The only thing that would be "new" is if any of your idiotic schtick was original.
If I cared enough, I'd assume I could look back in the 2012 archives of this site and find posts of you suggesting Romney is Hitler. We saw plenty of that from dimocraps from 2000-2008 when discussing GW.
The photo I posted is incredibly accurate. Dimocraps simply assign that label to someone they don't like...without having the first fucking clue what they're even referencing.
Of course you couldn't because Romney, although no one I would remotely vote for, did not threaten to ban a Religion from entering the Country, and "register" those of that religion that are already here. The Hitler comparisons with Drumpf are dead on accurate. You're just a clueless idiot who spouts the same nonsense over and over about "Dimocraps".
History Fail Guesser. Keeps on showing his Ignorance by comparing Trump to Hitler. And by doing so he makes Hitler look better and that is antisemitism. You are outed, your constant postings about Hitler are vile and repugnant. You are what you are a holocaust gloater.
Lest we forget.
Don't let SCUM like Guesser belittle Hitler atrocities and holocaust by comparing Hitler to Trump.
Hitler was responsible for more than 50 million deaths and genocide. Guesser .You are one really fucked up person to compare Hitler to Trump. Guesser you are vile and absolutely disgusting person.
You belittle this
[h=1]Are Hitler-Trump Comparisons Fair? A Holocaust Survivor Tells His Son[/h]
MEDIA | By Itay Hod on March 20, 2016 @ 11:00 amFollow @Itayhod
Email Print
[h=3]RELATED[/h]
[h=2]Trump-Hitler Roundup: Here’s Who Compared Donald Trump to Hitler This Weekend[/h]
[h=2]Louis C.K. Slams ‘Insane Bigot’ Donald Trump: ‘The Guy Is Hitler’[/h]
[h=2]Bill Maher Compares Donald Trump to Hitler on ‘Real Time’ (Video)[/h]
TheWrap’s Itay Hod interviews his father, Zeev Hod, about his research and Trump’s rise
One of the questions I never thought I’d ask my father: Does Donald Trump truly resemble Adolf Hitler?
My dad, Zeev Hod, is not only one of the smartest people I know — he’s also had the unique experience of being both a Holocaust survivor and a history teacher who spent years educating high school students about the Third Reich.
Given that people from Louis C.K. to Bill Maher to Glenn Beck have compared Trump to Hitler, I wanted to know if my dad also believed there were similarities between Trump and the man who killed an estimated 200 members of our family — including my father’s father.
Also Read: Donald Trump Is 'Rehabilitating' Hitler's Image, David Duke Says
Was he worried? Did it bring back any memories? Did he think that Trump was in fact borrowing ideas from “Mein Kampf?”
The short answer is “yes.”
“One of the things people used to say about Hitler when he rose to power in the early 1930’s was that he was saying it like it is,” my dad told me over the phone from Tel Aviv. “They thought he was a bit of a clown, with his big speeches and over-the-top showmanship, but they also admired his ability to say what everyone thought, but didn’t dare say out loud.”
“Are you worried?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he answered. “But there is definitely room for concern.”
Also Read: Watch Donald Trump Lie About Hitler to George Stephanopoulos (Video)
I should say, my dad is not easily scared. When he was just 4, his dad — my grandfather — was taken away to one of Hitler’s labor camps, never to be seen again. He was killed at the age of 33.
The mass murder of Jews in Hungary, where my father was born, began towards the end of World War II, after the Nazi invasion in March 1944. At the time, close to 800,000 Jews were still living in Hungary. Most of them would perish.
The family story goes that on the day my grandmother and her two small children were eventually rounded up for deportation and certain death, she was saved by a soldier who took pity on her (my grandmother, I’m told, was strikingly beautiful), and shoved her and her small children behind a door. She managed to escape with the kids to a forest near a small village where for nine months, including the dead of winter, they all hid in a hole in the ground.
My dad later immigrated to Israel, where he served in the Israel Defense Forces’ most prestigious commando unit and fought in four wars.
But despite all of his hardships, he’s managed to keep a sunny disposition and an optimism that, at times, astounds me. He became a teacher of Jewish history so that his students, and the world, would never forget.
Also Read: Donald Trump Calls Hitler Comparisons 'Terrible' (Video)
Here is our conversation, translated from Hebrew.
So, how much does Donald Trump truly resemble Adolf Hitler?
There are slight similarities between the two. But there is a difference. Germany was in much worse shape economically in the ’20s and ’30s. It was still recovering from WWI, having to pay reparations to the Allies. Hitler was able to tap into the Germans’ frustration by zeroing in on an enemy, the Jews. He claimed the Jews were taking over the country, stealing high-paying jobs. He was able to galvanize the uneducated by saying that Jews had stabbed Germany in the back.
Can you give me more examples?
Sure. Now that America’s minority population is becoming a majority, Trump is able to tap into that same fear among its disenfranchised. Asking his supporters to raise their hand during his rallies while proclaiming their allegiance to him is eerily reminiscent of Hitler’s Nazi salute, which was meant to inspire loyalty and sympathy towards the regime.
Did Hitler have a lot of fights and scuffles at his rallies?
Absolutely. If anyone dared to heckle Hitler, the S.A. would beat them to a pulp. They were essentially thugs. Not that different from those we see at Trump’s rallies today.
Also Read: Trump Asks Followers to Raise Right Hands, Draws Another Hitler Comparison
What do you think of the fact that so many white supremacists support Trump? Is it because he reminds them of Hitler?
They seem to think he’s some kind of savior. He’s anti-Muslim and anti-Mexican. He’s also pro-white, at least from their point of view. They see him as an ally.
What do you make of the fact that Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, said he used to read “Mein Kampf” before going to bed?
Well, that doesn’t necessarily make someone a Hitler sympathizer. I’ve read it too, as a history teacher. But it is possible that some of Hitler’s ideas have, consciously or subconsciously, seeped into his way of thinking.
So how worried are you really?
Let me put it this way, it could deteriorate and get really ugly. But it’s still an “if.”
- See more at: https://www.thewrap.com/are-hitler-...-survivor-tells-his-son/#sthash.9y1YjeA5.dpuf
MEDIA | By Itay Hod on March 20, 2016 @ 11:00 amFollow @Itayhod
Email Print
Graphic: Eric Hernandez
[h=3]RELATED[/h]
[h=2]Trump-Hitler Roundup: Here’s Who Compared Donald Trump to Hitler This Weekend[/h]
[h=2]Louis C.K. Slams ‘Insane Bigot’ Donald Trump: ‘The Guy Is Hitler’[/h]
[h=2]Bill Maher Compares Donald Trump to Hitler on ‘Real Time’ (Video)[/h]
TheWrap’s Itay Hod interviews his father, Zeev Hod, about his research and Trump’s rise
One of the questions I never thought I’d ask my father: Does Donald Trump truly resemble Adolf Hitler?
My dad, Zeev Hod, is not only one of the smartest people I know — he’s also had the unique experience of being both a Holocaust survivor and a history teacher who spent years educating high school students about the Third Reich.
Given that people from Louis C.K. to Bill Maher to Glenn Beck have compared Trump to Hitler, I wanted to know if my dad also believed there were similarities between Trump and the man who killed an estimated 200 members of our family — including my father’s father.
Also Read: Donald Trump Is 'Rehabilitating' Hitler's Image, David Duke Says
Was he worried? Did it bring back any memories? Did he think that Trump was in fact borrowing ideas from “Mein Kampf?”
The short answer is “yes.”
“One of the things people used to say about Hitler when he rose to power in the early 1930’s was that he was saying it like it is,” my dad told me over the phone from Tel Aviv. “They thought he was a bit of a clown, with his big speeches and over-the-top showmanship, but they also admired his ability to say what everyone thought, but didn’t dare say out loud.”
“Are you worried?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he answered. “But there is definitely room for concern.”
Also Read: Watch Donald Trump Lie About Hitler to George Stephanopoulos (Video)
I should say, my dad is not easily scared. When he was just 4, his dad — my grandfather — was taken away to one of Hitler’s labor camps, never to be seen again. He was killed at the age of 33.
The mass murder of Jews in Hungary, where my father was born, began towards the end of World War II, after the Nazi invasion in March 1944. At the time, close to 800,000 Jews were still living in Hungary. Most of them would perish.
The family story goes that on the day my grandmother and her two small children were eventually rounded up for deportation and certain death, she was saved by a soldier who took pity on her (my grandmother, I’m told, was strikingly beautiful), and shoved her and her small children behind a door. She managed to escape with the kids to a forest near a small village where for nine months, including the dead of winter, they all hid in a hole in the ground.
My dad later immigrated to Israel, where he served in the Israel Defense Forces’ most prestigious commando unit and fought in four wars.
But despite all of his hardships, he’s managed to keep a sunny disposition and an optimism that, at times, astounds me. He became a teacher of Jewish history so that his students, and the world, would never forget.
Also Read: Donald Trump Calls Hitler Comparisons 'Terrible' (Video)
Here is our conversation, translated from Hebrew.
So, how much does Donald Trump truly resemble Adolf Hitler?
There are slight similarities between the two. But there is a difference. Germany was in much worse shape economically in the ’20s and ’30s. It was still recovering from WWI, having to pay reparations to the Allies. Hitler was able to tap into the Germans’ frustration by zeroing in on an enemy, the Jews. He claimed the Jews were taking over the country, stealing high-paying jobs. He was able to galvanize the uneducated by saying that Jews had stabbed Germany in the back.
Can you give me more examples?
Sure. Now that America’s minority population is becoming a majority, Trump is able to tap into that same fear among its disenfranchised. Asking his supporters to raise their hand during his rallies while proclaiming their allegiance to him is eerily reminiscent of Hitler’s Nazi salute, which was meant to inspire loyalty and sympathy towards the regime.
Did Hitler have a lot of fights and scuffles at his rallies?
Absolutely. If anyone dared to heckle Hitler, the S.A. would beat them to a pulp. They were essentially thugs. Not that different from those we see at Trump’s rallies today.
Also Read: Trump Asks Followers to Raise Right Hands, Draws Another Hitler Comparison
What do you think of the fact that so many white supremacists support Trump? Is it because he reminds them of Hitler?
They seem to think he’s some kind of savior. He’s anti-Muslim and anti-Mexican. He’s also pro-white, at least from their point of view. They see him as an ally.
What do you make of the fact that Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, said he used to read “Mein Kampf” before going to bed?
Well, that doesn’t necessarily make someone a Hitler sympathizer. I’ve read it too, as a history teacher. But it is possible that some of Hitler’s ideas have, consciously or subconsciously, seeped into his way of thinking.
So how worried are you really?
Let me put it this way, it could deteriorate and get really ugly. But it’s still an “if.”
- See more at: https://www.thewrap.com/are-hitler-...-survivor-tells-his-son/#sthash.9y1YjeA5.dpuf
Vile Guesser the voice of antisemitism
Repugnant Comparison of Trump to Hitler
Trending at the moment is the repugnant comparison of Donald Trump to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, the man most responsible for the mass murder of over 6 million Jews. This is a serious problem because it unequivocally belittles one of histories most horrific, inhumane crimes. Playing down the Holocaust, Nazism, and fascism make it much more probable that such crimes will happen again. Trumps plans, beliefs and public statements may be insolent at times, however, they don’t come close to Hitler’s.
Media, bloggers, news outlets, politicians, etc., have drawn this comparison of Trump’s statements on immigration. One article wrote, “There is a strange echo of Adolf Hitler in Donald Trump’s simplistic message that the USA will solve all its problems if it will simply get rid of the Hispanic people who have come to our country” (Teddy Altreuter). What the author failed to do was actually try to understand Trump’s message because it’s not at all what he writes. Trump hasn’t proposed that we “simply get rid of Hispanic people who have come to our country.” His message is that America can resolve the taxing issues caused by decades of a penetrable border and a shortfall to implement immigration laws by fortifying our borders as well as enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Donald Trumps focus isn’t only aimed at the “Hispanic Community,” on the contrary it’s aimed at every illegal alien, Hispanic or not.
Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate the entire Jewish population, aka “The Final Solution,” which enforced new laws to specifically target Jews. Contrary to Hitler, Donald Trump’s plan for the deportation of illegal immigrants calls for stricter implementation of laws that already exist (e.g, Immigration and Nationality Act). Attempts to associate the murder of more than 6 million Jews during the Holocaust and America’s Immigration and Nationality Act is offensive and disrespectful to those who lost their lives.
Personally, I think that the United States has failed to enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act and that Trump isn’t wrong in his beliefs. Under no circumstances should holding these beliefs make me comparable to Hitler. Whether or not you agree with Trump about deportation and enforcing the Immigration and Nationality Act, comparing him to Hitler is unacceptable and needs to stop. Equating deportation of illegal aliens who violate the law to the Holocaust is not going to cultivate an atmosphere in which rational and sensible debates can occur.
Repugnant Comparison of Trump to Hitler
Trending at the moment is the repugnant comparison of Donald Trump to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, the man most responsible for the mass murder of over 6 million Jews. This is a serious problem because it unequivocally belittles one of histories most horrific, inhumane crimes. Playing down the Holocaust, Nazism, and fascism make it much more probable that such crimes will happen again. Trumps plans, beliefs and public statements may be insolent at times, however, they don’t come close to Hitler’s.
Media, bloggers, news outlets, politicians, etc., have drawn this comparison of Trump’s statements on immigration. One article wrote, “There is a strange echo of Adolf Hitler in Donald Trump’s simplistic message that the USA will solve all its problems if it will simply get rid of the Hispanic people who have come to our country” (Teddy Altreuter). What the author failed to do was actually try to understand Trump’s message because it’s not at all what he writes. Trump hasn’t proposed that we “simply get rid of Hispanic people who have come to our country.” His message is that America can resolve the taxing issues caused by decades of a penetrable border and a shortfall to implement immigration laws by fortifying our borders as well as enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Donald Trumps focus isn’t only aimed at the “Hispanic Community,” on the contrary it’s aimed at every illegal alien, Hispanic or not.
Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate the entire Jewish population, aka “The Final Solution,” which enforced new laws to specifically target Jews. Contrary to Hitler, Donald Trump’s plan for the deportation of illegal immigrants calls for stricter implementation of laws that already exist (e.g, Immigration and Nationality Act). Attempts to associate the murder of more than 6 million Jews during the Holocaust and America’s Immigration and Nationality Act is offensive and disrespectful to those who lost their lives.
Personally, I think that the United States has failed to enforce the Immigration and Nationality Act and that Trump isn’t wrong in his beliefs. Under no circumstances should holding these beliefs make me comparable to Hitler. Whether or not you agree with Trump about deportation and enforcing the Immigration and Nationality Act, comparing him to Hitler is unacceptable and needs to stop. Equating deportation of illegal aliens who violate the law to the Holocaust is not going to cultivate an atmosphere in which rational and sensible debates can occur.
Are Hitler-Trump Comparisons Fair? A Holocaust Survivor Tells His Son
MEDIA | By Itay Hod on March 20, 2016 @ 11:00 amFollow @Itayhod
Email Print
Graphic: Eric Hernandez
RELATED
Trump-Hitler Roundup: Here’s Who Compared Donald Trump to Hitler This Weekend
Louis C.K. Slams ‘Insane Bigot’ Donald Trump: ‘The Guy Is Hitler’
Bill Maher Compares Donald Trump to Hitler on ‘Real Time’ (Video)
TheWrap’s Itay Hod interviews his father, Zeev Hod, about his research and Trump’s rise
One of the questions I never thought I’d ask my father: Does Donald Trump truly resemble Adolf Hitler?
My dad, Zeev Hod, is not only one of the smartest people I know — he’s also had the unique experience of being both a Holocaust survivor and a history teacher who spent years educating high school students about the Third Reich.
Given that people from Louis C.K. to Bill Maher to Glenn Beck have compared Trump to Hitler, I wanted to know if my dad also believed there were similarities between Trump and the man who killed an estimated 200 members of our family — including my father’s father.
Also Read: Donald Trump Is 'Rehabilitating' Hitler's Image, David Duke Says
Was he worried? Did it bring back any memories? Did he think that Trump was in fact borrowing ideas from “Mein Kampf?”
The short answer is “yes.”
“One of the things people used to say about Hitler when he rose to power in the early 1930’s was that he was saying it like it is,” my dad told me over the phone from Tel Aviv. “They thought he was a bit of a clown, with his big speeches and over-the-top showmanship, but they also admired his ability to say what everyone thought, but didn’t dare say out loud.”
“Are you worried?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he answered. “But there is definitely room for concern.”
Also Read: Watch Donald Trump Lie About Hitler to George Stephanopoulos (Video)
I should say, my dad is not easily scared. When he was just 4, his dad — my grandfather — was taken away to one of Hitler’s labor camps, never to be seen again. He was killed at the age of 33.
The mass murder of Jews in Hungary, where my father was born, began towards the end of World War II, after the Nazi invasion in March 1944. At the time, close to 800,000 Jews were still living in Hungary. Most of them would perish.
The family story goes that on the day my grandmother and her two small children were eventually rounded up for deportation and certain death, she was saved by a soldier who took pity on her (my grandmother, I’m told, was strikingly beautiful), and shoved her and her small children behind a door. She managed to escape with the kids to a forest near a small village where for nine months, including the dead of winter, they all hid in a hole in the ground.
My dad later immigrated to Israel, where he served in the Israel Defense Forces’ most prestigious commando unit and fought in four wars.
But despite all of his hardships, he’s managed to keep a sunny disposition and an optimism that, at times, astounds me. He became a teacher of Jewish history so that his students, and the world, would never forget.
Also Read: Donald Trump Calls Hitler Comparisons 'Terrible' (Video)
Here is our conversation, translated from Hebrew.
So, how much does Donald Trump truly resemble Adolf Hitler?
There are slight similarities between the two. But there is a difference. Germany was in much worse shape economically in the ’20s and ’30s. It was still recovering from WWI, having to pay reparations to the Allies. Hitler was able to tap into the Germans’ frustration by zeroing in on an enemy, the Jews. He claimed the Jews were taking over the country, stealing high-paying jobs. He was able to galvanize the uneducated by saying that Jews had stabbed Germany in the back.
Can you give me more examples?
Sure. Now that America’s minority population is becoming a majority, Trump is able to tap into that same fear among its disenfranchised. Asking his supporters to raise their hand during his rallies while proclaiming their allegiance to him is eerily reminiscent of Hitler’s Nazi salute, which was meant to inspire loyalty and sympathy towards the regime.
Did Hitler have a lot of fights and scuffles at his rallies?
Absolutely. If anyone dared to heckle Hitler, the S.A. would beat them to a pulp. They were essentially thugs. Not that different from those we see at Trump’s rallies today.
Also Read: Trump Asks Followers to Raise Right Hands, Draws Another Hitler Comparison
What do you think of the fact that so many white supremacists support Trump? Is it because he reminds them of Hitler?
They seem to think he’s some kind of savior. He’s anti-Muslim and anti-Mexican. He’s also pro-white, at least from their point of view. They see him as an ally.
What do you make of the fact that Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, said he used to read “Mein Kampf” before going to bed?
Well, that doesn’t necessarily make someone a Hitler sympathizer. I’ve read it too, as a history teacher. But it is possible that some of Hitler’s ideas have, consciously or subconsciously, seeped into his way of thinking.
So how worried are you really?
Let me put it this way, it could deteriorate and get really ugly. But it’s still an “if.”
- See more at: https://www.thewrap.com/are-hitler-...-survivor-tells-his-son/#sthash.9y1YjeA5.dpuf
Yet another sick post by one hell of a sick Guesser.
History Fail Guesser. Keeps on showing his Ignorance by comparing Trump to Hitler. And by doing so he makes Hitler look better and that is antisemitism. You are outed, your constant postings about Hitler are vile and repugnant. You are what you are a holocaust gloater.
Lest we forget.
Don't let SCUM like Guesser belittle Hitler atrocities and holocaust by comparing Hitler to Trump.
Hitler was responsible for more than 50 million deaths and genocide. Guesser .You are one really fucked up person to compare Hitler to Trump. Guesser you are vile and absolutely disgusting person.
You belittle this
Keep searching the internet for people who compare Hitler to Trump. There are over 50 million dead due to Hitler. That stat along shows the vile stupidity of you and all those you choose to post that also Fail by comparing TRUMP to Hitler.
That comparison is abhorrent.
If you even cared to click on the links you just posted you would have read "But the Trump-Hitler comparisons do seem to have reached a fever pitch this weekend, particularly among comedians."
And Proud.
That comparison is abhorrent.
If you even cared to click on the links you just posted you would have read "But the Trump-Hitler comparisons do seem to have reached a fever pitch this weekend, particularly among comedians."
Am I gonna take the word of a sick, obsessed, Anti Semitic, Islamaphobic, Brit Twit liar, or a Holocaust Survivor? Tough choice but I think I'll choose #2.
TheWrap’s Itay Hod interviews his father, Zeev Hod, about his research and Trump’s rise
One of the questions I never thought I’d ask my father: Does Donald Trump truly resemble Adolf Hitler?
My dad, Zeev Hod, is not only one of the smartest people I know — he’s also had the unique experience of being both a Holocaust survivor and a history teacher who spent years educating high school students about the Third Reich.
Given that people from Louis C.K. to Bill Maher to Glenn Beck have compared Trump to Hitler, I wanted to know if my dad also believed there were similarities between Trump and the man who killed an estimated 200 members of our family — including my father’s father.
Also Read: Donald Trump Is 'Rehabilitating' Hitler's Image, David Duke Says
Was he worried? Did it bring back any memories? Did he think that Trump was in fact borrowing ideas from “Mein Kampf?”
The short answer is “yes.”
“One of the things people used to say about Hitler when he rose to power in the early 1930’s was that he was saying it like it is,” my dad told me over the phone from Tel Aviv. “They thought he was a bit of a clown, with his big speeches and over-the-top showmanship, but they also admired his ability to say what everyone thought, but didn’t dare say out loud.”
“Are you worried?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he answered. “But there is definitely room for concern.”
There were there were between 2.7 and 3.6 million "survivors" in 1945.
There were 900,000 thousand living 1997.
Approximately 189,000 Holocaust survivors are living in Israel in 2015
You are inevitably going to have different opinions.
Recently you quoted a in law of Anne Frank's step sister Eva Schloss . She was stupid enough to compare the Trump wall to the Berlin wall. She was so stupid she did not know that Trumps wall is to keep people out and the Berlin wall was to keep people in.
You will always be able to troll the internet to find people who share your perverse, abhorrent view that Trump is like Hitler.
Lets do a internet search for Hitler comparison, Lets do things Guessers way.
Guessers LAW.
If someone compares Hitler to someone else and it is on the internet then yes it must be true that the person in question is indeed like Hitler. And ignore for the exercise Superbeets rule that any comparison requires a minimum standard of thousands of deaths and genocide.
Here we go..................
Glenn Beck, for example, is one of many who has recently compared Trump to Hitler. But as the comedian Lewis Black has pointed out, Beck himself has long suffered from “Nazi Tourette’s Syndrome.” In 2013, Tim Molloy of The Wrap observed that among the people Beck has compared to Nazis are Barack Obama, Al Gore, and two Jews—former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and an Israeli-Jewish flight attendant on American Airlines who allegedly treated Beck as a “subhuman” by being rude during a trans-Atlantic flight. Among the “Downfall” parody videos on Youtube, there needs to be one entitled, “Hitler Reacts to News That Glenn Beck Has Compared Him to an Israeli Flight Attendant.”
........................................
And Trump, it would appear, is not the only potential Nazi-style dictator still in the Republican race for the GOP presidential nomination. Cruz is a potential Hitler, too, Newsweek writer Alexander Nazaryan implied when he tweeted “Ted Cruz has a strong ground game in Iowa,” along with a photo of Nazi soldiers. (He later deleted the tweet.) Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has denounced Marco Rubio for attending a fundraiser at the home of a rich donor in Dallas who owns some paintings by Hitler, along with paintings by Churchill, Eisenhower, Monet and Renoir. In a recent anti-Trump ad, rival Republican presidential candidate John Kasich implicitly likened Trump to Hitler by quoting the words of the anti-Nazi German pastor Martin Niemoller. Yet Kasich himself has been compared to Hitler by the left for anti-union measures he promoted as governor of Ohio.
.............................................
Nor are Trump, Cruz and Rubio the first Republicans to be compared to Hitler by liberals. “Barry Goldwater’s Rise is Compared to Rise of Hitler,” announced Jet magazine on July 30, 1964. While Goldwater opposed federal civil rights laws and most New Deal/Great Society programs, he was essentially a libertarian, at the other extreme from a fascist favoring a centralized state. “Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell’s ass,” Goldwater said later of one of the leaders of the religious right. And the older Goldwater shocked many conservatives by defending gay rights.
......................................
Like Goldwater, Richard Nixon was frequently compared to Hitler—by his Democratic rival for the presidency, George McGovern, among others. Then Ronald Reagan was Hitler for a while, and, inevitably, the funny little mustache was bestowed on President George W. Bush. His father President George Herbert Walker Bush, to judge by my perfunctory research, was seldom compared to Hitler—perhaps because he was a poor public speaker, unlike Hitler and Mussolini. Instead, during his time in office the elder Bush was smeared indirectly, by conspiracy theorists attempting to link the Bush family as a whole with the Nazi regime.
...........................................
In addition to comparing mainstream conservatives and conservative populists directly to Hitler, many progressives and libertarians smear them indirectly, by comparing their followers to Hitler’s supporters. “Why are the supporters of Candidate X so similar to the jack-booted Nazis who saluted at the Nuremberg rallies?”
....................................................
This indirect version of the Hitler smear goes back to the 1950s, when émigré Marxist intellectuals of the so-called Frankfurt School, many of them refugees from Hitler, wondered why the masses of their adopted country had not yet risen up to overthrow capitalism. Their answer was that many if not most of the blue collar workers in the country that had saved them were sinister brownshirts in the making, afflicted with “authoritarian personalities.”
..................................
Around the same time, centrists like Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Peter Viereck were appalled and puzzled by the demagogic appeal of the red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy. They couldn’t understand why everybody in America didn’t join them in rallying behind Adlai Stevenson. For these centrists and liberals, the historian Richard Hofstadter supplied an explanation in his essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” More careful historians, in Hofstadter’s time and ours, have demolished his explanation of the populist movement in terms of irrational, quasi-fascist paranoia. But the phrase “the paranoid style” is endlessly recycled by lazy journalists and editorial page columnists. And the equally dubious Frankfurt School concept of the “authoritarian personality” is likewise recycled by social scientists in every election cycle. Typically the liberal academics begin by equating regular conservatism or run-of-the-mill populism with “authoritarianism” and then predictably discover—surprise!—that “authoritarianism” thus defined is found among conservatives and populists.
............................
Of course both sides can play the Hitler smear game. In October 1964, Republican Representative William Miller compared President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society reform to the Hitler regime. More recently, the conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism, which equated the entire Progressive-Liberal tradition from Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt to the present with Italian Fascism and German Nationalism, was a best-seller on the right.
......................................
That Obama is the new Hitler has been a frequent theme of conservative commentators and politicians during his two terms in office. A low point came when Mike Huckabee said that as a result of the multinational Iranian nuclear deal, President Obama “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.”
...................................
All of this bears out the “law” of the Internet age put forward by Mike Godwin, an American attorney and author, that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” But long before Godwin, the German philosopher Leo Strauss—himself a Jewish refugee from Hitler—dismissed what he called the argumentum ad Hitlerum as a cheap debating trick: “A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler.”
.....................................
As early as 1944, in his essay “What is Fascism?” George Orwell concluded: “It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless … I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.” The word “fascist” according to Orwell had been degraded “to the level of a swearword.”
..............................
