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Donald Trump May Be a Dangerous Buffoon, but He's No Hitler
National Review ^ | 12/11/2015 | David Harsanyi

Posted on 12/11/2015 7:56:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind

"Is this what Germany looked like in 1933?" Joe Scarborough asked on Morning Joe this week.

No. Not at all.

Though many in my family were exterminated during the Holocaust -- including one of my grandfathers, who died trying to make his way home from Mauthausen after years of forced labor -- I'm not completely offended by an occasional gratuitous Nazi analogy. But as much as I hate to intrude on our week of national indignation, Donald Trump's idiotic, undoable, and probably unconstitutional immigration proposal (if we can call it that) is not comparable to the genocide of 6 million Jews. Trump is not comparable to Adolf Hitler. The Art of the Deal is not Mein Kampf. You can save your histrionic riffs of Martin Niemoller, for now. Trump's statist suggestions and nativist populism, though often reprehensible in their own special way, are not nearly so morally corrupt as the policies of National Socialism or Stalinism or even the theocracies that litter the Middle East right now.

Unless political demonstrations have been banned and something comparable to the Reichstag fire is about to go down, Trump is not going to be Fuhrer. Marinus van der Lubbe may not have burned down the German Parliament, but Islamic terrorists actually did gun down a bunch of Americans last week. Yet storm troopers didn't smash Muslim businesses in a fury of collective punishment; a concentration camp for political opponents of Trump was not established this year; there's been no decree banning Muslims from practicing law and civil-service jobs; and there have been no prohibitions on Islamic dietary laws. Not even Trump has claimed to want to institute any of these things — and other than a few fringy Nazi types on Twitter, I've never seen anyone claim to want to institute these things. All of them, of course, would be unconstitutional.

I realize that many liberals like to portray Muslims as an oppressed class, much like the Jews of prewar Germany. But this historical fearmongering is not backed by evidence. Rarely are religious hate crimes directed at Muslims. (Over 60 percent of them are still aimed at Jews, according to government statistics.) As of now, Muslims have not lost a single right as Americans (other than the ones we all lose). Calling for an end to Muslim immigration is more comparable to the Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts (though this has nothing to do with economic protectionism) than it is to the Nuremberg Laws. Muslim Americans enjoy more individual liberty in the United States than they would in any Islamic nation.

Many Americans feel that they're under attack. Many blame all Muslims, but some won’t blame Islam at all. Both are preposterous and dangerous positions. Trump's crass populism -- the crassest -- feeds off this fear. It's an ugly overreaction to President Barack Obama’s underreaction regarding terrorism, though there is one incredibly important distinction: Both of these men have proposed actions that intrude on the Constitution this week -- with the president proposing to use an arbitrary no-fly list to take due process away from potential gun owners -- but only one will ever have been president.

Trump is never going to make a decision for the American people. Neither major party will support his run for the presidency, should he somehow win the Republican nomination, which is highly doubtful. But if you don’t buy all that and if you're truly concerned that Trump is going to turn America into the next Nazi Germany, there is an answer: You should become a vocal opponent of abusive executive power no matter who is president. That includes the one we have right now. Because it’s the precedents we set today that would make it easier for Trump to have his own Schutzstaffel.

-- David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist and the author of The People Have Spoken (and They Are Wrong): The Case Against Democracy


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: buffoon; davidharsanyi; elections; immigration; muslims; nationalreview; trump; trumpwasright
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1 posted on 12/11/2015 7:56:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/10/passionate-trump-supporter-i-believe-donald-im-telling-you-he-says-what-im-thinking-video/


2 posted on 12/11/2015 7:59:20 AM PST by ExTexasRedhead
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To: SeekAndFind

Donald Trump’s idiotic, undoable, and probably unconstitutional immigration proposal (


Can we please get through the heads of these people, IT IS NOT UNCONSTITUTIONAL TO BAN OR RESTRICT IMMIGRANTS OR OTHERS COMING TO AMERICA.

We have restricted immigration of various people from various parts of the world at times in history, and have the legal right to do so again.

There is a law already on the books which allows the president to restrict immigration or visas from certain people who can be a threat to America.

Muslims in other countries, who are not American citizens, DO NOT HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO IMMIGRATE TO AMERICA, OR TO VISIT HERE ON A STUDENT OR TOURIST VISA.

this whole issue is NOT a matter of constitutional rights. Foreigners DO NOT have American constitutional rights. It’s that simple. But people such as this writer talk as if they do.


3 posted on 12/11/2015 7:59:40 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: SeekAndFind
The old “ he's no Hitler, just a bufoon” defense - appropo for the current National Review which has gone south...left
4 posted on 12/11/2015 8:01:34 AM PST by Insigne123 (It is the soldier, not the community organizer, who gives us freedom of the press)
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To: SeekAndFind

He is neither a buffoon nor a hitler, but he does represent 50% or more of the population and much of that population is armed, dangerous and plain fed up with leftist liberal Republic hating scum.

You who hate Trump, want a war? Harm a hair on his head and you’ll have your war.


5 posted on 12/11/2015 8:04:34 AM PST by The_Republic_Of_Maine (politicians beware)
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To: SeekAndFind
Donald Trump's idiotic, undoable, and probably unconstitutional immigration proposal (if we can call it that)

No one that I'm aware of has offered any actual reasons why Trumps proposal is idiotic, undoable, or unconstitutional. Just smug and self righteous assertions from elites and statists.

6 posted on 12/11/2015 8:05:23 AM PST by ecomcon
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To: SeekAndFind

National Review
A nobody writer calling himself David Harsanyi
A headline about Trump (oh my, why is that?)

... and the liberal establishment view angle “Dangerous”, “Buffoon”, etc.

Just another ‘nothing piece’ bouncing around the Beltway Echo Chamber.


7 posted on 12/11/2015 8:05:30 AM PST by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: SeekAndFind

It is odd seeing a NR writer saying the proposal is probably unconstitutional. On the face of it it cannot be. The Constitution was not written in some 1787 UN for the world. There is also plenty of precedent for barring immigrants for any reason at all. The Constitution does not give any category of people the right to immigrate. If it did then we would have no nation from the inception.


8 posted on 12/11/2015 8:06:10 AM PST by arthurus (Het is waar. Tutti i liberali sono feccia.)
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To: SeekAndFind
The writer does not get it.

The Muslims have a book, which they worship, that instructs them to kill and destroy those who do not worship their false god, nor kneel to their book. And, on occasion, we see their adherents following their book.

The Jews had no such thing, nor did they commit such acts. Nor has any other 'religion' (other than perhaps the Thuggees of India) practiced in such a manner, nor had such practices written down in their holy books.

A better analogy would have been to ask the question if we would have allowed followers of 'Mein Kampf' to immigrate while we were at war with those who pledged allegiance to that book?

People have the freedom to believe what they want, but if their documented beliefs include the destruction of your nation you'd be insane to invite them in.

9 posted on 12/11/2015 8:09:16 AM PST by El Cid (Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house...)
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To: arthurus

National Review can I introduce you to Glenn Beck. Glenn will help you get it right.


10 posted on 12/11/2015 8:10:05 AM PST by magua
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To: Hostage
 photo Cruz-Trump--2015-12-11_zpsxoxom0ru.jpg
11 posted on 12/11/2015 8:12:18 AM PST by Patton@Bastogne
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To: SeekAndFind

And you may be a drooling half wit but as long as they keep you in that home the world is a better place.


12 posted on 12/11/2015 8:22:14 AM PST by jmaroneps37 (Conservatism is truth. Liberalism is lies.VE)
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To: SeekAndFind

When ANY politician kills 20 million people we can start with the comparisons to Hitler.


13 posted on 12/11/2015 8:32:12 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: ecomcon

Here’s why. To identify all the Muslims they are going to have to give everyone the third degree, even you if you travel out of the country. You aren’t likely to enjoy that.


14 posted on 12/11/2015 8:34:41 AM PST by Lisbon1940 (No full-term governors)
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To: SeekAndFind

The GOPe has never had the backbone to oppose anything Obama has ever done, nor ever said anything bad about him. But they sure are a ready to go after trump with everything they have.

Conservatives need to break off from the republican party and start their own. I am so sick of this s^#t

FUGOPe


15 posted on 12/11/2015 8:39:22 AM PST by Cubs Fan (Black privilege--being able to falsely yell racism and have the media fawn all over you.)
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To: SeekAndFind

the GOPe are dangerous buffons who have destoryed their party.


16 posted on 12/11/2015 8:40:55 AM PST by Cubs Fan (Black privilege--being able to falsely yell racism and have the media fawn all over you.)
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To: Lisbon1940

Just do country of origin instead. If you are a native of any majority muslims country you don’t get admittance.

Easily done.


17 posted on 12/11/2015 8:42:58 AM PST by Cubs Fan (Black privilege--being able to falsely yell racism and have the media fawn all over you.)
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To: Cubs Fan
Just do country of origin instead. If you are a native of any majority muslims country you don’t get admittance.

Easily done.

Leaving all Christians, Yazidis, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus,... living in majority Muslim countries locked out and left to their persecutors.

18 posted on 12/11/2015 9:27:56 AM PST by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)
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To: ExTexasRedhead

This has nothing to do with Trump’s electability. The GOP Wall St. oligarch lackeys are going apoplectic because they can’t rubber stamp another Step n’ Fetchit to play along with their state-fascist monopolism, loan sharking and commodity Ponzi schemes. And the Democraps are going apoplectic because they know down deep in their yarbles that Trump is not only electable but uncontrollably popular.


19 posted on 12/11/2015 9:57:25 AM PST by Yollopoliuhqui
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To: The_Reader_David
Leaving all Christians, Yazidis, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus,... living in majority Muslim countries locked out and left to their persecutors.

Right now we are getting the worst of all of it, we are getting the muslims and not the others. At least excluding based on natural origin would get rid of most muslims coming here.

If you have a better idea that will allow non muslims in and exclude muslims then great, let's hear it. But, Please be aware that most muslims will just lie and say they are nonmuslims if given a religion test.

20 posted on 12/11/2015 12:02:20 PM PST by Cubs Fan (Black privilege--being able to falsely yell racism and have the media fawn all over you.)
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