"Hitler analogy is not just apt but necessary."
Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post is a left-leaning but very much Beltway consensus political columnist, which means she's a very mixed bag. Which is why her latest column is so notable.
She begins by explaining Godwin’s Law, underscoring that comparing Trump to Hitler can cause people instantly to close their minds. And then she makes clear:
Problem is, Donald Trump seems intent on making the Hitler comparison happen.
She cites the increasingly inflammatory xenophobic lies spewed by Trump and his wannabe-Goering JD Vance, accurately noting:
It is hard to recall a senator in recent memory who’s done more to endanger the lives of his own constituents than Vance has. I’m not saying he and Trump actually want to start a modern-day pogrom, but if they did, I’m not sure what they’d be doing differently.
She even debunks the right wing gaslighting that the real danger is Democratic warnings about Republican extremism:
Vance is correct that words have power. If not wielded responsibly, they can lead to political violence — which, to be clear, I wholeheartedly condemn. But one can denounce political violence and still be clear-eyed about the historical patterns that Trump evokes and, therefore, the need to defeat him soundly at the ballot box.
And she cites Mike Godwin himself, who last December explicitly stated that his law doesn't apply to Trump, because:
...he agrees the Hitler analogy is not just apt but necessary....
“Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy,” Godwin wrote in December.
And then she brings it home:
And in fact, neither Godwin nor I is anywhere close to being the first to compare Trump with 20th-century fascists. Both of us were beaten out by Vance himself, who in 2016 referred to Trump as “America’s Hitler.”
And she closes with Trump's chilling and increasingly open antisemitism, from accusing Jews of voting for the enemy, agreeing that Doug Emhoff is a "crappy Jew," and sending what was a clear signal to his most extreme supporters by putting a target on Jews' backs if he loses the election.
Not the most eloquent closing argument. But then, as Molly Ivins once quipped, it probably sounded better in the original German.
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