L&T Publisher Earl Watt
By this time in a presidential election, or any election for that matter, candidates need to have made their case and are now delivering their closing arguments.
While they always want to point out the flaws of the opposition, candidates also have to explain how they are the better choice.
For example, Donald Trump has proposed cuts to a variety of different taxes from taxes on tips and overtime to removing taxes on Social Security checks.
Kamala Harris has delivered her message of taxing the rich because they apparently do not pay their “fair share.”
Trump has several positions on economic issues from energy production to changing the entrenched leadership od the Federal Reserve.
When asked about her plan, Harris directs people to her website where she claims to have 80 pages of her platform.
By now voters have made up their minds about the issues, and the candidates are trying to turn out the vote and make their closing arguments.
Sunday night in Madison Square Garden, Trump’s final appeal was simple — “Kamala broke it. I will fix it.”
Harris, on the other hand is closing with “Trump is dangerous and will be another Hitler.”
This is a reminder of Godwin’s Law which states, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
In other words, at some point in a political argument someone is going to get called a Nazi.
The Nazi bandwagon was started by Jim Carville comparing Trump having a rally in MSG to the Nazi rally in the 1930s, and MSNBC dug of the old clips of the Nazis marching in with their swastikas in black and white from that era and ran it with images of Trump’s rally which was a red-white-and-blue patriotic affair.
But that is the closing argument for the Democratic nominee — “Vote for me because I called the other guy a Nazi.”
Nothing about how her border policy would be better. Nothing about how her economic policy would be better. Nothing about how she would foster peace in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
She believes one of her best attributes is “I’m not Donald Trump.”
It’s a strategy that will work with some people. I doubt it’s new to anyone, and there is another major problem when you compare someone to one of the most evil people in human history — the truth.
Adolf Hitler wanted to conquer all of Europe and maybe even beyond. He started by claiming the Sudetenland, a province of Austria-Hungary, was made up of Germans, and he wanted it back.
What nation does Trump want to occupy? What land is he trying to grab?
None.
Hitler pushed racist ideas that the Aryan race was superior.
Trump pushed that the diversity of America is superior.
Hitler built an army and invaded his neighboring countries including France, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia and Greece. He had troops fighting in Africa and on the doorstep of Moscow in Russia.
What nation has Trump threatened to invade? What sign has Trump provided to anyone that he intends to invade and occupy?
To the contrary, Trump has been an isolationist seeking to avoid military entanglements by practicing peace through strength. His goal has been to have a strong military that is never needed.
But the worst and most insulting part of comparing Trump to Hitler is how it degrades the survivors of the Holocaust.
What makes Hitler the most evil man in modern history is the fact of how he treated the Jews.
What human being round sup a group of people because of their faith and places them in concentration camps, works them to death if they are lucky enough to be able to work until starvation, and places them in crematories to be poisoned and their bodies burned?
Six million Jews were murdered by Hitler and his henchmen. And those who survived have lived with stories of human suffering the likes of which the world has never seen.
What Hitler did with his Final Solution strategy should never be compared to anyone.
Even Joseph Stalin’s atrocities, or those by Kim Jung Il, or Cambodia’s PolPot, do not compare to the horrific treatment of the Jews at the hands of Hitler.
It insults the memory of 6 million victims of a madman to call a political opponent Hitler.
There are only a few names in history that rise to the level of defining tracheary. Benedict Arnold is a synonym for traitor. While there have been other traitors throughout history, no one betrayed the cause of American liberty like Benedict Arnold.
And no one — no one — did what Hitler did. It may be for all the wrong reasons, but his name stands in a category unto itself, and it always should.
There are plenty of other attacks to make on Trump for his bloviating, even his way of poking fun at others.
But those pale in comparison to the attempted extermination of all Jewish people.
One nation denies the Holocaust took place. Iran, another state devoted to the extermination of Jews, will not accept the Holocaust as a historic fact.
Trump froze their assets. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris freed them up and delivered billions to the hostile regime.
That doesn’t make them Hitler, either. It just makes them bad at international policy.
Trump has shown himself to be a devoted American, and his opposition has used that to again make a false comparison to Hitler’s nationalist views of Germany.
Again, taking pride in the diversity of America is the antithesis of Hitler’s Aryan Race dogma.
When desperation sets in on a campaign, Hitler is all that’s left.