From BusHitler to the "menace" of Donald Trump

Catastrophizing political opposition polarizes the country and heightens political tensions, leading to long-term damage to our culture.

Do you remember BusHitler? I do. It was common in the Very Online crowd to directly equate President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler. Bush enjoys "strange new respect" in some parts of the Left these days, but it was not that long ago when Bush was a war criminal who was going to destroy American democracy and so forth. Today, the "Hitler" title belongs to Donald Trump. This brings us to Hillary Clinton, who is still enraged about losing to Trump eight years ago:

Eighty years ago today, thousands of brave Americans fought to protect democracy on the shores of Normandy.

This November, all we have to do is vote.

The message is clear: There is a direct line from Adolf Hitler to Donald Trump. American soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy to stop and then reverse the gains of the Nazi Wehrmacht, and we face a similar threat from Trump and MAGA today. We must vote to keep this man from assuming office again.

But tell me something: If the threat from Trump and MAGA really is as dire as the one we faced from Nazi Germany, is it not irresponsible to go to the polls, vote for Joe Biden and hope for the best? Or is it more wise, using Clintonian logic, to pick up arms and start killing people? If MAGA is indeed a fifth column that represents a Nazi-level threat, why are we fighting with ballots and not bullets?

This is the danger of catastrophizing the opposition. You set the rhetorical bar so high that the election becomes the end of the country. Every four years, one side or the other (and often both) tells us that this country as we know it is over if those terrible people on the other side win. And occasionally, someone actually takes that rhetoric seriously and picks up a bat or a knife or a Molotov cocktail or a gun.

But Trump is different, you see. He is a unique threat to democracy in a way that Bush was not. Then why was the 43rd President BusHitler? Why was Mitt Romney - a moderate Republican - going to reinstate chattel slavery, according to President Biden himself? Trump is different, yes, in that he has no manners or self-discipline. But Trump was already President for four years, and he was not radically different from mainstream Republicans on wide swaths of public policy.

This is not how to oppose Trump. It motivates and energizes his base, and voters who are not inclined to believe that Trump is Orange Hitler after eight years are unlikely to be convinced. Worse, it further polarizes the country and heightens political tensions, leading to long-term damage to our culture.

Hillary Clinton knows better. So does Rachel Maddow, who has spent weeks directly comparing Trump and MAGA to Nazi sympathizers in World War II. Catastpophizing Trump might get them attention and ratings, but it harms the country. We all need to cool down the rhetoric, especially with the tired comparisons to Nazi aggression and tyranny.