offered the chancellorship to Hitler, who represented himself as an ally of the more moderate business-oriented political parties. Hindenburg thought his group had “captured” Hitler, when it turned out the other way around, and Hitler consolidated his power by blaming all of Germany’s problems, including the burning of the Reichstag [parliament] building in 1933, first on the communists and then on the Jews… and foreign powers.

In historical terms, it’s Trump who’s analogous to Hitler and the Nazis, not Sanders. In both Germany and Italy, Hitler and Mussolini were supported by the business and industrial community, not by the left-wing radicals such as the communists. Even a number of large U.S. companies financially supported German industrial concerns long after WWII started.

The same pattern also existed in Spain and in Portugal, where right-wing, big-businesses supported the dictators Franco and Salazar. Yet, particularly in Germany and Italy, these dictators presented themselves as populists who were rescuing the middle class from the dangers of the left and from foreign domination and untoward influence. Might this sound just a little bit familiar?

So how could Chris Matthews be so incorrect? Was it merely a desire to see Bernie Sanders as Hitler…or was it something more sinister? I suspect the latter, because the Matthews quote refers to an accurate event in a totally inaccurate context and with an incorrect backstory, which is the staple of self-identified “populist” dictators and their followers.

There is a reason why the oath sworn before courts uses the phrase, “the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Too bad that certain news commentators and Trump don’t believe in the “whole truth.”