Godwin’s law states that any online discussion, if it goes on long enough, will eventually include a statement comparing someone to Hitler or his actions. So you’re talking about some particularly unpleasant political leader, for instance, and he’s known to have used excessive force against his opponents, maybe the army against protestors, and someone points out that this is an act worthy of Hitler.
The effect is to end any useful conversation in the thread.
This is because generally what people are comparing others to is the most infamous and obscene of Hitler’s deeds, the Holocaust. That’s the deliberate, planned extermination of all the 12 million Jews of Europe, together with homosexuals, Romanies and other minority groups.
The emphasis is on ‘deliberate’. There wasn’t even a pretence at ethnic cleansing by physically displacing people. It was, from the time of the Wannsee Conference of January 1942 when the ‘final solution’ (i.e. the mass murder of the Jews) was adopted as official policy of the Nazi state, a clear intent to wipe out a people by mass murder.
That was a crime so heinous as to be without precedent and, indeed, unique to this day (let’s hope it stays so). So comparing any other act to it is obviously nonsensical, and almost certainly a ludicrous exaggeration.
However, though the Holocaust is obviously Hitler’s most shameful crime, it was by no means his only toxic act. Others were less sickening but deeply threatening all the same. And there’s no reason why we can’t compare the behaviour of other politicians to them.
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| Trump and Hitler A comparison to the worst crime is inappropriate or at least premature But stealing power with a minority? That works. And it’s frightening |
The Guardian journalist David Smith recently quoted a US politician, talking about Trump:
The Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn, whose endorsement of Biden was critical to his nomination, told the Axios website in March: “I used to wonder how could the people of Germany allow Hitler to exist. But with each passing day, I’m beginning to understand how. And that’s why I’m trying to sound the alarm.”
He’s absolutely right to do so.
One of the terrifying actions Hitler took prior to the Holocaust, and an action that would ultimately make the Holocaust possible, was his seizure of power.
He never won a majority of the German electorate. He peaked in the election of July 1932, when the Nazis took just over 37% of the vote, making them the biggest party in Parliament, though without a majority. When elections were held again in the same year, in November, the last free multi-party elections before the Nazis fell from power, their share fell to just over 33%.
But that didn’t stop him from being called on to form a government. Once in power, of course, he had the means to ensure that no free elections would be called again. When elections were held in March 1933, after months of terror directed against the left, the Nazis still only managed just under 44% and still had no Parliamentary majority. But then, in November 1933, the Nazis were the only legal party and took 92% and, surprise, surprise, 100% of the seats.
So Clyburn is right to point to the dangers now facing the US. Just like in Germany in 1932, a vocal and apparently solid – one’s inclined to say solid from the neck up – minority of voters persist in supporting a dangerous autocrat, despite his proven incompetence, mendacity and corruption.
It’s extraordinary that anyone can support Trump despite those proven charges against him. We’ve seen his inept handling of the pandemic. We’ve seen his use of a pardon to protect a convicted criminal who stayed loyal to him. We’ve seen him lying about the extent of his support. But despite all that, there is a large minority that continues to back him.
That’s all it took to get Hitler into power too.
Once he’d got there, Hitler immediately set about dismantling the apparatus of democratic accountability that might have prevented him retaining power.
And isn’t that exactly what Trump is attempting to do now? He’s even trying to demolish one of the oldest institutions in the US, the postal service, to prevent people being able to cast votes by mail.
Now that is a valid parallel with the behaviour of Hitler. You don’t have to pretend that Trump is a man who wants to launch a new Holocaust – that’s not the similarity. What makes him like Hitler is his utter conviction, against all the evidence, that he’s the man to lead the US. And the unscrupulous means he’s prepared to use to cheat his way into holding onto power.
What happens later it’s hard to say. Except that, Holocaust or not, it didn’t work out well for Germany, did it? And the rest of the world had to pay a huge price too.
US voters have a serious responsibility in November. Jim Clyburn is right to underline the fact.
And that’s no breach of Godwin’s Law.
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