Say it with me, everyone: Do not make tortured comparisons of modern politicians to Hitler. That’s a rule that, when followed, makes the national discourse slightly less insane. Of course, it’s never followed, at least when talking about far-left attacks on Republicans, and no one draws more ire on that front than Donald Trump.
The “Biden-Harris HQ” account put out a vile graphic that sought to compare three quotes by Trump to three “quotes” by Hitler. I put quotes in parentheses because there’s a lot of paraphrasing going on.
This is not a coincidence pic.twitter.com/oaSDcb0yzs
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) December 20, 2023
I’m not going to pretend that Trump wasn’t stupid for saying some of those things. What is he doing using the term “vermin” in 2023 in a political context given how easy it is for Democrats to spin it? And the “blood of our country” line was tailormade for a Joe Biden ad next summer once the deluge begins.
With that said, saying inartful things doesn’t make someone Hitler, and the massaging going on in that graphic is ridiculous. A campaign that can’t use a direct quote to make its point but instead relies on editorializing and taking snippets out of context is a campaign that should keep its mouth shut.
Take the first quote as a perfect example. Where does Trump mention Jews? He doesn’t because he obviously was not talking about Jews. Here’s his actual quote.
“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,” he told a New Hampshire crowd
Anyone who reads that quote and thinks he’s talking about Jews is simply being laughably dishonest. Fault him for whatever else, but Trump is not antisemitic. On the contrary, he was one of the most pro-Jewish presidents in history.
Moving on, “poisoning the blood of our country” was a politically dumb thing to say, but again, when you look at Trump’s actual quote, the context doesn’t justify a comparison to Hitler.
“They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump told the crowd at a rally in New Hampshire. “That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”
Now, maybe someone will read the above statement and still find it objectionable for other reasons, but he’s not talking about an “inferior race” poisoning the literal bloodline of the country. He says exactly what he means in the very next sentence, which is that mass illegal immigration is bringing in crime.
The last comparison is the dumbest, though. Trump’s statement about the weaponization of the U.S. government for political means being more of an issue than North Korea is not only mundane, but it’s obviously correct. Claiming that saying that makes him Hitler is like claiming that because Hitler drank water, everyone who drinks water is a genocidal maniac bent on world domination. It’s dumb, pre-school-level logic.
Frankly, for whatever complaints I could levy about Trump’s sometimes self-destructive use of language, I’m more sick of Democrats being so lazy that they stoop to vile attacks like this. Trump is not Hitler, and neither is any other Republican. Making that comparison is disrespectful to the tens of millions of people murdered by the German dictator. Only Hitler is Hitler. It’s as simple as that.
Since I am not in that foul business of politics and do not care about what anyone may say about me, or how my words may be twisted and turned against their intended meaning, I am going to guess, and suggest, that if President Trump had taken an additional moment to reflect on what he really wanted to say, I believe that he might have said something similar to: “MY POLITICAL OPPONENTS, WHO ARE MY ADVERSARIES AND THE ENEMIES OF BOTH MYSELF AND OUR NATION, CAN BE FOUND ON THE LEFT, THE COMMUNISTS, SOCIALISTS, ANARCISTS, SUBVERSIVES, MEN EXACTLY LIKE JOE BIDEN AND BARACK OBAMA WHO HIDE BEHIND OTHERS, AND JUST AS DO THE FILTHY VILE VERMINE WHO HIDE IN THE SHADOWS OF OUR SOCIETY, THEY ARE POISINING THE BLOOD OF OUR COUNTRY AND ARE A FAR GREATER DANGER TO THE CONTINUED EXISTANCE OF OUR COUNTRY THAN ARE THE LEADERS OF NORTH KOREA OR RUSSIA.”