4 ms·

Godwin’s law is alive and in force.

archagon 2y ago
“Yes, it’s okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don’t let me stop you.” -Mike Godwin https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/20/godwins-law-trump-hitler-comparisons/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/20/godwins-l...
- daft_pink 2y ago
  Hitler killed millions of people and started numerous wars. Trump started no wars and isn’t on a campaign of mass murder. Taking basic similarities between virtually all politicians on how they lie and become popular doesn’t make Trump Hitler.
  - archagon 2y ago
    I have to wonder if responses like this are genuine. Do you really think Hitler came into power on promises of war and mass murder? Do you think that "virtually all politicians" promise things like this? "Mass deportations, detention camps, troops on the street: Trump spells out migrant plan" — https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/03/trump-mass-deportations-detention-camps-military-migrants https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/03/trum... "Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies" — https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-5134924/trump-election-2024-kamala-harris-elizabeth-cheney-threat-civil-liberties https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-5134924/trump-election-... "Trump says ‘violent day’ of policing will end crime" — https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/29/trump-violent-day-policing-crime-00181619 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/29/trump-violent-day-p... "Trump said Hitler ‘did some good things’ and wanted generals like the Nazis, former chief of staff Kelly claims" — https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-said-hitler-did-some-good-things-and-wanted-generals-like-the-nazis-former-chief-of-staff-kelly-claims https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-said-hitler-did-... Hand a charismatic egomaniac absolute power and he can accomplish some truly depraved things. Hitler wasn't a particularly special breed of monster, I'm afraid.
    - daft_pink 2y ago
      The response is genuine. I’m Jewish and I feel that comparing someone to Hitler who isn’t a genocidal dictator that started a World War normalizes extremist behavior and white washes the horrors of the Nazi regime. By comparing him to a broadly popular democratically elected American president, you are underplaying how terrible Hitler actually was. Whatever Trump is, he’s not Hitler. Just like Obama wasn’t Stalin.
      - archagon 2y ago
        What normalizes extremist behavior is ignoring it while it happens and accelerates. The hateful, extremist policies and rhetoric I linked to — only a small subset, by the way — are highly unusual in mainstream American politics. As a reminder, the man proclaimed that immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country"[1] and ran on the promise of putting swaths of them (and other undesirables) into actual concentration camps. Can you seriously not see the comparison? It's not even a dog whistle anymore. Repeating myself, Hitler did not campaign on war and genocide. (In fact, the war was propagandized in Germany as a defensive act.) But by the time a 1933 Hitler becomes a 1939 Hitler, it’s too late to do anything about it. Incidentally, here's what an actual Holocaust survivor[2] has to say on the matter: > The woman who was forced to listen daily to Adolf Hitler’s lunatic rants on the radio for seven years in the 1930s was blunt: “When I hear Trump speak, I hear Hitler again. When I see his rallies, it’s like what I saw in Nazi Germany”. [1]: https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2024/01/29/trump-knows-exactly-what-poisoning-the-blood-or-our-country-meant/ https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2024/01/29/trump-knows-exactly... [2]: https://forward.com/community/455507/100-year-old-holocaust-survivor-compares-trump-to-hitler/ https://forward.com/community/455507/100-year-old-holocaust-...

“Yes, it’s okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don’t let me stop you.” -Mike Godwin https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/20/godwins-law-trump-hitler-comparisons/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/20/godwins-l...

daft_pink 2y ago
Hitler killed millions of people and started numerous wars. Trump started no wars and isn’t on a campaign of mass murder. Taking basic similarities between virtually all politicians on how they lie and become popular doesn’t make Trump Hitler.
- archagon 2y ago
  I have to wonder if responses like this are genuine. Do you really think Hitler came into power on promises of war and mass murder? Do you think that "virtually all politicians" promise things like this? "Mass deportations, detention camps, troops on the street: Trump spells out migrant plan" — https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/03/trump-mass-deportations-detention-camps-military-migrants https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/03/trum... "Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies" — https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-5134924/trump-election-2024-kamala-harris-elizabeth-cheney-threat-civil-liberties https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-5134924/trump-election-... "Trump says ‘violent day’ of policing will end crime" — https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/29/trump-violent-day-policing-crime-00181619 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/29/trump-violent-day-p... "Trump said Hitler ‘did some good things’ and wanted generals like the Nazis, former chief of staff Kelly claims" — https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-said-hitler-did-some-good-things-and-wanted-generals-like-the-nazis-former-chief-of-staff-kelly-claims https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-said-hitler-did-... Hand a charismatic egomaniac absolute power and he can accomplish some truly depraved things. Hitler wasn't a particularly special breed of monster, I'm afraid.
  - daft_pink 2y ago
    The response is genuine. I’m Jewish and I feel that comparing someone to Hitler who isn’t a genocidal dictator that started a World War normalizes extremist behavior and white washes the horrors of the Nazi regime. By comparing him to a broadly popular democratically elected American president, you are underplaying how terrible Hitler actually was. Whatever Trump is, he’s not Hitler. Just like Obama wasn’t Stalin.
    - archagon 2y ago
      What normalizes extremist behavior is ignoring it while it happens and accelerates. The hateful, extremist policies and rhetoric I linked to — only a small subset, by the way — are highly unusual in mainstream American politics. As a reminder, the man proclaimed that immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country"[1] and ran on the promise of putting swaths of them (and other undesirables) into actual concentration camps. Can you seriously not see the comparison? It's not even a dog whistle anymore. Repeating myself, Hitler did not campaign on war and genocide. (In fact, the war was propagandized in Germany as a defensive act.) But by the time a 1933 Hitler becomes a 1939 Hitler, it’s too late to do anything about it. Incidentally, here's what an actual Holocaust survivor[2] has to say on the matter: > The woman who was forced to listen daily to Adolf Hitler’s lunatic rants on the radio for seven years in the 1930s was blunt: “When I hear Trump speak, I hear Hitler again. When I see his rallies, it’s like what I saw in Nazi Germany”. [1]: https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2024/01/29/trump-knows-exactly-what-poisoning-the-blood-or-our-country-meant/ https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2024/01/29/trump-knows-exactly... [2]: https://forward.com/community/455507/100-year-old-holocaust-survivor-compares-trump-to-hitler/ https://forward.com/community/455507/100-year-old-holocaust-...