He'd led a violent (albeit somewhat pathetic, and suppressed) attempt at a coup---that's why he was in jail. Rough comparison points in recent US history would be the domestic terrorists like McVeigh and Kaczynski, I suppose.
If anything Hitler was - like some present day politicians - an absolute master at identifying frustration in various strata of society and harnessing that frustration to propel himself to power.
The race and class politics was strictly a proxy for the only thing Hitler ever really spoke about: power by all means.
I know it's often a mix of both with demagogues, but I wonder how much he saw the fight against supposed enemies (Jews, Communists, Slavs) as a virtuous and net-positive goal vs. a means to an end.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19kkox/at_th...
For example, he found himself in the National Socialist party for nearly no other reason than they welcomed him for his charisma and he saw a weak leadership he could exploit.
The exposed nationalist & socialist ideologies, economic principles & race discrimination were things he quickly pushed aside time and time again when he felt they didn't align with power gain.
Some things like socialist and economic principles were ignored more often than nationalism and race discrimination which centralised his power.
I don't think anyone could ever accuse Hitler of being an ideologue or zealot for any cause other than his personal interest.
Then again, listening to half of an audiobook on the matter isn't really the same thing as living or properly studying it, so kindly tell me what's what if you're in a better position to speculate.
It's incredible with what precision some of these sentences can be transplanted nearly a hundred years and be just as applicable. You wouldn't know if this was about the past or the present when taking that sentence out of context.