So — escaping the political whirlwind leading up to SUPER TUESDAY … I settled in to watch a presentation last night on National Geographic of “He named me Malala” .
Personally, I thought it was great. It was a truly inspiring story of the struggles and victories of Malala Yousafzai. I have to admit that watching it brought me back to the current political climate. The struggle of a single voice inspiring millions against the tide of violence swirling about her speaking out for education and peace. I found myself deeply moved and inspired by the movies end.
But — somewhere in the middle of the documentary, she uttered the following:
It is better to live like a lion for one day than to live like a slave for 100 years.
I did one of those doggy head tilts and thought to myself, huh, ain’t that interesting! For those obsessed with politics, this sounds a whole lot like the ‘infamous’ recent retweet of ‘the donald’ attributed to Mussolini:
It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep
I have seen variations of these quotes attributed to Roman and Tibetan proverbs and, yes, Benito Mussolini. There is in fact a whole genre of quotes that fit this basic theme.
Let me be clear, just in case this gets derailed too quickly:
Malala Yousafzai is NOT Benito Mussolini
Subsequent to this kerfuffle over the Trump retweet (and actually even prior to it) I saw Trump / Hitler comparisons. From Jon Stewart, circa 2005:
Adolph Hitler -- one of the worst mass murderers in all of history -- has now become the go-to metaphor in comparison for anyone you have a minor disagreement with … When You compare people to Hitler, You lose a bit of credibility … Please stop calling people Hitler … You know who was Hitler — HITLER.
There are LOTS of quote to mock Donald Trump with, one of my favorites:
I love the poorly educated
I am not sure that one will ever get old. For me though, my absolute favorite Trump quote (so far!):
I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her
There is so much fun to be had of mocking Donald Trump (and his supporters) — You really don’t need to compare him to Hitler.