I put this photoshop on Twitter saying
“William Barr, whose ethical compass always points to #POTUS like he's an electric magnet, is the president's protector and henchman. Trump sure hit the mother load finding a loyal general with the mighty sword and shield of the Department of "Justice”
and then I saw this:
“Attorney General Barr Issues Rule To Keep Some Asylum Seekers From Posting Bail”
Barr picked made this draconian and cruel anti-migrant and unconstitutional rule knowing full well it would be challenged (and the ACLU has already filed a suit) and would end up in the Supreme Court where the administration might prevail.
I didn’t want to go to the Hitler and Himmler comparison in my tweet and decided not to suggest Barr was Trump’s Himmler knowing that would be over-the-top since Himmler was the architect of the Holocaust who set up the death camps on Hitler’s orders and was the head of the SS.
As a Jew and with Passover coming I am acutely aware that there is nothing in history that can compare to the Holocaust. I am sensitive to the fact that we must avoid dimishing the atrocities wrought by the NAZI regime.
Of course Godwin’s Law warns us that Hitler comparisons can end an important legitimate discussion. However more recently he said (my emphasis added):
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 is acceptable to call Brazilian politician Jair Bolsonaro a "Nazi"
Mike Godwin wrote “Sure, call Trump a Nazi. Just make sure you know what you’re talking about” in Tje Washin gton Post in December 2015 well before he proved to be the nationalist anti-immigrant autocrat we see today.
Excerpt:
First, let me get this Donald Trump issue out of the way: If you’re thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler or Nazis when you talk about Trump. Or any other politician.
My Facebook timeline and Twitter feed have been blowing up lately. And whenever that happens, it’s almost always because someone’s making comparisons to Hitler or Nazis or the Holocaust somewhere. Sure enough, as Trump pontificates about immigrants or ethnic or religious minorities, with scarcely less subtlety than certain early 20th-century political aspirants in Europe did, people on the Internet feel compelled to ask me what I think about it.
-----—
Despite the Internet’s distractions, I did actually manage to study law. And I was drawn to a particular kind of legal problem: What happens when a nation, although acting consistently with its own laws, behaves so monstrously that other nations, and eventually history itself, are compelled to condemn it? I steeped myself in the history of the Nazi movement and in accounts of the Holocaust, including Primo Levi’s harrowing “Survival in Auschwitz.” I was increasingly troubled by the disconnect between what I was reading about the Third Reich and the way people used that era against debating opponents online.
There is a chilling cautionary tale to be told by studying what happened in Germany in the 1930’s when one unlikely demagogue managed to change the course of history with a message of nationalist hate and fear. Nationalist fever is now rampant in Europe and arguably Trump won because he ginned up the fears of his white blue collar base.
We have to remember that when Hitler was gaining in popularity and power he wasn’t promising to exterminate Jews, homosexuals, and gypsies.
What do you think?