There is perhaps not a single trope more tired than the Left comparing Republican politicians to Adolf Hitler.
Just the latest example of this phenomenon is the New Republic, a left-wing publication, running a cover that depicts former President Donald Trump with a Hitler mustache and carries the headline, “American Fascism: What It Would Look Like.”
That cover picture was selected because “anyone transported back to 1932 Germany could very, very easily have explained away Herr Hitler’s excesses and been persuaded that his critics were going overboard.”
“But he and his people vowed all along that they would use the tools of democracy to destroy it, and it was only after he was given power that Germany saw his movement’s full face.”
“We can spend it debating whether Trump meets the nine or 17 points that define fascism. Or we can spend it saying, ‘He’s damn close enough, and we’d better fight,’” the magazine’s editor wrote.
One article highlighted in the “American Fascism” series argues that “in a second Trump term, the United States might approach a fascist form of government under the leadership of a messianic personality.” Another said that Trump’s first term in office was an “authoritarian presidency envisioned as ‘a shock to the system’ that unleashed waves of hate crimes against nonwhites and non-Christians.”
The assertion that Trump is a “fascist” has been around for nearly a decade, but the trend of comparing Republicans to Nazis has existed long before Trump.
In 2008, Madonna compared John McCain and Mike Huckabee to Adolf Hitler and Robert Mugabe. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan were likened to Nazis in 2012, while the Los Angeles Times compared Dan Quayle to Hitler’s propaganda minister in 1992. Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Barry Goldwater were all called Nazis at one point or another, while Nikki Haley was once compared to Eva Braun by the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party.
George W. Bush-era Hitler comparisons were particularly potent. George Soros said Bush promotes the “ideology of Nazi Germany,” while a bitter Al Gore echoed that sentiment. In 2014, well after Bush had left office, a middle school teacher gave an assignment where students had to fill out a Venn diagram comparing Bush and Hitler because “both men abused their powers.”
Hitler comparisons are so common that “Reductio ad Hitlerum,” a logical fallacy identified by political philosopher Leo Strauss, even has a Wikipedia page. Hitler comparisons are tempting to make because he is an average person’s epitome of pure evil and an uncreative person’s lazy, but reliable, analogy.
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There is also a stunning lack of awareness from the New Republic, and the many other left-wingers who draw Hitler comparisons, as they are often the very same people spreading pro-Hamas rhetoric. However, that doesn’t make them Hitler — it makes them stupid.
Hitler was one of the most evil men who ever lived, so comparing almost any modern political figure to him is fundamentally unserious and intellectually dishonest.