Posted on 06/24/2018 2:06:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
You knew it was coming. Eighteen months into the Trump administration and the president’s ostensibly serious critics have finally broken the glass on the “Trump-is-a-Nazi” line of attack.
To be certain, there were previous allusions to this from media, Democrats and “Never Trumpers” — accusations of authoritarianism meant to implicitly draw the connection between President Donald Trump and Nazi Germany. Apart from the “over-woke,” under-informed Hollywood set, however, critics largely managed to avoid making the explicit comparison.
Until now, that is, with the issue of family separations at the U.S. border dominating headlines.
But overwrought comparisons to the Nazis are both historically illiterate and an extreme strategic misstep. The president’s critics have crossed a rhetorical line from which there can be no turning back.
That the Trump administration would be compared with Nazi Germany is not surprising. Accusations of “Republicans-as-fascists” long predate this administration. A Democratic congressman accused President Ronald Reagan of “trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from ‘Mein Kampf.’ ” In more recent times, recall Keith Olbermann’s tarring of President George W. Bush as a “fascist” in an on-air segment in 2008, an appellation also bestowed upon other members of the Bush administration.
Perhaps memories of the unfair accusations of fascism experienced by her husband explain Laura Bush’s decision to break ranks and instead go with a tortuous comparison of separating families of illegal border-crossers with the internment of Japanese-American citizens, keeping with the World War II theme but without resorting to outright accusations of Nazism.
Others, however, have no such compunction. Members of Congress, former officials, reporters and TV commentators have tweeted comparisons of U.S. detention facilities to Nazi concentration camps or issued none-too-subtle invocations of gas chambers in their tweets about children being led away from their parents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Reporters have peppered administration officials with questions about their “Nazi” tactics.
On Friday, an MSNBC commentator extended the Nazi label to every Trump supporter, declaring: “If you vote for Trump then you, the voter, you, not Donald Trump, are standing at the border, like Nazis, going: ‘You here, you here.’”
Earlier, one magazine fact-checker beclowned herself by mistaking the tattoo of an ICE forensics analyst — a wounded Marine veteran and Paralympian — as a Nazi symbol.
Given that the Obama administration also housed separated children in “cages,” which merited the faintest of peeps from supplicant media, politicians and activists, this newfound outrage comes off as contrived partisanship.
Apart from the historical ignorance in comparing the mechanized genocide of 6 million people with the temporary warehousing of children in detention facilities, going full-bore with accusations of Nazism is a grave strategic error on the part of those opposing the president.
There has been escalating rhetoric from the moment Donald Trump pulled off his “upset” defeat of Hillary Clinton, rhetoric that has reached its natural conclusion that Trump must be literally Adolf Hitler. For some bizarre reason, however, Democrats decided that now — five months away from midterm elections, and in the midst of a whirlwind of other headlines — was the time to deploy their rhetorical nuclear option.
Like it or not, news cycles move at breakneck speed in the Trump era and often are determined by the president himself. Last week’s summit in North Korea? May as well have been ten years ago. So, too, will the issue of border separations fall by the wayside as a gnat-like attention span turns to some newer, trendier outrage du jour. By the time midterms roll around, this latest contretemps will be the faintest of memories. Unconvinced? Here are all the other times Trump has “finally gone too far.”
This, then, raises the question: Where do Democrats and their “Never Trump” conservative hangers-on go next, rhetorically, having spent their shot on the border issue? Anything less than full accusations of Nazism will seem tame by comparison. Now that Trump is “actually Hitler,” any compromise by Democrats will be viewed as kowtowing to fascism. Conversely, sticking with the Nazism line of attack cheapens its effect and, frankly, makes its proponents come off as a little more than unhinged, something perhaps already at play given that a Gallup poll has put Trump at his highest approval rating to date.
Is this perhaps the last, desperate gasp of the president’s critics? Do they double down and ride the Trump-as-Hitler narrative — and themselves — into the ground until November’s midterms and beyond? Undoubtedly, the president is ready to chum the waters with another carefully manufactured outrage to distract the pundit class.
Despite what should have been a slam-dunk for critics of the president, the overwrought rhetoric of Democrats may have handed the modern-day Teflon Don another victory, and harmed their longer-term prospects in the process.
No it doesn't. But the possessed leftists in the MSM are swiveling their head spewing vomit in every direction they can in an effort to find some leverage for the #resistance. We went from Russia to Trump selling out to the Norks to caging children to Melania.... in very short order.
What stuck, well - some Red Hen.
Trump has been called a Nazi since the primaries. Glenn Beck was notorious for calling Trump a Nazi and his voters Brown Shirts. It has continued with varying degrees of use since then. This latest round of Nazi alarmism is just louder than it has been for a while. It didn’t work during the primaries, it didn’t work during the election, and it didn’t work after the election. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. Liberalism is, indeed, a mental disorder.
Racist didn’t take
so let’s try Hitler
And Winston Churchill was a man with little standing in his country for many years, both before and after the Second World War. Once the peace was signed, he was summarily dismissed from his post of Prime Minister and “sent to Coventry” the British term for being put out to pasture. He was thought to be “too dangerous” to the recovery of Great Britain, yet without Churchill, the British economy floundered for years, as the British Empire (on which the sun never set) was stripped away piece by piece.
The Labour Party, led by Clement Atlee, had great sympathies for the various socialist ideologies around the world, and their imprint was left on those territories that gained their independence following the internal economic collapse of Great Britain. That was a perfect example of how NOT to proceed with economic recovery, as one by one, these former colonies took up the concept of command and control policies that effectively bottled up growth for decades, particularly in places like India and many of the newly formed African nations.
>> Once you name your enemy as Hitler, you allow yourself to do all kinds of sick, cruel things to those who disagree with you.
That is a very astute observation. They are working to desensitize their base, to better facilitate riots, acts of violence, and attempted assassinations. I hope John Q Public sees through it.
And still the lefties cannot produce one death camp created by Trump, and never will. They cannot produce one act of naked aggression executed by Trump, and they never will. The comparison is offensive to all who suffered under persecution of actual Nazis.
If Hitler had tens of thousands of thermonuclear and nuclear warheads in his arsenal (like we do), would he have engaged in peace talks with a mineral rich small country with maybe half-a-dozen warheads?
“Undoubtedly, the president is ready to chum the waters with another carefully manufactured outrage to distract the pundit class.”
hey, at least one member of the pundit class gets this ...
the left’s really big mistake is to attack Trump supporters with the same vicious, hateful ad hominem attacks because they succeed only in driving people further away rather than enticing them into their own camp ... I guess they learned nothing from the result of Hillary’s “deplorables” attack ... attacking people who you want to vote for you is a piss poor campaign strategy ...
Good point. Would Hitler have pulled out the Iran deal or just turned their land into glass and taken their oil? We all know that Trump = Hitler is the most absurd and stupid thing one can say. At first they played it with dogwhistles, hinting that he was a Nazi because he didn’t suppert black live matter. But now it’s actual no-kidding death camp comparisons. It’s over the top and I agree with the author that there is no coming back from that. If Trump = Hitler than some will feel a moral obligation to take him out. The Media has crossed a line and they are creating a dangerous situation. If the worst ever were to happen, they will swing from lamposts, I have no doubt.
Actually, Hitler is long ago, and long dead. He wreaked his havoc on millions, and he was stopped.
I doubt these people calling Trump “Hitler”, even know what the NAZI movement was all about.
Their obvious thought is, “Nazis = bad”...At least for name-calling purposes. I think they got that idea from the Conservative right, as we DO consider Hitler as “bad”.
IF they actually knew anything about Hitler - even in the most sophomoric way - they would see that the reign of Hitler parallels their own ideology a lot more closely than it does ours.
They know WE hate Hitler, so that’s the weapon they choose for the battle. And, they’re right...where they’re wrong is, we know a lot more ABOUT Hitler than they do. Many of us grew up during the early days when the USSR still existed, and we saw anti-communism films weekly at school, during the days of “Radio Free Europe”, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Many of us were first hand witnesses to life under the direct threat of nuclear destruction. We had drills at school of hiding under desks and evacuation.
It’s just a “bad word” to them, an epithet they can use against Trump, and other conservatives, because they know that we hate the word, the man, and the concept.
But, if that’s all they’ve got...we’re home free.
Who sounds like and espouses the same policies as the Socialist Workers Party??
Trump?
Hillary?
Bernie?
“Perhaps memories of the unfair accusations of fascism experienced by her husband explain Laura Bush’s...”
No.
It’s because she is an elitist, pampered, liberal idiot who has zero concern about the huge problems forced upon normal Americans by illegal immigration. Just like her amnesty pushing fool of a husband.
Bullseye. That’s exactly why they do it.
“Undoubtedly, the president is ready to chum the waters with another carefully manufactured outrage to distract the pundit class.”
This has already been accomplished by President Trump’s statement declaring illegals to be shipped back to their country of origin without a trial in the US.
I’d take Trump over Churchill any day. The latter was not a very good person.
The Nazi Party's offical name was:
The National Socialist German Workers' Party.
As Dinesh D'Souza said, left-wing all the way.
Dims have no leader, no platform, NOTHING for mid terms. They suk.
And thier whole scheme to destroy Trump is coming out.
Please let SCOTUS take away Rats Union dues this week. Please please please ....
Agreed.
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