Politics and Religion

[Dill]

(03-02-2021, 06:25 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: When you use the words "Hitler" and "Nazi" it elicits an obvious reaction of thought of terrible acts of cruelty and violence.

If things progress to a point where an equal comparison can made, then by all means, it's worthy of discussion.  But until then, it's absolutely absurd to introduce these into political discourse.

Wes, here is what bothers me about reluctance to make historical comparisons between the U.S. and Nazi Germany.

True, sometimes people are just throwing around analogies to Hitler as a kind of name-calling.  But not always.

It bothers me a great deal that the U.S. public at large knows so little about authoritarian politics and how authoritarians come to power in democracies, as is happening now frequently around the world (Orban, Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Bolsonaro). 

So the point of "equal comparison" should not be when, if ever, the U.S. commits Nazi-scale atrocities, but long before that, when an authoritarian leader is dissing the press and all forms of authority except himself, enabled by a regime party which places his protection above the national interest, as he conflates rule of law with law and order, targets minorities, and promises to oust or replace an illegitimate government of "liberals" with real, authentic members of national community.