First, the title. "Hitler was a socialist". Well, duh; the name of his party was the National Socialist Party! This is a surprise, then, that he was a socialist?
Then there's this assertion:
Before we answer that question, however, let us look at what the Left and Right in politics consist of at present. Consider this description by Edward Feser of someone who would have been an ideal Presidential candidate for the modern-day U.S. Democratic party:
Followed by a description of Hitler. In reading through the 3 paragraphs that follow, it's easy to find individual characteristics that are applicable to many Democratic politicians. It's also quite possible to pick out characteristics that apply to some Republicans as well (for example, President Bush was not exactly the ideal family man up until about the age of 40). But it's quite impossible to apply the entire description to any Presidential candidate of any party, never mind their "ideal" candidate.
So we surely do need to look at the plausibility of the "insanity" claim. Do madmen achieve popular acclaim among their own people? Do madmen inspire their countrymen to epics of self-sacrifice? Do madmen leave a mark on history unlike any other? Until Hitler came along, the answers to all these questions would surely have been "no".
Uh, what? Here's a presumption that's challengable. The author himself makes the point of the difficulty of having to prove, or disprove, that a given historical figure was mad. So I can hardly accept that "the answers to all these questions would surely have been 'no'", because I would not be able to determine the mental status of any person in the past who had inspired their populace to such measures.
At that point I pretty much lost any confidence in the author, and stopped reading.
But 'JEREMIAH WAS A BULLFROG'...