Hitler's Shadow

Yes, the cardinal rule of American politics is you don't make the Hitler comparison as it trivializes what Hitler and the Nazis were really about.

Usually such analogies are overwrought like when Ben Carson says abortion is like the Holocaust or that Obamacare is like slavery.

But what we've been seeing lately is hard to talk about without a reference to Hitler and all that.

1. Trump's proposal for a database for Muslims-and he says a whole lot more-we need not just that system but 'lots and lots of systems' he says.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-says-he-would-certainly-implement-muslim-database-n466716

2. We have talk of camps for the Syrian refugees.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/18/roanoke-mayor-syrian-refugees/76016936/

"Rhode Island state Sen. Elaine Morgan (R) wrote in a Tuesday email to a constituent and her fellow state senators that if the U.S. accepts refugees from Syria, they should be placed in refugee camps."

"I do not want our governor bringing in any Syrian refugees. I think our country is under attack. I think this is a major plan by these countries to spread out their people to attack all non Muslim persons," she wrote in the email, according to Rhode Island television station WPRI. "The Muslim religion and philosophy is to murder, rape, and decapitate anyone who is a non Muslim."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/elaine-morgan-syrian-refugee-camps

This reminds us of our own history of how we treated Japanese-Americans in WWII.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-shadow-of-korematsu/416634/

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/11/roanoke_mayor_on_refugees_and_japanese_internment_camps.html

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/thank-god-for-senator-chuck-schumer.html

3. We had I'm ashamed to say 47 Democrats join with the GOP in passing a poison pill bill that effectively ends our Syrian refugee program.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/11/thank-god-for-senator-chuck-schumer.html

This recalls another sad moment in our history-our refusal to help out the Jewish refugees from Hitler. We sent them back to him.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/11/19/9760060/refugees-history-holocaust

So, look, I'm not a fan of Hitler analogies and agree that thy are usually way overused. But in this case, it's the only shoe that fits.