On Tyranny - When Yale Professors come unglued.

James Lileks offers a nice "fisking" of Professor Snyder's puerile, histrionic "Trump is Hitler" essay.

McCain Republicans were Literally Hitler before Trump was Literally Hitler.

Back in 2008, CNN host D.L. Hughley was positioning the Republicans who nominated Current Model of Bipartisanship John McCain as the Literally Hitler of the moment.

//CNN host D.L. Hughley turned to the standard left-wing tactic of playing the Nazi card against Republicans on his program on Saturday evening: “The tenets of the Republican Party are amazing and they seem warm and welcome. But when I watch it be applied -- like you didn’t have to go much further than the Republican National Convention....It literally look[s] like Nazi Germany.” He went on to say that blacks weren’t welcome in the party: “It just does not seem -- like not only are we not welcome -- not only are we not welcome, but they don’t even care what we think.” He later described the GOP as “reactionary.” [audio available here]

The stand-up comedian-turned-TV host made the remark during a segment with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and Chuck D, a former member of the hip-hop group Public Enemy. Unfortunately, Steele did not verbally react to Hughley’s Nazi characterization. Chuck D, on the other hand, expressed his agreement with the host about blacks supposedly not being welcome in the Republican Party: “I covered the Republican convention in ‘96 for MTV...and -- seriously, their agenda was totally somewhere else, which totally -- you know, didn’t have black people or people of color in mind.” He then expressed his belief that there should be more major parties in the U.S.

The CNN host then returned to characterizing the GOP: “A lot of the things I see Republicans do specifically are reactionary. They’ll go, you know what -- oh, they don't like Hillary? Let’s give them Sarah Palin. They voted for Obama. Let's give them Michael Steele, and the other guy who will not show who he is yet. And so, it is always so -- it is so plastic, that you go, wow, is this what they think?...That’s what seems so off-kilter to me.”//

A difference between that and the "go to Paris" comment is, obviously, that the comparison was not meant to be funny and it was not even a comparison since, according to Hughley, it "literally looks like Nazi Germany."

Literally.

Anonymous makes the claim that Republicans compared Obama to Hitler...

...so I decided to check it out for him. My experience with him suggests that offering evidence to support his claims is not his strong suit.

It turns out that there were occasional Hitler references concerning Obama, but not in the sense that he was incipient dictator about to put minorities into concentration camps, and when such references were made, there was an outcry that forced the person to apologize.

For example there was the case of Congressman Randy Weber:

//Rep. Randy Weber is apologizing for a tweet that compared President Barack Obama's absence at a Paris march to Adolf Hitler.

The Texas Republican said in a statement Tuesday afternoon that he hadn't intended "to trivialize the Holocaust nor to compare the President to Adolf Hitler."

"The mention of Hitler was meant to represent the face of evil that still exists in the world today," Weber said. "I now realize that the use of Hitler invokes pain and emotional trauma for those affected by the atrocities of the Holocaust and victims of anti-Semitism and hate."

His apology comes the day after he invoked Hitler in blasting Obama for failing to join more than 40 world leaders and at least 1.5 million people at a Paris unity march Sunday, following the attack on the country's Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper.

"Even Adolph Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris. (For all the wrong reasons.) Obama couldn't do it for right reasons," Weber tweeted, misspelling the German dictator's first name.

Even Adolph Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris. (For all the wrong reasons.) Obama couldn't do it for right reasons.//

This is very weak tea.  In fact, it makes my case stronger.

The "bite" of Weber's joke is premised around the concept of "going to Paris." The joke works because of the outrageousness of the juxtaposition of an evil man going to Paris out of evil intent and the American president - not an evil man - not going to Paris out of indifference or sloth.

There was no reference to the Holocaust or Concentration Camps, nor was there any implication that Obama was Hitlerian in style, ambition or goal. In fact, the statement was that Hitler (evil) was noticeably different from Obama (not evil, just indifferent.)

Of course, that was then. Back then mentioning Hitler in the same sentence as a Democrat president was dangerous, demeaned the Holocaust, undermined democracy and/or just wasn't right.

In contrast, the current Hitler to Trump comparisons, like the previous Bush to Hitler comparisons, are comparisons based on the putative autocratic style and/or racist/nationalist/repressive policies and/or militaristic tendencies of the comparators. Mainstream Progressives mean quite literally that Trump now, and Bush before him, are, in a relevant sense, "Literally Hitler."

So, back then occasional, weak comparisons generated outrage that required an apology for demeaning the Holocaust.

Now, it is all good.

If it wasn't for double standards....

Literally Hitler.

Because losing an election is precisely like being invaded and conquered by a foreign power.

"Resistance" is hate speech and undermines democracy.

*Yawn*

What's new?

Every Republican president is "Literally Hitler" until they leave office.

Then, they get recycled as Model of Bipartisanship to compare the new Literally Hitler too.

Anti-Trump billboard goes heavy on the Nazi imagery.