RSS Feed MenuThe comparison on the website is arresting. A photograph of President Obama in unattractive blue jeans, preparing to throw the first ball at a baseball game. The caption: “You know who else wore funny pants?” Place the cursor on the image and it shifts to an older photograph, black and white, of a familiar evil figure clad in lederhosen. “Hitler!”
Nearby is a photograph of Barack Obama with Henry Louis Gates and Officer James Crowley in the White House garden. “You know who else had beer summits?” Fade to an image of a Munich beer garden. “Hitler!
The website is obviously joking. Or rather: One wishes it were obvious. The unfunny fact is, however, that Obama = Hitler analogies are spreading like wildfire on the political right.
“Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate,” said Rush Limbaugh on his Aug. 6 radio program. That same day Limbaugh itemized “similarities between the Democrat party of today and the Nazi party in Germany.” Among them: The Nazis mistrusted big business, worried about pollution, initiated make-work projects and condemned smoking. Limbaugh concluded: “It is liberalism that is the closest you can get to Nazism.”
Fox News’s newest star, Glenn Beck, has insisted repeatedly that Obama wishes to lead the United States to a “fascist state.”
The House of Representatives’ version of healthcare reform offered coverage for “end of life counseling.” This legislation inspired Sarah Palin to accuse Obama of planning “death panels” to extinguish the old and the disabled -an accusation seized and repeated by Sean Hannity on Fox News.
My website, FrumForum.com, sent a reporter to a healthcare townhall in Maryland, hardly a conservative state. He wrote: “Twenty minutes into my two-hour wait to get a seat at Senator Ben Cardin’s town hall event, I started keeping a ‘Nazi tally’ by counting references I overheard to Adolf Hitler, Germany, or the Nazi Party. … ‘This is exactly how Nazi Germany began!’ was a standard echo heard in line.” There’s a lot wrong with Barack Obama’s healthcare plan, but no, this is not exactly how Nazi Germany began. Not even a little bit close. In fact, the analogy seems so self-evidently crazy that it may baffle outsiders as to how any conservative, no matter how irate, could possibly imagine such a thing.
The answer begins with the declining impact of the word “socialism,” the seemingly more obvious term to apply to big, expensive government programs. Recent polling in the U.S. has found that voters are reacting less negatively to the word than they did a generation ago. Plus, support for Barack Obama from people like Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker has rendered that particular charge less credible. “Fascism” packs more voltage.
The Nazi talk also reflects the impact on Republican politics of supporters of Ron Paul, the libertarian Texas congressman who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. For their own internal ideological reasons, Paulistas use the term “fascism” very promiscuously. Paul did not win many votes, but he raised a lot of money and inspired intense enthusiasm. The Paulistas make a natural activist base for an opposition party -and an eager audience for angry talk radio. In order to gain their support, many Republicans have begun to talk their inflammatory language. The man who attended President Obama’s Portsmouth, NH, event carrying a placard endorsing assassination and bearing a — legal — firearm strapped to his leg was a Ron Paul supporter.
Contra Rush Limbaugh, history’s actual fascists were not primarily known for their anti-smoking policies or generous social welfare programs. Fascism celebrated violence, anti-rationalism and hysterical devotion to an authoritarian leader. To date, the Obama administration has fallen rather short in these departments. Perhaps uncomfortably aware of the shortcoming, the hardliners have developed — okay, invented really — their own mythology about Obama “brownshirts.” (The popular conservative website RedState.org literally uses the term.) The complaint rests on a single case — that of conservative activist Kenneth Gladney, who got into a scuffle at a townhall in St. Louis, Missouri. The altercation was captured on video and you can watch it on YouTube. What you’ll see is a man, already on the ground, and another man stepping back in order to avoid tripping over him. The man on the ground is Gladney. Gladney walked away from the confrontation and later went to hospital, where he was treated for light injuries and released the same day. Whatever happened and whoever started it, this happily bloodless encounter bears not even the most glancing resemblance to the brutality that made Hitler’s brownshirts notorious. And yet, look up Gladney’s name online and he’s suddenly a poignant martyr.
Can we get a grip here? It is possible to express opposition to a president’s policies without preposterous name-calling — without diminishing and disparaging the unique experiences of those who did actually suffer from actual persecution by actual Nazis. After all, you know who else trafficked in hysterical exaggeration? That’s right: Hitler!
Originally published in the National Post, August 15, 2009.
ottovbvs // Aug 18, 2009 at 4:37 pm
warren // Aug 18, 2009 at 4:22 pm
“You may not be able to tell the difference between a democracy and a fascist state but you have done a good job of defining yourself.”
…………So they are repressive…..so are Jordan, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, North Korea and China for that matter …..I ask you again are these fascist states?…..On a repressiveness index I’d say Iran was in about the same place as all of these except NK which is even more repressive but not fascist…….I’m afraid you don’t know the difference between a fascist state and a repressive one…..why don’t you invest some time in learning the difference instead of telling us all what you don’t know
Warren // Aug 18, 2009 at 10:10 pm
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Fascists
“Word History: It is fitting that the name of an authoritarian political movement like Fascism, founded in 1919 by Benito Mussolini, should come from the name of a symbol of authority. The Italian name of the movement, fascismo, is derived from fascio, “bundle, (political) group,” but also refers to the movement’s emblem, the fasces, a bundle of rods bound around a projecting axe-head that was carried before an ancient Roman magistrate by an attendant as a symbol of authority and power. The name of Mussolini’s group of revolutionaries was soon used for similar nationalistic movements in other countries that sought to gain power through violence and ruthlessness, such as National Socialism.”
Warren // Aug 18, 2009 at 10:12 pm
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Nazi
The Media Establishment’s rule is that Leftists can’t be Fascists. About worried seniors, Nancy Pelosi said, “I think they are Astroturf … you be the judge. They’re carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.” In response to the Nancy Nazi Comment, Rush Limbaugh pointed out that Conservatives are opposed to Socialism and that the Nazis were a type of Socialist.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Nazi
Warren // Aug 18, 2009 at 10:17 pm
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Nazi
“Na·zi Pronunciation (näts, nt-)
n. pl. Na·zis
1. A member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, founded in Germany in 1919 and brought to power in 1933 under Adolf Hitler.
2. often nazi An adherent or advocate of policies characteristic of Nazism; a fascist.
adj.
Of, relating to, controlled by, or typical of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
[German, short for Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiter-Partei, National Socialist German Workers' Party.]”
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ottovbvs,
You may not be able to tell the difference between a democracy and a fascist state but you have done a good job of defining yourself.
Warren // Aug 18, 2009 at 10:24 pm
“Is the government of Iran a Socialist government or a Fascist government?”
On Aug 18, 2009 at 9:33 am, ottovbvs answered the above question as follows:
“some sort of weird jumble of theocracy and democracy……it’s certainly not fascist because one of the hallmarks of a fascist state is that they don’t allow competing political parties”
Note that ottovbvs gives Iran credit for being a democracy.
In addition, ottovbvs exclaims as follows: “In any case none of this has anything to do with your original claim that the Nazi party was socialist…..it wasn’t so why don’t you have the good grace to admit it and we can all get on with life”.
Poor ottovbvs, you have a lot of dictionaries to rewrite before you can get on with your life.
Warren // Aug 18, 2009 at 10:34 pm
warren // Aug 17, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Fascism is named after a symbol from the Roman Empire. There are a variety of scholarly works that have been written about what qualifies as “fascist”. Leftist usually insist that the term “fascist” can’t be applied to them because they are not nationalist. However, Obama is a neo-nationalist. His chosen science advisor is also a neo-nationalist. What “neo-nation” am I talking about? Their neo-nation is the World! Obama told the people of the world that he is a “Citizen of the World”. Neo-Nationalist (Citizens of the World) religiously believe that Americans have produced too much carbon dioxide. Eco-Fascist believe that the Baby Boom generation is too prosperous to deserve the Medicare benefits that the New Majority Politicians (Bush-Clinton-Bush) promised them. The Eco-Fascist (Citizens of the World) have a solution for the Unsustainable Baby Boomers.
http://www.cradlesforcodgers.com/
ottovbvs // Aug 19, 2009 at 9:25 am
warren // Aug 18, 2009 at 10:34 pm
………Instead of endlessly repeating yourself and refusing to answer simple questions you really aught to read this comparison of the rational and paranoid because you’ve got it bad man
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/Rational_thinker_versus_paranoid.html
Warren // Aug 19, 2009 at 1:51 pm
DAVID FRUM: I am not an unorthodox conservative. I think I’m a calm conservative. Right now I think a lot of — their blood is up. They want to win this fight.
BILL MOYERS: Is that why we’re seeing these protests, these loud, raucous protests?
DAVID FRUM: Well, let’s distinguish between the people who are in those halls, who I think are many– who, as I say, are people who have a good government plan in Medicare and are anxious because they know that President Obama wants to take a lot of money out of Medicare. That’s how he’s going to finance his plan.
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Eco-Fascist believe that the Baby Boom generation is too prosperous to deserve the Medicare benefits that the New Majority Politicians (Bush-Clinton-Bush) promised them.
Warren // Aug 19, 2009 at 2:15 pm
DAVID FRUM: They’re going to pass something. So the question for Republicans is what do you want that to be? You have an interest here, too. You would like to see the rise in health care costs slow. And you would like to see more room in the federal budget for tax cuts in the future. There are some mistakes in the way that President Obama has presented his case that have made him vulnerable.
DAVID FRUM: You know, he’s made it very clear why his health care reform will be good for the federal budget. He’s not made it so clear why it would be good for the typical person. That’s a point of vulnerability. But if the Republicans win, this is not going to be a great victory for individual liberty. It’s going to be a victory for the status quo. The people who are angriest in those town halls are people who have an excellent deal on Medicare who are determined to protect it.
DAVID FRUM: You can’t blame them. People are very attached to what they have. But understand the message the political system will take if Obama is defeated is not let’s have a lot more free market individualism. The message the political system will take is never tamper with Medicare again unless it is to make it more generous. From a conservative point of view, from a Republican point of view, is that a good message?
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Transnational Eco-Fascist believe that the Baby Boom generation is too prosperous to deserve the Medicare benefits that the New Majority Politicians (Bush-Clinton-Bush) promised them. “Never tamper with Medicare again unless it is to make it more generous.”
Warren // Aug 21, 2009 at 12:09 pm
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWQ3Njk0OWNlZGNhZDVmOTFiNjJmYTRkNjMxNWJjYjI=&w=MA==
“Stupid Nation” – “Just how stupid do they think we are?”
By Rich Lowrey
21 AUG 09
Read it.
Liberal Fascism ( Obama ) « Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian // Aug 30, 2009 at 2:34 pm
[...] recent broadside against conservatives who find relevance in fascism and Nazism. David writes “can we get a grip here” and I certainly agree that if people think Obama will become a [...]
Pauli // Aug 31, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Uh, oh. “Sarah Palin gets 1,070+ invitations” to speak. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26604.html
cha-ching, baby
Random quotes on the Obama-Nazi meme « Arthur Goldwag // Oct 1, 2009 at 9:27 am
[...] “History’s actual fascists were not primarily known for their anti-smoking policies or generous social welfare programs. Fascism celebrated violence, anti-rationalism and hysterical devotion to an authoritarian leader. To date, the Obama administration has fallen rather short in these departments…..Can we get a grip here? It is possible to express opposition to a president’s policies without preposterous name-calling — without diminishing and disparaging the unique experiences of those who did actually suffer from actual persecution by actual Nazis.”–David Frum, New Majority [...]