Since the website often has issues. From 2016:
Every Republican Presidential Candidate Is Hitler
The “Big Lie” has been around for over fifty years.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
“Except for Adolf Hitler's extermination of the Jewish people, the
American bombardment of defenseless peasants in Indochina is the most
barbaric act of modern times.”
That quote didn’t come from some Soviet hack coughing up copy for
Moscow, but from Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern.
(Some years later, McGovern would compare the Communist massacres in
Cambodia to the Holocaust and call for some of that barbaric military
intervention.)
Vice President Hubert Humphrey also brought out Hitler when running
against Nixon, declaring, “If the British had not fought in 1940, Hitler
would have been in London and if Democrats do not fight in 1968, Nixon
will be in the White House.” Chicago Mayor Daley had accused Nixon of
“Hitler type” tactics.
McGovern had set a record for comparing Nixon to Hitler, which made him
very popular with the left, but he hadn’t originated it. Comparing any
Republican presidential candidate to Hitler had been a standard
Democratic political tactic for some time no matter how inappropriate it
might be.
Before McGovern was comparing Nixon to Hitler, he was comparing Barry
Goldwater to Hitler. Goldwater had a Jewish father and a distaste for
Socialism, which would have made him unwelcome in the ranks of the
racially and politically pure National Socialists, but that didn’t stop
the Hitler accusations from being hurled by the Democratic party and its
political allies in the press.
Governor Pat Brown of California said, “Goldwater's acceptance speech
had the stench of fascism. All we needed to hear was Heil Hitler.” Mayor
Jack Shelley of San Francisco claimed that Goldwater strategists got
all their ideas from Mein Kampf.
Even though Goldwater had been an early NAACP member, NAACP leader Roy
Wilkins warned, "Those who say that the doctrine of ultra-conservatism
offers no menace should remember that a man come out of the beer halls
of Munich and rallied the forces of rightism in Germany. All the same
elements are there in San Francisco now."
The NAACP accused Goldwater of appealing to “fear and bigotry”. Martin
Luther King said, “We see danger signs of Hitlerism in the candidacy of
Mr. Goldwater.”
Union leaders launched a national campaign to denounce Goldwater as
Hitler II. "I have drawn a parallel between Goldwater and Hitler and I
make no apology for drawing that parallel," George Meany of the AFL-CIO
declared. While Goldwater wasn’t Hitler, the CIO part of the AFL-CIO had
strong Communist influences and after the Hitler-Stalin pact, some
unions within it staged strikes to sabotage production and prevent aid
from reaching the Allies who were fighting Hitler. Not only was
Goldwater not Hitler, but some of the organizations represented by Meany
had aided Hitler when Stalin told them to.
Accusing Republicans of being Hitler for assorted petty reasons dates
back to the time when Hitler was still around. FDR accused Republican
candidate Wendell Willkie of using “Hitler tactics” by repeating his
slogans frequently. But it was the frequent associations of Republicans
and Hitler by Democrats that was the true Big Lie. Its only purpose was a
senseless association through the repetition of ridiculous and baseless
accusations that every single Republican was just Hitler in a better
suit.
Typical of this tactic was Senator Tom Lantos ranting, “If you overlook
your involvement in the KKK, or the Nazi party, or the Republican Party,
you are lying.” The issue at hand had nothing to do with Nazism. It was
about Clinton’s Secretary of Agriculture taking bribes. The goal was to
associate Republicans with Nazism by classing the two together as
frequently as possible regardless of relevance, decency or truth.
In the Iran-Contra trial, Oliver North was accused of “following Adolf
Hitler’s official strategy”. What did one have to do with the other?
Nothing. But this sort of lazy accusation had become typical and
routine. William Shirer, who had also compared Nixon’s bombing of Hanoi
to the Holocaust and called Nixon an “apt pupil” of Hitler (Pentagon
spokesman Jerry Friedheim was Goebbels), compared Reagan to Hitler for
intervening in Grenada. Then Shirer compared Bush I to Hitler for trying
to outlaw flag burning.
By the Reagan years, the left had achieved a banality of Hitler
analogies. Everything Reagan did was just like Hitler. All of Reagan’s
associates were just like Hitler. It was Hitlers all the way down.
President George W. Bush inherited this banality of Hitlers. To
left-wing Truthers, open and covert, 9/11 was the Reichstag fire, the
Patriot Act was the beginning of a national dictatorship and Bush was a
dictator. As Kurt Vonnegut quipped, “The only difference between Bush
and Hitler is that Hitler was elected.” Hitler wasn’t elected, Bush was,
but you can’t expect a left-wing loudmouth to know history.
Congressman Charles Rangel compared the Iraq War to the Holocaust. “This
is just as bad as the 6 million Jews being killed." (Rangel had also
claimed that the Contract with America was worse than Hitler.) Senator
Durbin compared Gitmo to Nazi concentration camps. Senator John Glenn
compared Republican arguments to Nazi propaganda. “It’s the old Hitler
business… if you hear something repeated, repeated, you start to believe
it.” Like repeatedly accusing Republicans of Nazism.
Congressman Keith Ellison, a former Nation of Islam supporter who had
defended its anti-Semitism, compared the September 11 to the Reichstag
fire while hinting at 9/11 Trutherism. Al Gore claimed that “The
administration works closely with a network of rapid-response digital
Brown Shirts”.
Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, a former Klansman, compared Bush to
Hitler stooge Herman Goering. Byrd, who had filibustered the Civil
Rights Act, also compared efforts to block Democratic filibusters to
Nazi Germany. The “nuclear option” that Byrd was denouncing became a
reality under Obama and Reid, but by then using it did not make Senators
Democrats into the successors of Nazi Germany.
To most people, Nazi analogies summon up images of the Holocaust and a
ruthless dictatorship. To the left however, any populist reaction
against their rule is Nazism. In their world, there is a battle between
progressive and reactionary forces. Any movement that dares to run for
office by challenging progressive policies is reactionary, fascist and
the second coming of the Third Reich. Republican victories are lazily
attributed by liberal hacks to mindless public anger being exploited by
right-wing demagogues.
And so the only thing we can truly be certain of is that any Republican
nominee will be Hitler. It doesn’t matter what he believes. It doesn’t
matter if Democrats considered him a moderate 5 minutes ago. Accusations
of Nazism remain the default argument for a Democratic Party turned far
to the left.
Republicans aren’t progressive. Therefore they’re Hitler. It’s really that simple.
Optimists thought that the Democrats had reached “Peak Hitler” under
Bush. But for the left there is no Peak Hitler. The same tired line of
attack has been trotted out for fifty years. It will go on limping
around the liberal corral for another fifty years or a hundred years.
The Big Lie will continue being repeated to indoctrinate each new
politically active progressive with the conviction that anyone to the
right is Hitler and that every election is a brand new battle to stop
Hitler 2.0 from taking over America.
Goldwater was Hitler. Nixon was Hitler. Reagan was Hitler. Bush was
Hitler. None of the latter three men declared the Fourth Reich, made
themselves dictators for life and ran concentration camps. But the Big
Lie retroactively rewrites the past by claiming that last decade’s
Hitler was a decent moderate while the latest Republican Hitler is a
terrifying monster. Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan were all resurrected as
moderate contrasts to each other and then to Bush. The process of
recreating Bush as a moderate has already begun. And so each Republican
makes the electoral journey from Hitler to a political moderate whom a
latter generation of liberals mourns while complaining that this latest
Republican really is Hitler.
Addendum: This is up again - Every Republican Presidential Candidate Is Hitler | Frontpage Mag
