The New American by
Sometime after WWII, rumors began circulating that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler didn’t commit suicide, but, clever man, escaped. It’s true, too, that Hitler lives. Sure, he’d be 136 today, just having had a birthday last Sunday. But he lives. Hitler lives in the hearts and minds and nightmares of those who see him in every political figure they, governed by their deified emotions, deeply detest.
The Hitler-label lovers’ favorite hated Hitler du jour is, of course, President Donald J. Trump. So it was that after comedian/commentator Bill Maher met with Trump March 31 in the White House, he became a Hitler-enabler. Apropos to this, making big news is Seinfeld co-creator Larry David’s satirical New York Times essay, “My Dinner With Hitler.” Such a thing would be, he fancies, the equivalent of Maher’s dinner with Trump.
Now, David is said to be the inspiration for Seinfeld character George Costanza, an inveterate liar and loser. And David’s essay may be defined by lies (ignorance and delusion are more likely). But for sure is that he has lost the plot and missed the facts.
This isn’t to say Trump doesn’t have much in common with der Führer. After all, Trump drinks water, and Hitler had drunk water. Trump has petted dogs, and Hitler petted dogs. Trump sleeps in a bed, and Hitler slept in a bed. Oh, my — we stand on the very cusp of Nazi tyranny!
Seriously, though, since Hitler comparisons are being bandied about, let’s examine how accurate they are.
Situational Fandom
It’s interesting to note that leftists didn’t always despise Hitler, or fascism, either. Just consider that, as the Laissez Faire City Times wrote in 1999, we
for some reason can’t remember that in the 1930’s prominent banker Otto Kahn [a “progressive”] said that the world owes Hitler “a debt of gratitude.” Or that Arnold Toynbee [an internationalist] thought he was a “man of peace,” or that the French intellectual Andre Gide [a liberal] said that he “behaves like a genius … Soon even those he vanquishes will feel compelled … to admire him.” Neither can academia recall that in 1934 the president of Hunter College [Eugene A. Colligan, a progressive] in America declared that Hitler was “destined to go down to history as a cross between Hotspur and Uncle Toby and to be as immortal as either.”
On a related note, leftists were also often quite taken with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, fascism’s main founder. As the Times also informs:
Do we remember that socialist icon George Bernard Shaw highly praised Mussolini for his collectivist policies, or that the venerable Mahatma Gandhi called him a “superman?” Gandhi’s term became the catchword description of Mussolini for the cultural elite of his day.
Of course, the Left changed their tune, eventually, once Nazism and fascism were discredited during and after WWII. It’s sort of like being skeptical of Covid shots while Trump is in power, then mandating them upon seizing power.
Will the Real Hitler Please Stand Up?
This said, our liberals are known for their “situational values”; it’s part of the relativism defining them. In fairness, relativism infects too many “conservatives’” thinking as well, but our leftists take it to a different level…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (thenewamerican.com)
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