Overuse of Nazi comparisons

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Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule of Hitler analogies) is an Internet adage asserting that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches ". 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, the point at which effectively the discussion or thread often ends.

Promulgated by the American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990, Godwin's law originally referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions.He stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics. It is now applied to any threaded online discussion, such as Internet forums, chat rooms, and comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other rhetoric where reductio ad Hitlerum occurs.

In 2012, "Godwin's law" became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Even as President Donald Trump continues his toxic tantrum against the legitimate results of a national election, one of his critics in the media has managed to go after him in a way that only gives ammunition to his defenders — ones who dismiss all harsh criticism as "Trump Derangement Syndrome." Last week, veteran CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour explicitly compared Trump to the Nazis in 1930s Germany.

Amanpour’s remarks were made in the introduction to her foreign-affairs show. Evoking the memory of Kristallnacht, the horrific pogrom against Jews that took place 82 years ago on Nov. 9-10, 1938, Amanpour told her audience, "It was the Nazis’ warning shot across the bow of our human civilization that led to genocide against a whole identity, and in that tower of burning books, it led to an attack on fact, knowledge, history and truth. After four years of a modern-day assault on those same values by Donald Trump, the Biden-Harris team pledges a return to norms, including the truth."

Don’t get me wrong, this is certainly a good time to decry Trump’s assault on civilized norms, including truth. The fact that the president of the United States and his team are filing frivolous lawsuits to delay the certification of an election he lost — and making egregiously false, already debunked public claims about election fraud — is beyond appalling.

But it’s also preposterous to even have to point out that it doesn’t begin to compare to Kristallnacht.

One could argue that, in a broad sense, Trumpism’s appeal to national greatness and nativist hostilities to "alien" groups taps into the same type of resentments as Nazi propaganda. But jingoism and xenophobia have existed in plenty of societies, often in vicious forms — far worse than anything in Trump’s America. Nazi Germany serves as a warning. But invoking Nazi atrocities as a direct analogy to the United States today is a rhetorical leap too far. It cheapens the suffering of victims — and it undercuts the argument against Trump by making it absurdly hyperbolic..

To be sure, conservatives who decry Amanpour’s rhetorical excesses sometimes engage in similar hyperbole when they claim that American Democrats are about to take us down the path of totalitarian communism, as if Joe Biden were one step away from morphing into Joe Stalin. But excess on one side doesn’t excuse excess on the other. Let’s all tamp it down, and not allow Trump to lead us into derangement.

Just a couple of months back on May 20, as the Jewish people were celebrating the conclusion of the most important holiday of Shavuos, protests were taking place all over the country over the execution of George Floyd by an out of control police officer who will face jail time, deservedly so. These protests, like so many, were hijacked by a mob who I believe took advantage of the crisis and robbed neighborhoods blind.

One of the places that had the protests which led to violence was in the city of Los Angeles, but not where you think.
that night the protests were in a specific place in the uptown Los Angeles neighborhood called Fairfax. I am sure you can guess what is special about Fairfax – nothing in fact, other than it is an area that is heavily populated with synagogues and kosher stores.

In addition to destruction and graffiti inflicted upon the synagogues, a number of kosher restaurants, bakeries and stores were ransacked by protesters, looting much of the merchandise and causing extensive property damage.

Some of the synagogues damaged as a result of vandalism, graffiti and looting by protesters include Congregation Kehilas Yaakov, Tiferes Tzvi and Congregation Beth Israel, one of the oldest synagogues in Los Angeles and the spiritual home to many Holocaust survivors over the years. At the latest count, at least five synagogues in the area were vandalized, as were three Jewish schools.

One small business owner described a “late Saturday night with people driving down the Fairfax district streets screaming, ‘effing Jews.’”

One would think that after this kind of hate and the destruction of Jewish schools, shuls and many obviously owned Jewish businesses, you would hear it on the news in New York and not only in L.A.

Have you heard a peep from any Jewish organization about the Los Angeles Kristallnacht? For that matter, have you heard any non-Jewish institution, political or otherwise, condemning the attack? Did you even know about the attack? Even in Los Angeles, one can hear crickets.

A few weeks ago, a group of far-left Jewish groups published an open letter to the community demanding that American Jews pledge allegiance to a “new covenant” which demands endorsement of Black Lives Matter. Hillel signed on. San Francisco Jewish Federation signed on. The Reconstructionist movement signed on. Did these same three organizations condemn the Los Angeles Kristallnacht?

Yeah, arguments ad Hitlerum or calling someone a Nazi devaluates your arguments instead of reinforcing them.
In a way, it's just descending to name-calling.

I feel like Nazi and Hitler comparisons are cop out comparisons, because when people use them, they think what's the lowest level I can compare a person too... Hiter! And that's why it's often used, because it's a cop out.

Yep that's true, sometimes they are. It's just I hear the term nazi so overused lately for many people, it seems.

but sometimes the metaphors are apt.

I think what Amanpour said, it was appropriate time of her to bring up Hitler and Nazi. We don't want to repeat history. I think getting upset about it shows you are not comfortable with the truth and you want to pretend it's not happening. We don't want to head that direction again.

I Before Trump took office, I was seeing it in petty arguments and then it was being used correctly so I have seen the Hitler comparison being used a lot less now because I think Trump taught us something.

I thought Himmler was eviler than Hitler.