A HITLER MOMENT

Last November after the 2016 election many questioned those of us who drew the obvious parallels between the rise of Trumpism in America to that of Naziism in Hitler's Germany in 1933.

After hearing Trump double-down on white supremacy today as the guiding policy lynchpin he established Saturday, it's time to abandon this aversion to Godwin's law and dare to routinely refer to Hitler and Nazi Germany in rhetorical argument when it's appropriate.

It seems to be some kind of "exception that proves the rule" allowing for one bizarre corner of dialectic where ignorance of history doesn't doom one to repeat it.


Act as if Hitler and the Nazis never happened and they'll never happen again? No- it's time to treat events like they actually happened and stop whistling in the genocidal graveyard.

Let's remember that it was less than 100 years ago that privileged European white supremacists elected and politically nurtured a man and government that used xenophobia and general fear and hate-mongering to perpetrate the mass murder of millions while the rest stood back and remained silent because they benefited from that privilege.

It's time to reopen the dialogue and examine the relationship between our current political milieu and what happened less than 85 years ago.


Hint: As much as we'd like to think it's a whole new world, nothing has changed. The maxim about turning our heads in horror and simply going about our business causing us to be doomed to repeat that horror applies in all cases, not just the ones we choose to acknowledge.