For years, I’ve denounced the proliferation of Nazi analogies in our public discourse.
From right to left, reckless politicians and overheated pundits have invoked Hitler, the Nazis or the Holocaust in order to score rhetorical points — and historians like me have condemned them for doing so.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was wrong to call US border facilities “concentration camps,” and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was equally off base when she labeled advocates of Covid vaccines “medical brown shirts,” which references Nazi storm-trooper uniforms. Abortion is not another Holocaust.
The reason such comparisons are wrong is that they severely distort the facts, both by implicitly minimizing Nazi atrocities and wildly exaggerating the actions of whomever the current name-callers happen to be targeting.
But when a comparison is valid — when a contemporary villain does something which indeed reaches the levels of Nazi barbarism — then it needs to be acknowledged.
And that’s why this time, it’s different.
The Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel has changed everything — including aspects of our public discourse.
Continued…
Approved ~ MJM
