It gets done all the time: Comparisons to Hitler and Nazis from people who can’t figure out how to express their disagreement with others, so they resort to the lowest common denominator, gaining themselves a moment of moral superiority while denigrating and diminishing the attempted extermination of an entire people.
Presidential candidate Tom Steyer did it to President Donald Trump. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has done it, when talking about the border:
I’ve addressed this on air and in print. And on social media:
So when I read that Chris Matthews of MSNBC compared Sen. Bernie Sanders’ win in the Nevada caucuses to France falling to the Nazis, it wasn’t new or shocking to me:
Comparisons to Nazis are the standard trope from anti-intellectual talking heads who want to engage the bastardization of history to shore up their woke position. Better said – this is what low-brow people do when they want to seem important. It’s what Tom Steyer did. It’s what Rep. Ocasio-Cortez did. It’s what luddites like Ana Navarro have done. The Nazi comparison has become the de-facto crutch for slow-witted individuals who only ever read the Cliff Notes summary of WWII, or, really, any history at all.
And it’s not that Nazism nor Nazis nor even Hitler are off limits. Certainly, the Nazis were socialists – The National Socialist German Workers Party, to be exact. And that Sen. Sanders is a “democratic socialist” could lead to many questions.
But making a comparison to Nazis is not actually what Chris Matthews did. Matthews point seems to be that the Democratic Party doesn’t understand that they’ve lost to Bernie; that he has a clear path to the nomination. That, I believe, was his commentary, based on the video I’ve seen.
Was it clumsy? Perhaps. Was it totally unnecessary? Probably, if not completely. Was it seized (pounced?) upon by the same anti-intellectual mob that proudly uses the attack to go after President Trump whenever they can? Yes.
Now, people want Chris Matthews fired. Of course they do. How else do you expect woke zealots to act?
But since there was no call for Steyer to not run, Rep. Ocasio Cortez to resign nor Ana Navarro to be fired, forgive me if I don’t join the mob of dunces who can’t tell the difference between pure insult and potentially questionable commentary. I’m no fan of Chris Matthews in the main, but I’m far less a fan of actual fanatics who want blood because they aren’t perspicacious enough to draw distinctions.
