The Hitler Card before Hitler?

Page 1 of 2 [ 22 posts ] Go to page 1, 2 Next

Joined: 22 Jan 2012
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,209
Location: Indiana

12 Jun 2020, 4:22 pm

Godwin's Law tells us that the longer an internet conversation continues, the more likely someone will play the Hitler card. So what I'm wondering is who was the go-to figure for cliched political comparisons before the H-man? This goes back before the internet, but would this have had to have been before 1939 or 1945?
The Hitler card is such a widespread cliche bc it's used by both sides (conservatives accusing statist liberals, liberals accusing nationalist conservatives), but I'm struggling to think of a comparable figure that either side could condemn the other for being similar to. Obviously this differs from place to place but the figures that come to mind for me would be the likes of Robespierre, George III (if you're American), Andrew Johnson, Napoleon, Lenin, Oliver Cromwell, Nero, Mary Queen of Scots etc.

_________________
Diagnoses: AS, Depression, General & Social Anxiety
I guess I just wasn't made for these times.
- Brian Wilson

Δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν.
Those with power do what their power permits, and the weak can only acquiesce.
- Thucydides

Pepe
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 Jun 2013
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 26,635
Location: Australia

12 Jun 2020, 9:18 pm

roronoa79 wrote:

<flippant mode activated>
No idea,
Well, actually I do.
See below. :wink:

But let me first transgress.
I'm autistic,
It's my job. :mrgreen:

Godwin's Law isn't applicable in every case.
There are valid comparisons with Hitler or the Nazi regime, without the conversation "Degenerating".
It depends on the context.

Here you go:
Gengis Khan,
Attila the Hun,
Stalin,
Putin,
Xi Jinping,

And of course:
Meow Tse Tung. :mrgreen:

starkid
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 9 Feb 2012
Gender: Female
Posts: 5,812
Location: California Bay Area

12 Jun 2020, 9:32 pm

Godwin's Law is specific to the Internet. There was no internet before Hitler, so I see no reason to expect an analogous meme for that time period.

Pepe
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 11 Jun 2013
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 26,635
Location: Australia

12 Jun 2020, 10:06 pm

Quote:

Godwin's law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mike Godwin

Godwin's Law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is a saying made by Mike Godwin in 1990.[2] The law states: "As a discussion on the Internet grows longer, the likelihood of a comparison of a person's being compared to Hitler or another Nazi reference, increases."[3][2]. That means that as more people talk on the Internet for a longer time, it becomes more and more likely that someone will talk about Hitler or the Nazis.

In 2019, Bret Stephens demonstrated both the Streisand Effect and Godwin’s Law, by publishing a column in the New York Times, where he compared his experience on Twitter to the plight of Jews under Hitler’s regime.

The invocation of Godwin's Law is usually done by an individual that is losing the argument. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,284

13 Jun 2020, 4:41 am

According to Mike Godwin (the creator of the law)

In December 2015, Godwin commented on the Nazi and fascist comparisons being made by several articles about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying: "If you're thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler when you talk about Trump, or any other politician. In August 2017, Godwin made similar remarks on social networking websites Facebook and Twitter with respect to the two previous days' Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, endorsing and encouraging efforts to compare its alt-right organizers to Nazis.

In October 2018, Godwin said on Twitter that it was acceptable to call Brazilian politician Jair Bolsonaro, who had won the first round and later the second round of the presidential election, a "Nazi"

Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,796
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

13 Jun 2020, 10:14 pm

Gregory of Tours, the historian of the Merovingian Franks, had described one Frankish king as the Herod of his time, due to his brutality.

_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,284

13 Jun 2020, 10:21 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:

Gregory of Tours, the historian of the Merovingian Franks, had described one Frankish king as the Herod of his time, due to his brutality.

I an ironic twist, the territorial ambitions of the Franks made many of the north/west Germanic tribes (friesians, angles and saxons) to flee to celtic britain around 500-700AD. Its the reason we are typing their language.

naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,150
Location: temperate zone

13 Jun 2020, 10:57 pm

Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Caligula, Nero, were among the go to tyrants for pre 20th century mudslingers. Richard III was a villain in Shakespeare.

Torqumada and the Spanish Inquisition, were rather notorious. But only along sectarian lines. Protestants and Jews hated the Spanish Inquisition, but not Catholics.

Sometimes they would just compare you to a cannibal, or a head hunter.

cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,284

13 Jun 2020, 11:10 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

Ivan the terrible, Vlad the impaler and Henry ViII weren't exactly angels either. Is this like the tyrant olympics?

Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,796
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

14 Jun 2020, 4:34 am

cyberdad wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

Gregory of Tours, the historian of the Merovingian Franks, had described one Frankish king as the Herod of his time, due to his brutality.

Well, actually the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain had preceded Frankish expansion into the northwest of Germany. The continental North Sea coast had been more and more given to flooding, making dry land a commodity. Part of the Anglo-Saxon population had fled to Britain, while others began immigrating inland as the Franks exited their homeland between the Rhine and Weser for Roman lands west of the Rhine, Belgium, and northern Gaul, and eventually into southern Germany. Later, as the Saxons pressed on those Frankish lands closest to their own, the Franks had retaliated with unequal force, particularly during the reign of Charlemagne (Karl der Grosse). That was especially when they Franks had been charged with evangelical zeal following their own conversion.

_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,284

14 Jun 2020, 4:38 am

Yes that's true, the Franks didn't push against the Frisians and Saxons till the late 780s

naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,150
Location: temperate zone

14 Jun 2020, 8:26 am

cyberdad wrote:

Yes that's true, the Franks didn't push against the Frisians and Saxons till the late 780s

It is far more likely that the coastal Germanic tribes in question - the Frisians, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who crossed the North Sea (to become the English)- if they were "fleeing" anyone- it would have been the Huns, and not the Franks.

naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,150
Location: temperate zone

14 Jun 2020, 8:31 am

cyberdad wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

Ivan the terrible, Vlad the impaler and Henry ViII weren't exactly angels either. Is this like the tyrant olympics?

Vlad was pretty bad, but he wasnt well known in the English speaking world until 20th Century Hollywood latched onto Dracula - which caused an interest in the Balkan roots of Dracula mythology, and in tourism to Romania to see the "real Dracula's Castle". Ivan did get that moniker of "the terrible". So Victorian Brits and Americans probably might have used his name as an epithet too.

vermontsavant
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,110
Location: Left WP forever

14 Jun 2020, 8:48 am

Hitler was brought to power by the depression caused the end of WW1 and Austria/Hungary-Germany's defeat in WW1 and the harsh conditions of the treaty of Versailles.

WW1 started because Gavrilo Princip shot Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo as a member of young Bosnia and funded and armed by the Black hand.Young Bosnia and the Black Hand were anti-Austria/Hungary organizations with hatred stemming from Austria/Hungary's annexation of Bosnia-Herzogovina by Austria/Hungary 1908.

In other words 600 years of arrogance by the Habsburg empire is the womb that conceived and birthed Hitler.That much evil doesn't begin overnight,Hitler was birthed from a 600 year crucible.

_________________
Forever gone
Sorry I ever joined

Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,796
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

14 Jun 2020, 3:59 pm

vermontsavant wrote:

The Austria-Hungarian government believed with good reason that the Black Hand was taking marching orders from Serbia. Hence Austria-Hungary's armed invasion of Serbia.

_________________
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

cyberdad
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 21 Feb 2011
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,284

14 Jun 2020, 7:27 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

cyberdad wrote:

Yes that's true, the Franks didn't push against the Frisians and Saxons till the late 780s

Thanks that makes sense, the huns did precipitate a great germanic migration which was a domino effect

Good o'l Attila being responsible for us typing English on these keyboards :lol:

Page 1 of 2 [ 22 posts ] Go to page 1, 2 Next

Jump to:

The Hitler Card before Hitler? Post Reply New Topic

The Hitler Card before Hitler?