I am so guilty of invoking Godwin’s Law. I just did it in yesterday’s post. A faithful and very reliable reader (MB) commented “Godwin’s Law” and those two words said it all.
Godwin’s Law States:
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1, that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Adolf Hitler or his deeds.
Reductio ad Hitlerum:
Reductio ad Hitlerum (pseudo-Latin for “reduction to Hitler”; sometimes argumentum ad Hitlerum, “argument to Hitler”, ad Nazium, “to Nazism”), or playing the Nazi card, is an attempt to invalidate someone else’s position on the basis that the same view was held by Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party, for example: “Hitler was against tobacco smoking, X is against tobacco smoking, therefore X is a Nazi”.
Who knows stuff like this? I guess MB does!
Lesson to me: I need to stop being guilty of reductio ad Hitlerum.
Use of Hitler analogy applies to Trump. With every day (hour?) he is stuck on reeling out the dictator playlist as la Twitter, etc.. Strutting around in a uniform with a military parade going by is all that is left.
I feel we are watching the dissolution of democracy in America unravel in real time. Sickened and it is all I can do not to lock the doors, close the blinds, and crawl into bed in a fetal position. But I know I am not alone. This is a consolation.
But if Congress is not turned Blue in November, I cannot guarantee I won’t.
My overwhelming wish is to see Trump in handcuffs and put in a damp, cold concrete cell for life. Then, go for Pense…
Agree with every word. The stunning thing to me is: GOP in Congress know this too, they just don’t have the guts to act. That’s the staggering part. We have a dilettante government in the executive and legislative branches and we’re being robbed. And we’re letting it happen.
I believe the Repub congress is as culpable (with collusion) as Trump OR they are being threatened, bribed or blackmailed by him.
I find you not guilty. I think the ones that are feeling the powerful guilt are those directly in the environment to do the most to neutralize “the boy would be King”. If there was a text book example in history to warn and propel legislators and judges to take remedial action against a tyrannical megalomaniac that is inflicting concentrated damage beyond the usual pace of ineptitude, this is it. We can only hope this joker does not surpass the evil that was inflicted by Hitler and that he will be only be remembered as a wannabe, one that hadn’t the ability or was prevented to become the man that redefined the personality reference in Godwin’s Law.
Trump, IMHO, is only a dictator because he doesn’t like being told “NO” — or made fun of — so he lashes out from the revenge/vengeance default position he seems to have had all his psychopathic life.
He is not smart enough to have a plan other than a reactive one. He is also so predictable that anyone can flatter him & then pull his strings. He continues to be (unconsciously) a useful instrument for evil-minded factions like Putin (who is still smarting from losing the Cold War) pushing America into a bloody civil war, destroying itself so he doesn’t have to fire a shot.
I was raised in Orange County, So. Calif. and know first hand how right-wing/Christianist ideology can turn a society — already packed with ignorant, malleable minds — into a mob. Putin is half way there. One outside (real or orchestrated) terrorist attack like 9/11 and Marshall Law will be enacted and any civil liberties we have left are toast.
Carpe diem.
Now that’s a dark picture, Barbara. We’ll have to erase our blogs lest we be arrested for working against the government. Good thing we all have guns, right? Oops, I don’t have one.
Sorry. I’m Swedish. But the good thing to come out of Trump is a possible realization by non-voting Americans that civil rights and democracy need to be fought for. I am encouraged by the “woke” movement. If may take 2-3 Dem votes to counteract 1 GOP vote due to gerrymandering, but at least more people are aware of this now, after Trump.