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Welp, they went there. On Wednesday the Biden campaign officially compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.
The Biden-Harris campaign posted a graphic at X entitled TRUMP PARROTS HITLER, along with pictures and quotes from Der Fuehrer.
H/t: moneyforlunch.com.
The graphic sprang from a comment that Ammar Moussa, director of rapid response for Biden-Harris, made at X over the weekend:
Tonight Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy. Trump is not shying away from his plan to lock up millions of people into detention camps …
Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know that I’m no fan of Donald Trump. I have written here, and here, and here, for example, expressing my disdain for him. So when my state holds its primary in March, I will vote for whatever Republican candidate is left standing that isn’t named Trump. Even if it won’t make any difference to the outcome.
Ya gotta make a stand sometimes, right?
But to compare Trump to Hitler is, well, just stupid.
It started last Saturday when Trump addressed a crowd in New Hampshire and said this:
We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.
He added:
The head of Hungary – very tough, strong guy – Viktor Orban. He didn’t allow millions of people to invade his country.
And with that, Trump handed the Biden campaign a new line of attack on a silver platter.
Not only that, but reporters dug up a 1990 Vanity Fair article in which Ivana Trump reportedly told her divorce attorney that DJT kept a copy of Mein Kampf in a bedside cabinet. Ivana Trump is dead, so there’s no way to confirm if that account is true. But because this is Trump, reporters don’t feel they have to corroborate whatever juicy stories they can resurrect.
But Trump being Trump, he doubled down on his New Hampshire comments while denying that he ever read Mein Kampf. At a rally in Iowa on Tuesday, he said this:
It’s crazy what’s going on. They’re ruining our country. And it’s true, they’re destroying the blood of our country. That’s what they’re doing. They’re destroying our country. They don’t like it when I said that.
And I’ve never read ‘Mein Kampf.’ They said, ‘Oh Hitler said that.’ In a much different way.
If you read political commentary on the internet, you’ve encountered something called “Godwin’s Law.” It emerged in 1990 from attorney Mike Godwin, who made this cheeky observation:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
Godwin intended to use this unscientific axiom as a means of “making a catchy joke about people’s worst tendencies toward rhetorical excess,” and thereby demonstrating the ridiculousness of comparing everything to Hitler. Because implying that “everything I don’t like is literally Hitler,” in the parlance of Millennials and Gen Z, is silly.
But in a Washington Post opinion piece, Mike Godwin broke his own rule. In the article, entitled Yes, It’s Okay to Compare Trump to Hitler: Don’t Let Me Stop You,” Godwin wrote:
But when people draw parallels between Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy and Hitler’s progression from fringe figure to Great Dictator, we aren’t joking. Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy.And that’s why Godwin’s Law isn’t violated — or confirmed — by the Biden reelection campaign’s criticism of Trump’s increasingly unsubtle messaging. We had the luxury of deriving humor from Hitler and Nazi comparisons when doing so was almost always hyperbole. It’s not a luxury we can afford anymore.
Sigh. Let’s break this kerfuffle down, shall we?
It is a truism that Donald Trump says some really dumbass stuff. It’s also a truism that, despite his “Make America Great Again” refrain, Trump does not use speech to inspire. He doesn’t care about appealing to the “better angels of our nature,” as Lincoln brilliantly said.
Trump aims to gin up his ardent base, many of whom want him to be president simply to “own the libs.” So he makes incendiary comments intended to rile them up. A Trump rally is a celebration of Festivus — the constant airing of his grievances.
Trump basks in their adulation, so he gives them more of what they want. Actual expression of policy? Pffft! That’s for losers.
However, the insistence among the media and the Biden campaign that Trump would usher in a new Reich is absurd. That’s because we have the four years of a Trump presidency as a track record.
Yes, his administration was chaotic. He went through advisors like “crap through a goose,” to quote George C. Scott in the beginning monologue of the movie Patton. Moreover, many of his former advisors have refused to endorse him for 2024.
But did Donald Trump ever “root out his political opponents like vermin,” even at the height of Russiagate? No. Trump didn’t instigate a “Night of the Long Knives” redux.
Did he build detention camps to lock up his enemies? No. If anything, it’s Biden and Co. who are trying to get Trump locked up.
And rather than being a “very strong, tough guy,” like Orban, Trump bent to the will of Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci in locking up the nation over Covid, even though one of his medical advisors, Dr. Scott Atlas, adamantly opposed the measure.
As for immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country” — consider that this is from a man who twice married Eastern European immigrants. So much for the “Trump hates immigrants” canard.
By comparing Trump to Hitler, the Biden campaign is hoping voters will overlook the disaster at the border, and that they won’t figure out Biden’s end game.
Andrew Arthur, the Center for Immigration Studies’ resident fellow in law and policy, notes that the backlog of pending cases in the nation’s immigration courts has hit 3 million. Moreover, millions of illegal immigrants have been released into the country to seek asylum.
During the Trump administration, after border apprehensions hit 860,000 in 2019, the president enacted the “Remain in Mexico” policy. It successfully reduced illegal immigration.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, immediately repealed Remain in Mexico, and apprehensions of illegals soared, with an all-time record of 2.2 million in fiscal year 2022. Yet the administration is doing nothing to control it.
Arthur says there can be only one explanation: Biden is trying to break the immigration enforcement system by overwhelming it, thereby forcing mass amnesty.
And mass amnesty = new numbers on Democrat voter rolls. Of course it’s true that non-citizens cannot vote in federal elections, but they can vote in local elections if their jurisdictions approve. Blue cities would have no problem allowing it.
Andrew Arthur concludes:
One of Biden’s first acts as president was to send Congress an amnesty bill covering nearly every illegal immigrant here and opening the door for aliens deported under Trump to return …
Biden has given up on that amnesty, and if he couldn’t cajole Congress to pass it, perhaps he’s decided to break the immigration system, force members to legalize all those who have entered illegally and start from scratch.
Honestly, it’s the only explanation that makes sense.
But back to Trump.
If the Biden-Harris campaign can paint Donald Trump as the second coming of Adolf Hitler, then voters will be shamed into rejecting everything Trump accomplished previously in controlling the border. A vote for Trump becomes an endorsement of a racist bigot who would also build concentration camps for his political enemies. The choice then becomes binary — good vs. evil. Let’s also be honest: most voters don’t pay much attention until Election Day either.
Donald Trump may be the most divisive, contentious, and inflammatory president of my lifetime. In my opinion, he doesn’t belong in the White House — nor does Joe Biden, for that matter. But to compare Trump to Adolf Hitler, and thus spread fear of an American Reich, is just as outrageous as some of the comments Trump has made.
Featured image: “Donald wir folgen Dir!” by Stewart Black is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Cropped.
A Party that locks up its political opponents, takes opposition candidates off the ballot and holds “kill the Jews” rallies should be careful about calling people Nazis.
GWB says: And they could try to distance themselves from that last one. Except The Squad keeps showing up and leading the rallies.
GWB says: If anything, it’s Biden and Co. who are trying to get Trump get locked up.
Heck, they did lock up political opponents with the Jan 6 tribunals.
a man who twice married hot Eastern European immigrants
FIFY
The choice then becomes binary — good vs. evil
Yes, the propaganda is to drive their voters, who have been indoctrinated with progressivism, to vote – vehemently and blindly – for whomever their frontperson is for 2024. (I fully expect a Torricelli Gambit, btw.)
I don’t think Trump is any less acceptable of a President than most others we’ve had in 200+ years. Sure would be nice if we could give people options other than the current crop of “front runners” though. But, once again, we’ll only get decent leaders if we, the people, 1) take our responsibility as the power in this country seriously, and 2) manage to evangelize a goodly portion of the country back into Christian morals and American ideals. Only then will voting make a bit of difference.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
One correction. “Own the libs” IS a policy. A broad one, true – but it should be the one behind ANY action taken.
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