08-26-2020, 02:42 PM
(08-26-2020, 02:38 PM)Dill Wrote: No, building highways didn't make Ike a Nazi. And if Trump presents a plan for extending highways, no one is going to say "See! Just like Hitler!"
(You were complaining about "facts that aren't really relevant" earlier?)
Whether Trump's anti-democratic actions should "invite comparisons" depends on whether
1) one is concerned about the trending authoritarianism in our own government and popular support for it, and what that means for the future of US democracy, and on whether
2) one agrees contemporary social science affords analytic frameworks which allow one to accurately and profitably compare apples to apples when discussing states/leaders (thus producing knowledge more stable than "opinion"), and
3) whether any asserted points of comparison within such a framework are valid and can be empirically substantiated. (One can hardly say that denigrating the press is "not like Hitler" or any number of authoritarian dictators.) And especially
4) whether such asserted points of comparison reveal anything specific and noteworthy about Trump's politics that comparison with non-authoritarian governments would not.
You don't seem to care about 1-4.
If did you did care, "inflamatory" would not trump empirical validity.
You argue that not wanting people compared to Adolf Hitler is analogous to not caring about 1-4. This is a very poor argument.
