Trump hate has reduced the Holocaust to an internet meme

I recall a piece written by Brendan O'Neill a few weeks ago where talked about the dredging up of the 1930s and the 'promiscuous marshalling' of holocaust imagery in the fight against Trump, which as we all know has been dominating both news and social media. The problem with this, according to Brendan is threefold:

Firstly it dilutes and potentially damages the history relating to one of the most horrific and barbaric acts in humanity.

Secondly it suggests that the actions of Trump are something out of ordinary in the 21st century, like these actions have never been seen since Nazi Germany. Of course this is absolute nonsense.

Thirdly this type of response is driven by its own politics of fear. The use of historical dread becomes a stand-in for reasoned discussion.

In his current piece he shows the hypocricy of the left and suggests that Holocaust relativism, as a key ingredient of Holocaust denial, has the potential to resurface and legitimise far-right anti-Semite hatred.

Snippets:

Holocaust dilution has been rampant in media and radical circles over the past three weeks. In the overblown, sometimes even unhinged response to Trump, all sense of moral and political decorum, or basic reason, seems to have been abandoned. Journalists speak openly of ignoring Godwin’s Law in the Trump era — Godwin’s Law being the internet adage that if a web-based discussion about politics goes on long enough, someone will make a potty Hitler analogy. This grating BTL (‘below the line’) habit has now burst upwards, into actual commentary, and is embraced by the very hacks who for years sneered at the sad web-surfers who couldn’t go five minutes without typing ‘HITLER’.

Even commentators who previously resisted the Trump-as-Hitler talk are now embracing it. Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler, says he was approached by numerous editors to offer his thoughts on Trump’s ‘fascistic tendencies’, but he resisted on the basis that ‘while Trump’s crusade had at times been malign… he did not seem bent on genocide’. But Rosenbaum has changed his mind. Now he says Trump seems to be working from ‘the playbook [of] Mein Kampf’. Even historians of Hitler have become practitioners of the trolling tendency of Godwin’s Law. It’s there on anti-Trump demos, too. There are placards with Trump done up as Hitler, even with images from the Holocaust: emaciated Jews, marshalled as a meme army to the cause of expressing fury with Trump. It is repulsive. ‘We are history teachers and we know how this ends’, said a banner with Trump doing a Nazi salute.

The Holocaust abusers don’t seem to realise what a dangerous game they’re playing. Holocaust relativism has long been a key ingredient of Holocaust denial. As argued in The Holocaust, the Open University’s guide to the debates around this calamity, ‘Relativising the Holocaust has been one of the classic techniques of some of those engaged in Holocaust denial’. They ‘minimise Nazi atrocities’ by ‘listing them alongside [others]’. Not all hard-right anti-Semites completely deny the Holocaust happened. Some say it happened, and was bad, but only as bad as other horrific things. In the process they water it down; they weaken its weight. The left once stood up to Holocaust relativism.

In Germany in the 1970s and 80s, when some right-wing historians started to locate the Holocaust within run-of-the-mill war and terror, left-wing historians accused them of ‘trying to relativise the Holocaust’. Now, tragically, the left is often at the forefront of relativising the Holocaust. The end result? They inflame the prejudices of some of the nastiest people in society: those who’ve always argued that the Holocaust wasn’t such a big deal. The irony is terrible: in the name of standing up to the ‘fascist’ Trump, many on the left fuel the ugly and cynical relativism of those who genuinely have fascistic leanings and who think it’s high time we all accepted that the Holocaust was pretty ordinary.

Calling Trump a Nazi is its own kind of Holocaust denial

well, they have to find something new and evil because they have used up all their go to hate cards and it hasn`t had any effect.
I think by now most people have become desensitized to all their hate speech so I`m not sure what they can do now.

As many folks have pointed out: it's okay to hate Nazis. It's okay to wish ill upon Nazis. It's okay to say you want harm to come to Nazis.

Ergo, some (many?) people call those they disagree with Nazis so that they can say whatever they want to say about them, because it's okay to hate Nazis.

originally posted by: Morrad
In his current piece he shows the hypocricy of the left and suggests that Holocaust relativism, as a key ingredient of Holocaust denial, has the potential to resurface and legitimise far-right anti-Semite hatred.

Maybe they are not very concerned about this possibility, because they are busy re-defining "fascism" and "Hitler" and "holocaust" as treating black people badly.

a reply to: Morrad

Love the term anti-Semite. Racism is racism unless you are Jewish then its anti-Semite. Having your own term for your own special exclusive racism smells of racism to me by defintion..

Also, keep in mind that a lot of the folks tossing around all the Nazi/Hitler terms about Trump also apply them to the likes of Milo Yiannopoulis.

Y'know, the flaming gay guy that is Jewish on his mother's side and loves black dudes. Yea, he's a Nazi.

i am profoundly fascinated by the psychology of this. I wish knew all the industry terms because i am sure there are more than a few that describes this mental illness prone to cartoonish hyperbole.


maybe someone can chime in with some medical terminology for us? From the DSM or whatever its called?


Yes, the problem with using the most extreme characterizations to smear your opponent with is it normalizes something that is horrific and should be handled with great care lest we lose our deep reverence and awe for how horrible certain human acts can be.

Take rape for example...and how its been used to describe everything from actual rape to a man just staring lustfully at a woman. "He raped me with his eyes" etc....

Totally belittles the true horror of being a victim of actual rape. And see now what theyve done? Now i actually have to use qualifier words like "actual" to mean im talking about real rape not just some hyperbolic nonsense some SJW throws around to amp up everyones outrage at a non issue.

Mental illness? Yes....i think it really is....

Nope

More like that "alt-right" and all the groups that support Trump already had their doubts about the holocaust.

originally posted by: muse7
Nope

More like that "alt-right" and all the groups that support Trump already had their doubts about the holocaust.

"All the groups" is it?

Source?

Or is it just easier on your brain to just pigeonhole everybody into one big group?

Kinda exactly like the OP is talking about

originally posted by: Shamrock6

originally posted by: muse7
Nope

More like that "alt-right" and all the groups that support Trump already had their doubts about the holocaust.

"All the groups" is it?

Source?

Or is it just easier on your brain to just pigeonhole everybody into one big group?

Kinda exactly like the OP is talking about

Wait so you're butt hurt that I grouped all Trump supporters into one big group but it's okay when you people do it to refugees?

No one cares anymore.. give it a rest. The race card, the nazi card, calling people fascists, all the childish name calling doesn't work anymore.

Someone could actually be a nazi and no one would care anymore because wolf has been cried way too many times.

For those that don't know better and in reference to what dukeofjive was saying: Nazis & Socialism.

Hitler and the Nazis outlawed socialism, and executed socialists and communists en masse, even before they started rounding up Jews. In 1933, the Dachau concentration camp held socialists and leftists exclusively. The Nazis arrested more than 11,000 Germans for "illegal socialist activity" in 1936.

In regards to the OP: Calling someone, anyone, a Nazi is not holocaust denial. It's calling someone a Nazi and is typically done incorrectly as Shamrock6 well pointed out.

originally posted by: zosimov
Anyone gonna touch that Hitlery comment? Or is it better to pretend it doesn't exist?

Sure. It was dumb and is exactly the type of thing the OP is criticizing.

But mostly it was fringe people, or people on message boards doing that. We now have media people, politicians, academia and the entertainment industry repeated likening Trump to the Nazis.

Calling Hillary Hitlery, while wrong, didn't reach any where near these levels.

originally posted by: muse7

originally posted by: Shamrock6

originally posted by: muse7
Nope

More like that "alt-right" and all the groups that support Trump already had their doubts about the holocaust.

"All the groups" is it?

Source?

Or is it just easier on your brain to just pigeonhole everybody into one big group?

Kinda exactly like the OP is talking about

Wait so you're butt hurt that I grouped all Trump supporters into one big group but it's okay when you people do it to refugees?

Huh. So pointing out that you did exactly what the OP is talking about is somehow conflated in your brain as butt hurt? I think you're confused as to what "butt hurt" actually means. Me pointing out your own inability to not pigeonhole everybody thanks to a lack of mental capability is not butt hurt.

As for the "you people" crap, try reading my signature buddy. I know that's hard for "you people" to do, but it'll give you the clue you so desperately need.

a reply to: Grambler

Thank you for your integrity.

What a mess we're in.

a reply to: Morrad

Anyone who has studied their history about the rise of Hitler and who his supporters were and who supported him at the time could only conclude that he was an important player in a much bigger picture.

Biblical scholars had him picked as the lawless one, fulfilling divine prophecy and in turn managed to convince other faiths as to this reality, particularly Judaism, which in turn gave rise to Christian Zionism.

When you assess the consequential effect of Hitler and what arose from his presence, we see the rise of the USA as the worlds only superpower - thanks in large part to Nazi Germany and operation paperclip.

Big big picture, bloodlines and their history.

Drawing an analogy in todays world with Trump and/or his opposition is not accurate because it's really just his brownshirts and other minute aspects that manifest themselves - not the whole shooting match

a reply to: Noncents

it's true. Economic dysfunction in national socialist policy is not nearly as catastrophic as socialism proper.

international socialist/communist are a common enemy of all other ideologies. nothing special about hitler grabbing them. Any rational country will have to take out a communist/socialist movement or be consumed by it.
socialism proper is between national socialism and communism.

Labeling people as nazis is an attempt to dehumanize them, which is happening as we speak. Leftist are justifying assault because they was a "nazi".

eventually the ones calling people nazis will be equally dehumanized, The nazis will call them communist, soviets, komrades.

Once both sides are completely dehumanized we can start killing each other. Not too much longer.

Either we break up, or one side gets destroyed.