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.
Trump is the opposite of Hitler.
Trump is our Winston Churchill.
They have painted themselves in to a moral corner. If they do not attack us then they are by their own definition facilitating NAZI’s.
The left always goes to far over the top. Piling on 24/7 seeing who can out do the hate of the last person’s rhetoric.
They fail to see how ridiculous they are. Hard to convince people that others are immoral and bad when your own behavior is immoral and most foul.
Spot on! I’m considering a response on some of this hogwash on my Facebook page from a couple of raving libs along the lines of “Your continued insistence on substituting further examples of Godwin’s Law as a substitute for reason and logic is not improving your chances in November.”
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 their intention.
NAZI = National Socialist Workers Party
Calling republicans Nazis is like calling black people Klansmen...
It’s just F’n ignorant.
Not one person inside the Democrat Party realizes the Democrat Party is dying from its own self-destruction, with much assistance from its so called assumed loving Media.
The Mid-Term election evening will not be a successful evening for the entire Democrat Party. In fact, after all the votes are counted...the Democrat will be a badly limping political party, defeated and broken formany, many years to come.
Honestly...there is not one serious, effective, leader within the current Democrat Party that could lead this great nation and the American people of all stripes know it by a vast majority.
Remember; one of the symptoms of the debilitating insanity brought on by liberalism causes them to lose the ability to differentiate reality from fantasy. In other words: up is down, right is wrong, black is white, evil is good, hot is cold, male is female, etc. etc.
So when they chant: “Trump is Hitler”, in reality, what they’re saying is he’s Winston Churchill.
These morons need to be in padded cells, not out in public.
If Trump was Hitler, they wouldn’t be able to attack him 24/7 in the media. They couldn’t protest in the streets. They wouldn’t be able to threaten his family.
The real truth is that Communist harbor extreme prejudice against socialists, long running feud...Hitler stabbed Stalin in the back, and Stalin was only too happy to return the favor with interest.
Capitalists have, or should have, a universal hatred for Socialists and Communists.
Yup, and that is either conveniently ignored or intentionally so by the overly McEducated left and their enabling minions
Thank you!!! There is a myth being spread that liberals have been unhinged because of Pres. Trump. They were like this with EVERY GOP POTUS!!!
Comparisons to Hitler are a losing argument because it is without merit. It makes their far left base cheer, but it alienates most of the country.
If this election is a referendum on Trump as most see it - we should be in good shape because the democrats have put forth nothing. Amnesty and open borders is a loser. Impeachment is a loser. Higher taxes is a loser. The nation did not like the foreign policy of the last administration - a loser.
By any objective measure they have NOTHING to run on other than “Trump is bad” when it becomes more and more obvious each month that his policies are succeeding far better than even he expected.
One word of caution - I am almost 50 and every few years I hear about the demise of the DNC or the demise of the GOP. Politics can change in a single election cycle because it is often personality driven. Obama was a transformative figure who popped up out of nowhere on the national scene. Trump is a transformative figure who few predicted would win the nomination.
The cycle is a fickle thing FRiend
I watched ‘Darkest Hour’ the other evening and told my wife exactly that. At leaast, according to the movie, in the Darkest Hour of Britain’s existence, all the politicians were against the only one that could save them.
I think Trump would rank above Sturmmann (Lance Corporal). Try Reichsführer-SS next time. LOL
Actually they have been at it from the very start of the #resistance.
Didn't our star-crossed FBI lovers have some choice words on this subject - even before the election.
Of course any genuine constitutionalist running for the GOP slot was going to be called a Nazi.
This is a spot on piece that can be summed up in this pull quote “the overwrought rhetoric of Democrats may have handed the modern-day Teflon Don another victory, and harmed their longer-term prospects in the process.”
After this the Democrats have only “You are all F$%king Nazis and we hope MS13 kills you.” That will bring them an ass kicking of biblical proportions. Undeserving Republicans pick up 11 Senate seats and 12 House seats. Trump gets Nobel next spring and wins 42 states.
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