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I really love the potential comparisons.

Grindelwald acted from a place of privilege in a sense. We don’t know anything about his parents but he at least had a relative who cared for him and it seems that his living-conditions were much better than Tom’s.

Both men despised muggles, but Tom’s beliefs were based on his own existential crisis and his inability to cope with his familial tragedy, while Gellert was more of a political animal and, despite his ego being an important factor, he was focused on his sociopolitical reality. Thus we have a separation between Tom’s blood-purity and Gellert’s distinction of those who could perform magic and those who didn’t -which was primarily a matter of magical abilities, rather than concerning one’s blood-status. Even in their pursue of the deathly hallows, Tom’s objective is to extinguish the threat of death, while Gellert is trying to make sure that he won’t be vulnerable in his pursue of what he perceived as the rightful place of the wizarding kind. This also extends to their death; one died trying to escape death, while the other  ‘greeted death like an old friend’.

What interests me the most, is Grindelwald’s arguments. An important difference between the two characters is that. having the witch-hunt and the oppression of the wizarding community that was taking place during the time, Grindelwald’s followers would not have been consisted merely from privileged extremists. Moral wizards who had either lost their families to muggle-extremists, or who felt threatened on a daily basis would have been taken by him and his beliefs would have made sense; especially before he started going completely overboard with the muggle-killings.