Call him a blowhard and a bully, declare him vulgar and vain, just stop the comparisons with Hitler. And Goebbels. And Nazism in general. Stop invoking the Holocaust and Nazi Germany when describing Trump’s America in 2020. Stop it. Failing to do so means you are guilty of the very crimes you accuse Trump of: immorality, spreading lies, false equivalence, and sowing division.
From CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour’s claim last week that the Nazi genocide, which kicked off with the Kristallnacht pogrom, was “an attack on fact, knowledge, history & truth,” to Joe Biden’s comparison of Trump to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, the net effect of these comparisons is to twist the story of the Nazi enterprise into one about dishonesty and not about hatred and the genocide of an entire people.
And in case I need to spell it out, that is dangerous. Far more dangerous, than, say, an offhand comment about “very fine people.” (Which, since we’re already on that topic, let’s just get out the way again for the bazillionth time by reminding the memory-challenged among you of the continuation of that quote in which Trump says, “and I’m not talking about the Neo-nazis and white supremacists because they should be condemned totally” – a nugget of context that is conveniently culled from MSM-fueled groupthink.)
Such callous weaponization of the worst atrocity in human history is criminal: at best it constitutes Holocaust revisionism and at worst, Holocaust denial.
Why are the woke masses not foaming at the mouth at such heinous comparisons? Why are the cancel-culture vultures not ripping these pundits apart?
What kind of warped moral calculus does it take for someone to compare Trump, who is recognized by the world’s singular Jewish state as the greatest friend it has ever had in the White House, to that same nation’s arch nemesis, Hitler?
In case anyone needs reminding, Trump, father to a Jewish daughter and grandfather to Jewish grandchildren, brokered the first normalization deal between Israel and Arab countries in 26 years — and followed up with two more within three weeks — recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, among a host of other pro-Israel decisions.
Yet Trump-as-Hitler is nothing new.
Louis CK charged that Trump “is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the 30s.” That was in 2016, back when a pre-scandal ridden Louis CK had an opinion that some people still cared for. Around that time, Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said Trump “reminds me of Hitler.”
American newspapers have printed images of Trump as Hitler, so too have Democratic politicians.
The Washington Post has opined it’s not wrong to compare Trump’s America to the Holocaust and the Los Angeles Times, while benevolently admitting that “Donald Trump isn’t a dictator,” nevertheless maintains Trump, in his attempts to question the 2020 elections, strikes an uncanny resemblance with the Führer.
The New York Times, never outdone, has drawn parallels between Trump and Nazi-era Germany here and here and here and here and, well, you get the idea.
It is all the more repugnant when such comparisons are made by Jews, such as the recent ad by the Jewish Democratic Council of America which juxtaposed Trump rallies alongside Nazi rallies from the 1930s.
And entirely mind-scrambling when Jewish Holocaust historians, such as Deborah Lipstadt, justifies such comparisons.
So just why do liberals think its ok to demonize and dehumanize Trump — and indeed, his supporters — to the extent of comparing him with the greatest monster who ever lived?
Insofar as the media is concerned, frankly the answer lies in the hackneyed truism: it sells papers. As CBS CEO Leo Moonves quipped prior to the 2016 election, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
The rest of the liberal chattersphere is so paralyzed by fear of four more years of Trump, that they deem anything, anything, to be kosher in the quest to unseat him.
But it never should be.
In the words of Nobel Laureate and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel, “I don’t compare anything to the Holocaust.”
And neither should we.
Follow Deborah on Twitter @danandeborah
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.