There’s an old Internet adage called Godwin’s Law that asserts that, if an Internet discussion goes on long enough, someone will make a Hitler reference. The time constant, i.e. the “long enough” limit, seems to have been getting shorter and shorter in recent years. Trump’s election has reduced that time constant to zero.
That is to say, people are leading their discussions with Trump-Hitler comparisons. Some find the Untethered Orange Id so uniquely heinous that makes them believe Hitler comparisons are not only apt, but necessary.
There is a great danger in the dilution of powerful words and phrases. Just as, as feminists have long argued that using “rape” in any context apart from the forcible violation of women diminishes the power and horror of the word and the act, excessive “Hitler” comparisons diminish the utter monstrousness of the Third Reich, the Holocaust, the Second World War and the Nazi movement. They trivialize the 15 million exterminated by the Reich, the tens of millions of war dead, the atrocity of the Final Solution, and the horrific mindset of Aryan race purity.
I ran a diner in Brooklyn for 20 years. One of our regular customers, an older Jewish gentleman who sat on the counter for his breakfast every morning, had a serial number tattooed on his forearm. That’s something that, once seen, is hard to forget. It personalizes and reinforces all the horrors of Nazism, and cautions against trivializing them by casually bandying the words “Nazi” or “Hitler.”
Is Trump so unique as to deserve Hitler comparisons? Sure, his nationalist rhetoric is troubling in many ways, but mere nationalism doesn’t remotely approach Hitlerism. George W. Bush was routinely compared to Hitler, so much so that “Bushitler” entered the vernacular. Today? Some are looking more fondly upon Bush, with Trump as their yardstick. Moreso, Bush left the White House eight years ago, peacefully and without any legacy of actions that remotely compare to the atrocities of the Reich.
But, still…. TRUUUUUUMP!!
I get it, you can’t stand the guy, you think his election foretells the doom of the nation, you think his supporters are jackboots and brownshirts who’ll happily put brown people into concentration camps. I’m not a fan, either. I didn’t support him, I didn’t vote for him, I don’t like his signature ideas (nativism and protectionism), and I’m criticizing him whenever appropriate. Nevertheless….
Get a grip! Stop the incessant virtue-signaling. When you have a substantive beef with a Trump policy (and there’s plenty to beef about), voice it, in measured and rational tones. No one who isn’t already on your side gives a shit about the shrillness and volume of your protests. In fact, in going Peak-Godwin, over and over again, you’re simply giving everyone else reason to call you a Chicken Little and ignore you. And, in going Peak-Godwin, you dilute and diminish the atrocities of Hitler and the Third Reich, dishonor the dead, and insult the survivors and their relations.
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