Smells Like 1932

The analogies are myriad. Harold Myerson, himself a democratic socialist warns the Bros:

"Those Sanders supporters—they’re a distinct minority—who insist that the difference between Clinton and Donald Trump isn’t great enough to justify their voting for Clinton do themselves, not to mention the nation, an enormous disservice. A Clinton White House would be subject to pressure from the Sanders wing of the party, just as the Sanders campaign plans to pressure it at the upcoming convention. A Trump White House would be subject to no such pressure, and instead of fighting to push the nation’s agenda to the left, Sanders activists would be fighting alongside Clinton supporters to keep the nation from sliding into racist authoritarianism."

"To conflate Clinton’s myriad imperfections as equivalent with Trump’s is to repeat the world historic mistake that German Communists, at Stalin’s behest, made in that nation’s 1932 elections, when they campaigned against their left-wing rivals, the Social Democrats, as though they were on a par with the Nazis. “Social Fascists,” the Communists called them, right up until the time that Hitler took power, suppressed both the Social Democrats and the Communists, imprisoned them, killed some, abolished the unions and turned his attention to the Jews. This is not to argue that Trump is Hitlerian, but a man can be a danger to civilization without plumbing Hitlerian depths."

http://prospect.org/article/how-bros-are-undermining-bernie

Trump is not Hitler in degree-though the big difference is that Hitler had a whole party apparatus devoted to National Socialism at the time; it wasn't just he who was elected but the Nazis-but there are a lot similarities between him and Hitler and him and Mussolini.

The degree might be difference but there are many similarities including the fact that Trump personally seems to really admire dictators, including Hitler. Ivana Trump says that when they were married he kept a book of the Fuhrer's speeches by the bed.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2016/05/donald-trump-is-as-politically-correct.html

Meyerson is correct that the response to the Berners to Trump is also eerily similar to the attitude of the Stalin's Marxists to the rise of Hitler-who was also democratically elected and also hated bad trade deals, stigmatized and scapegoated minorities, and promised to help the German people win again.

Such false equivalence is a serous error-as has been noted by leading Marxist thinkers subsequently.

As Meyerson argues the Berners risk completely marginalizing themselves as Ralph Nader was post 2000.

"All of which is to say that if the Sanders Revolution is ever to come to fruition, the Bernie Brigades will have to vote for and work for Hillary Clinton’s election in the fall. To stand aside from their progressive allies, particularly in communities of color, will send the cause of American social democracy scuttling back into its accustomed political Siberia. It will render Sanders himself, should he refrain from supporting Clinton, as ineffective in building a left as Ralph Nader was after the 2000 election."

You'd hope this give Bernie pause. Even he doesn't take Nader's phone calls anymore.