My sympathies for this group are limited. I’d have to ask, did these people say a peep about all the outrageous comparing of Bush and the Republicans to Nazis in the 8 years before Obama? If they did I apologize, but if they didn’t, I can only smirk and say “poor babies.”
I consider Nazi comparisons inherently offensive and stupid; if you aren’t talking about someone engaged in wanton genocide and true totalitarianism–as opposed to democratically passing legislation you don’t happen to like–it’s childish and obnoxious. Is it anti-semitic? Meh. It certainly cheapens real totalitarian oppression and wanton genocide, and makes the person doing it look like a teenager throwing a temper tantrum.
“But what if you truly believe the Nazi comparison is valid?” Then you are truly foolish at best.
During the Bush years a right-wing blogger had a classic quote about comparing the President to Hitler. I wish I could remember who, or what the line was. I think it’s still apt. That’s our President, not a totalitarian dictator, and it really is offensive to make such a comparison. But I just can’t get worked up by it anymore.
In the future, everyone will be Hitler for 15 minutes.
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Newt’s comments are eye-rolling comments. He’s kinda like an XY Ann Coulter: makes good points only pushes the shock value to get attention. But, you’re right, this is an over-reaction. Where were these people’s outrage when all the comparisons to fascism and hitler came from the left. Are they going to denounce Olbermann and MSNBC?
So there’s a cutoff number of people who have to die in gas chambers before you can compare them to Nazis? It’s stupid to compare them to early Nazis until they’re already past that stage?
Also, if they’re engaging in justified genocide, the Nazi comparison is also off limits?
The problem is that modern people are so asleep that very little catches their attention. Worse, they’re so philosophically screwed up that they recognize very little evil beyond Hitler. I mean, consider that Mao ran a government which killed more people than Hitler’s, and Stalin’s government killed several times as many people as Hitler’s. Neither of their names will really remind most people of evil.
Also, how close to success do people have to be before you can compare them to Nazis? Your average liberal fantasizes about killing off a few million of their political opponents; do they get off from a Nazi comparison because there’s zero chance of them ever being made dictator and getting to do it? Is it like that friend of Obama’s (I forget the name, the one from Weather Underground) — incompetence makes you innocent, regardless of what you were trying to do?
Mike: Yeah, even though that kind of hateful rhetoric was Keith Olbermann’s specialty at MSNBC, in just looking at that site I kind of get the feeling that they’ve never had much bad to say about old Keith. Although, maybe I’m wrong and they’ve condemned him, in which case I’ll apologize right now.
CTL: I don’t know of any cutoffs. I merely make the point that I find Obama-Nazi comparisons such as Gingrich’s to be obnoxious and offensive. I’m obviously not alone.
If you want to compare people to the early Nazis, that’s an intellectual discussion that should be steeped in an understanding of who and what they were. Are we talking who they were before Hitler took over the party, or after? Are we talking agenda or methods? They didn’t believe in democracy, they did believe in violence, and if you look at their party platform, you can find things in it in common in today’s Republican platform and in today’s Democrat platform, and things in it totally antithetical to both, and things completely off the RADAR (like an attack on department stores, the Nazis hated department stores, go figure).
I’m certainly with you on communism. I’ll give this group kudos on that, since they refer to the Soviet union as a “murderous totalitarian state.” Which is what they were. And they note that it’s offensive to compare President Obama’s administration to that. Which it is.
Dean may think I’m crazy. In 1998 the people of Venezuela made what is now obviously a mistake and elected Hugo Chavez. Since then, Venezuela has gotten poorer every year. Am I being paranoid to suggest that the people of the United States may have made the same mistake in 2008?
No. Is that the same thing as suggesting that Obama is a bigger enemy to the United States than the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany? Because that’s what we’re talking about.
And if the temptation is to say “well OK but he’s still a threat,” all I can say is we just got through 8 years of people trying to rationalize saying that sort of thing about George W. Bush, who was supposedly destroying America. Is “tit for tat” really a mature response?
I understand deep disagreement with the current temporary occupant of the White House. I don’t really respect over-the-top extreme comparisons. I don’t find them useful, or helpful, or really anything but corrosive and destructive.
Hey, the Nazis were very against immigration. Should we start calling the government in Arizona a Nazi government? Is that helpful somehow?
I hate Hitler comparisons. I hated them during the Bush administration, and I hate them now. When somebody breaks out Hitler, I think the person doesn’t understand the true evil that Hitler embodied or the way he ruthlessly ruled.
Additionally, it convinces me the person is an unreasoning zealot. Isn’t it enough that the guy on the other side is just mistaken? Or misguided? Or wrong? If you think he’s pure evil, too, that tells me that there’s no way to deal with you reasonably.
As far as politicians go, I prefer comparisons to comic books, literature, movies, and TV shows. They’re more culturally relevant and a hell of a lot less offensive than Hitler.
For example:
Dick Cheney can be Darth Vader, C. Montgomery Burns, or Lord Voldemort.
George W. Bush can be Jar-Jar Binks or Neville Longbottom.
Crossing the aisle:
Nancy Pelosi can be Dolores Umbridge.
David Axelrod? Mr. Smithers.
Joe Biden? Joxer (from Xena: Warrior Princess)
And so forth. It’s also much more fun than breaking out Hitler.
Should we start calling the government in Arizona a Nazi government?
I believe that’s happening already.
Over the top rhetoric doesn’t strike me as particularly contributing to intelligent conversation.
I’m not sure how relevant that is. It does, however, lead me to question how capable of intelligent conversation certain groups are.
I’m not terribly impressed.
And if the temptation is to say “well OK but he’s still a threat,” all I can say is we just got through 8 years of people trying to rationalize saying that sort of thing about George W. Bush, who was supposedly destroying America.
We got through Buchanan as well.
That one had a little bit of a hangover.
On a more serious note:
We do need to keep the memory of the Nazis alive if for no other reason than to ensure we don’t march down that road accidentally. At the height of hysteria after 9/11, I remember a poll (can’t remember which one) found that around 30 percent of Americans favored requiring Amercan Muslims to wear a distinctive symbol. That actually gave me a couple chills.
Do you really think that we’re not at the point — in terms of national discourse — where we essentially just need to hit rock bottom so we can start recovering?
Well, given that Lincoln was often depicted as a monkey in editorial cartoons I can’t really say that – in terms of national discouse – we’ve really gotten worse over the years.
Yu-Ain,
Lincoln? Jefferson was depicted in editorials as making deals with the Devil!
The only U.S. President that wasn’t frakked with in the papers was Washington. That’s it.
Coming from the Credo people, this is the ultimate in hypocrisy. Or more likely, it’s pure propaganda.
Credo funds groups like Code Pink, Media Matters, Democracy Now!, and The Ruckus Society.
Code Pink used some of the most foul Bush/Hitler posters I’ve ever seen.
http://www.credomobile.com/Mission/Nonprofit-Donations-2010.aspx
“If Bush is Hitler how come Barbara Streisand isn’t a lampshade?”
I can’t find it in google, but I remember seeing something along that line.
First of all:
I’m calling bullshit on this. Please substantiate it or withdraw it.
I’ve got to tell you: There’s NO comparison between anything that has ever happened to Muslims in the United States and the Nazi genocide campaign against the Jews, at any stage. And while Dean is right that the eliminationist aspect of the Nazi campaign against the Jews was not exactly on the ballot when Hitler was elected, and indeed was almost certainly not a realistic possibility even within his fevered brow, I wouldn’t overstate the evolutionary nature of it either, Dean. Hard antisemitism was not a “coded” part of the Nazi platform. It was quite explicit.
The particular crime of the Holocaust is not “merely” a function of institutionalized, politically-motivated mass murder by the state, though that is evil enough. Stalin killed millions of “kulaks” because they were mainly in the way, but plenty of Soviets of kulak origin could and were able to demonstrate their loyalty or otherwise leave their suspect class origins behind. The countless other victims of Stalinism were political enemies of Stalin, or merely perceived to be. The scope of their brutal fates, and the cultural silence of the West at the time and, really, since then (where is the Stalin film? It’s been over 50 years since his death), remains a stain on our civilization.
Yet having said that, the concept of the Final Solution was very different from class-based or other political hatreds that amounted to massive slaughter. The victims were classified as sub-human. The extermination of the Jews was described, both in political rhetoric and internally as the murder machine geared up, as a biological imperative. “Re-education” was not an option; the capital crime of Jewishness was a matter of “blood” and no descendant of a Jew could escape it. The only definition of success for the Final Solution, as its name implies, was the ridding of Germany, and then all of Europe and eventually the world, of every trace of Jews.
This distinction manifested itself in ways not otherwise found in other incidences of state murder, such as by Stalin and Mao. If Jews were not humans, indeed if they were threats to the survival of “superior” humanity as best exemplified by the Aryan, they were not entitled to the slightest consideration of humanity afforded even those condemned to death. Thus there was no Mengele, just to seize on a readily accessible example of this dehumanization, in the Gulags — despite the brutality of Stalin’s oppression, both officially and in its on-the-ground manifestations.
This is not merely poetry. And it is certainly not a defense, again, “mere” mass murder. But surely once an entire group of people is categorized, within a culture (all of Germany) and more intensely within a subculture (among SS members and other direct participants in genocide), something uniquely horrible is under way. While many groups, such as African slaves in North America as well as populations engaged in ethnic strife, have been rendered “subhuman” by their enemies, the Holocaust was unique by virtue of its establishment of a dehumanization policy leading to industrialized genocide by a “modern,” technologically-advanced state, much less a Western state not unfamiliar with the concepts of civil rights and the rule of law.
This is why the comparison to the Holocaust of pretty much anything else (including anything that has been experienced by the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis, but certainly any group’s treatment within the United States) is particularly invidious.
CTL: Yeah well that’s where I’m hoist with my own petard. Look at history and Kevin’s right, mudslinging and over-the-top rhetoric in past generations has been quite intense. I don’t like it, but it’s true. OTOH, from my perspective, I want this blog to *not* be part of that side of political tradition, and just because people act like this doesn’t mean I have to play along or approve. And some comparisons really are inappropriate.
Hald: That’s not the line I was thinking of, although it’s amusing. It was more along the lines of “If you aren’t advocating slaughtering millions of people and establishing a totalitarian state, then you shouldn’t be called a Nazi,” except, it was wonderfully phrased. Drat it wish I wasn’t drawing a blank.
Ron: I’m not sure who you’re arguing with. I’d like to see this survey myself. ;-)
As for the rest, it looks like you’re bringing in old discussions we’ve had, but that’s OK. You’re right that the Nazis were entirely explicit in their antisemitism, and not at all “genteel” about it. I think the only argument you and I have ever had about that is that, I’ve long felt that a too-easily-overlooked aspect of Nazism has been that, despite the fact that they were the very people the term “totalitarianism” was invented to describe, many modern people seem to have forgotten that the Nazis were totalitarians and what that meant to the average German. While Hitler certainly had his big big fans, most people who weren’t Hitler fans were not free to say so. They were terrified by a regime that could, would, and DID imprison, torture, and liquidate its political critics, including everyday ordinary people. If you didn’t like Hitler or opposed any critical part of his agenda, you had best not have said so, or at minimum have pre-loaded your critique with heaping all sorts of praise on the Nazis and Hitler first, and softened that critique with a lot of mealy-mouthing. Otherwise death (or worse) awaited. Thus holding the average German responsible for everything the Nazis did is just wrong. It would be akin to going to Cuba today and finding that, surprise surprise surprise, everyone seems to love Fidel Castro, and concluding that poor heroic Fidel’s just a victim of paranoid anti-communist propaganda.
I do also argue that sometimes we look at the Holocaust through too narrow a lens. I don’t fault Jews in particular for having a greater tendency to view that event through a narrow lens, but in general I think an obsessive focus on it as “unique” is dangerous. Although it was unique, so were several others; what happened in Cambodia was a particularly horrendous nightmare in which, essentially, an entire nation was turned into a concentration-and-liquidation camp. But in general, the tendency to find an ethnic group and liquidate it has been common. You’re right that German antisemitism involved trying to hunt down Jews anywhere and everywhere, though, and not just drive them out of Germany.
Still, to me, the defining trait of Nazism was not its antisemitism, it was their brutal, murderous totalitarianism.
Ron:
I apologize if I insulted you. That was not my intent, and I do not believe for a second that Muslims in America have faced the same persecution that Jews did under Nazi Germany.
My main point is that I think we need to be vigilant for similar attitudes in our society and not forget that certain sentiments don’t lead anywhere good.
As for my claim regarding the survey, I’ve been trying to wrack my brain about where I saw it, but I can’t recall (it was years ago). I did find these links, however:
1) A 2004 Cornell study found that about 44 percent of Americans believed Muslims’ civil liberties should be curtailed in some way. Specifically:
2) I found a 2006 Gallup poll in which 39 percent favored requiring Muslims to carry a special ID.
3) In 2006, CAIR surveyed American attitudes toward Muslims. CAIR writes:
About one-fifth of the respondents agreed that the civil liberties of Muslims should be restricted because of security reasons. Indeed, 19 percent agreed that, “Because of security needs, the civil liberties of American Muslims should be restricted.” Also, 17 percent agreed that “It’s okay to lock up Muslims, just in case they are planning terrorist acts.”
4) In this paper, a researcher found that people’s negative attitudes toward Islam tended to correlate with greater support for restrictions on Muslim Americans’ speech.
5) This Gallup article notes Americans’ attitudes toward Muslims and Arabs in the wake of 9/11 and just before. Of note here:
So far, I have to withdraw my comment about “special symbols.” Most likely, I was confusing it with the “special identification” language I have found so far. I will report back if I find more substantial corrobration for my claim.
Another nit:
In 2007, a DC-area radio host suggested tatoos or identifying marks for Muslims as satire and he received support from his audience. This may be another source of my confusion.
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