Newt Gingrich And The Reductio Ad Hitlerlum
Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, Newt Gingrich became the latest politician to compare the Obama Administration to the Nazis:
Wallace: You also write this on the screen: “The secular socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.” Mr. Speaker, respectfully, isn’t that wildly over the top?
Gingrich: No, not if by America you mean….Just listen to President Obama’s language. He gets to decide who earns how much. He gets to decide when it’s too much.
Wallace: We’re not talking about any company. We’re talking about companies that the government has put billions of dollars in…
Gingrich: No, no..he has said publicly and generically. Some Americans earn too much. So now he’s going to decide that?
Wallace: No, he’s not. He has said that some Americans earn too much.
Gingrich: …As a threat to our American way of life. The secular-socialist left represents a fundamental replacement of America, a very different world view, a very different outcome. I think is a very serious threat to our way of life.
Trotting out the “Nazi” insult has become such a common part of the American political lexicon that it’s hardly a surprise anymore. The left put a Hitler moustache on George W. Bush while he was in office, and now, the right does the same to Obama. Its become so common, in fact, that seems like it’s starting to lose it’s emotional resonance. If everything your opponent does is “Nazi-like,” then using the word just becomes part of the regular background chatter of the political world.
As Kathleen Parker argued nearly a year ago when the Nazi analogy was a common part of the town hall protests and counter protests, what it really displays is massive intellectual weakness:
Invocations of Hitler usually mean two things: one, a poverty of imagination, and two, a paucity of good arguments. It is nearly axiomatic that any protest against government action will feature Hitler in some form. Left and right are equally guilty. Trivializing such evil is an insult to the memory of millions who suffered and died by his order, as well as to the intelligence of all sentient beings.
It may no longer be possible in this country to have a serious debate about anything. Inevitably, substance devolves into silliness. Even the most dignified of statesmen become caricatures when juxtaposed with the ridiculous.
It seems like it would be possible to have a vigorous political debate without comparing one’s opponents to the most one of the most evil regimes in history. For one thing, it trivializes the evil that the Nazis did and insults the memory of their victims. For another, it’s not really a political argument, it’s a way of shutting your opponents up.
Ideally, people who do things like this, whether their name is Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, or Michael Moore, would be laughed out of the political arena. The fact that they aren’t indicates that we’ll be hearing Nazi analogies for some time to come.
I think you may want to re-read that exchange. Newt wasn’t saying Obama = Hitler, he was saying that Obama’s porgrams are the greatest threat to the US way of life since WWII (Nazi Germany) or the cold war (Soviet Union).
Now you can certainly argue if Obama is that great of threat.
If you look at the massive debt and increase government control over larger and larger chunks of the GDP, the comparison is certainly open to discussion.
By accusing Newt of an argument he didn’t make and not addressing the underlying question of Obama trying to put to much power in the hands of the government and creating underlying financial problems with massive debt, you aren’t showing much respect for political discourse yourself.
Yay, Godwin’s Law!!!
yetanotherjohn,
When Obama’s policies involve invading Poland and rounding up Jews, I will agree that the Nazi analogies are appropriate.
Actually, you wonder if this might be a good thing.
If eventually it becomes an empty phrase and thus no longer effective, perhaps it will force people to use actual logic for their arguments. On the other hand, what about when a genuine horror comes around? Then we’ve been crying wolf the whole time, and will linguistically fall short of being able to deal with it.
YAJ has a valid point. Gingrich did not call anyone a Nazi but referred to two of the greatest threats to our way of life in modern times. When you say ‘Nazi Germany’ it sets the time. If Gingrich had just said ‘Germany’ it could be misleading. It may be close but in the end it does not meet the Godwin standard.
Nat,
I doubt it. Even if “Nazi” does lose it’s emotional edge as a political catch phrase there are plenty of others.
The right has “socialist” and even “communist,” while Glenn Beck is working on turning “progressive” into a dirty word.
The left has “racist”
Steve,
I don’t really see there’s much of a difference. It’s a pejorative attack, not a substantive argument
Listen, Newt is just telling the truth.
My boss told me he was going to give me a raise and when it didn’t appear on my last paycheck, he said that it was all set to go, but Obama nixed it.
I work at a private company, by the way.
He said Obama told him I was earning too much and that our company ought to “spread the wealth.” The boss said if he would have gone ahead an granted my raise, Obama might nationalize our firm.
So, this guy is about as Hitler as you can come. He forcing socialism down our throats and dictating to private businesses how much their employees can earn.
When I didn’t see the raise on my paycheck, I was at first upset with my boss; however, when he told me what happened, it became clear that Obama is the culprit here.
I totally disagree with Obama’s statement that there should be some sort of limit to earnings. But even so, I fail to see how preventing a hedge fund manager from earning billions of dollars a year would actually negatively impact America, much less destroy it. So even in yetanotherjohn’s interpretation, it’s a stupid thing for Gingrich to say.
As for Newt complaining about the ‘secular’ worldview, oh, do go on, Mr. Serial Adulterer.
I wish the loons on the right would get their story straight.
I thought the New Deal which granted unions the right to organize and strike, mandated minimum wages, overtime, vacation, standardized the work week, instituted Glass Steagall, established Social Security, taxed millionaires at 90% marginal rates, had actual Socialists in the White House, set wage and price controls, enforced and strengthened anti trust laws and basically sought to destroy corporate hegemony would be the biggest threat to America according to all you know nothings (and I mean specifically Mr. Plunk and yetanotherjohn).
Your constant knee jerk defense of all things conservative certainly proves the point that “It may no longer be possible in this country to have a serious debate about anything. Inevitably, substance devolves into silliness.”
And this is especially true of most of the right wing comments on this blog.
Dr. Joyner at least is willing to criticize present conservative wackiness and I have on numerous occasions here pointed out the idiocy of the liberals and have given credit to some conservative positions.
But the constant drivel of the right (yes there were WMDs in Iraq, its just that they moved them to Syria, birthers, Obama = communist) is fast becoming a parody.
Just look at the two above comments parsing with Clintonesque (what is “is”?) fervor the obvious connection Newt is making.
Cut the crap boys…if in your hysterical conservative view, centrist Obama is more of a threat than Socialist FDR you are even dumber than I thought.
Obama is hitting all the foundational milestones to government-controlled existence; income, healthcare, education, housing, and dissemination of information.
Anyone that thinks this is coincidental is either so partisan that they don’t care or believes, along with the President, that the citizenry should be controlled and managed into “proper” modes of behavior. It is blatant and obvious and, even more importantly, critical mass will soon be reached where awareness is the rule rather than the exception. The American people are no longer sleep-walking through their political life.
Juneau,
And of course you right wingers were so vigorous in your denunciation of the Patriot Act which is 100x more of a threat to our constitutional protections than anything Obama has proposed right?
Yeah, thought so.
Uhhh…you are aware that Obama has supported and extended the powers in Patriot Act, right?
“The secular socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.†Mr. Speaker, respectfully, isn’t that wildly over the top?
To all of Gingrich’s critics, please rephrase his sentence without referencing Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union but DO NOT change his message and DO NOT change the intensity of threat he is expressing.
I’m curious what referents are more appropriate.
Doug, There is a substantial difference between calling someone a Nazi and referring to Nazi Germany. And of course it’s pejorative, he’s criticizing the direction these people are taking the country. Can’t Newt speak in such terms?
I see The Q is back winning friends and influencing people. I guess name calling is all the Left has anymore. For the record I was ready to condemn Newt’s statement until I read it. The headline and comments mislead the reader.
I expect someday the Liberals will come to understand the complaints are about the direction we are headed more than where we at. That’s the gripe. We’re moving the wrong way.
“Centrist Obama”? That’s a jewel.
Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/obama-backs-expiring-patriot-act-spy-provisions/#ixzz0oE8g9xBl
Juneau,
Yes Obama is an idiot for supporting this Patriot Act. And that’s my point, what kind of Marxist is this guy?
See conservatives, that’s hows its done.
Just because I am a democrat doesn’t mean that they are always right. I feel free to call Obama an idiot at times for his positions. Unlike the goose stepping flock of Newt.
Now, Juneau, I guess you support our Marxist Kenyan President since he supports the patriot act as do you. Right?
As for Mr. Plunk, I never said you are a crack smoker as you accused me of a week or so ago.
I guess you are a graduate of the Dale Carnegie school.
Gingrich said in plain Deutch…er English ““The secular socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.â€
So if I said, ‘Mr. Plunk like the crack dealer and child molester is a threat to our society and should be castrated.”
And then my supporters defend the above by pointing out, “look Q never SAID Mr. Plunk is a child molester or crack dealer. Read the words. Does it say Mr. Plunk IS a child molester?”
You guys are channeling the inner Bill Clinton daily.
Grow up infants.
No, I don’t support him, or not support him, because of his stance on the Patriot Act. I was simply pointing out to you that he is everything you were afraid of in Bush, plus all the extra nationalization garbage. What does that make Obama to you? If Bush did “x100 more to take away our constitutional freedoms” as you say, and if Obama is still doing the same as Bush, plus all the other restrictions and controls, then shouldn’t Obama be on your list of undesirables as well?
Well, “Hitlerian” may not be too far off base when it comes to the Obama Administration. They are practicing the “Big Lie” technique developed by the Nazis. This Administration is even out to slap the Jews(Israelis) around.
Juneau,
Hey, I agree with you when you say “No, I don’t support him, or not support him, because of his stance on the Patriot Act.”
My point, which you clearly missed because of your conservative blinders is very elementary. Let me S-L-O-W-L-Y explain it to you.
Since this was about Newt’s statement and your defense of it, I was merely pointing out that repubs constantly drone on about the most picayune of details in decrying anything Obama.
You don’t even have the balls to say, “you know, i agree with Obama on the patriot act” because it will freeze your little minds.
Instead, your screed turns to my failing to conflate Obama with Bush.
Pure rubish.
You went to excruciating pains to google and cut and paste the similiar positions of Obama and Bush vis-a-vis the Patriot Act and then you ask “what does that make Obama to you?”
Well what does it make Obama to you?
A Marxist Kenyan who hates America? Or a supporter of Bush’s attack on the constitution.
You fools cry out that Obama will destroy America and the Constitution, then utter nary a peep when Bush already started it with the attack on privacy and search and seizure laws.
Just be a friggin’ man and say, Obama is an ahole, but I agree on his support of the PA and screw the ACLU?
Whats so hard about that?
ah, the “but mommmmmmmm, he did it too!!” defense.
The Q, I never accused you of smoking crack. Making stuff up doesn’t bolster your credibility. My comment regarding making friends is simply there to remind you that jumping in calling names doesn’t advance the conversation. You are disruptive and combative in a place more used to genuine thought and civil debate.
If you go back and read some of my posts you will see I have strong feelings about personal privacy versus the state. But I also point out it is the local city council that is more likely to violate our rights instead of the federal government. Those nasty no knock raids are not the FBI but city’s militarized SWAT team. The federal government’s mandate is to protect us from enemies foreign and domestic so that Patriot Act stuff is benign.
The thread is about Newt’s belief that a secular socialist machine is ruining America with it’s economic policies and his comparison of the threat being as serious as Germany during WWII or the Soviet empire. Now that’s debatable but I think our host wanted to talk more about the use of the word Nazi which I found inconsequential and below the Godwin standard. Perhaps we could talk about that rather than go back to Bush and calling us loons and infants.
We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot but if you would stop the name calling and let the debate take place as it should you’ll find we all can get along. If not, whatever dude (I always loved that phrase).
Jones425,
Slapping the Jews around?
Are you friggin’ kidding me?
Lets see, the pentagon expresses the opinion that Israeli policies make their mission more difficult.
I guess they should love the Israelis more than their own troops as obviously do you.
And you call yourself an American?
Has Obama withheld any aid, foreign credits, loan guarantees, weapons shipments etc to Israel?
Lets see, rockets launched from Gaza over a period of 8 years kill 13 Israelis.
So they kill 1500 Gazans in retaliation…a ratio of 100 Palestinians to every Israeli killed
Sounds like the Gestapo who would massacre whole villages if one SS trooper was killed.
Do I think the Palestinians are idiots? Of course.
If I were an Israeli I would be all for a Palestinian state and here’s why?
Just think if Palestine was a country and they lobbed rockets from their sovereign territory killing Jews.
Israel can then lawfully declare war (like the U.S. did to Iraq and Afghan.) on the “country” of Palestine then legally kill all the women and children they want to without the bad PR.
However, it looks bad when they ghettoize and engage in apartheid of their “territories” and the U.S. gets dragged in the mud defending Israel’s genocide.
Let Palestine become a legal country, then do a Nagasaki on them when they engage in the crazy terrorist shite they do against Israel.
But the jews are too afraid, hence the stalemate and world opprobrium.
Mr. Plunk,
I accept your civil plea for sane discourse.
Lets attack the content of one’s positions and not the character.
This may be difficult, but I will try.
It is so obvious that this pathetic pitch by Gingrich is the act of the desperately ineffectual…just as many on the left used similar language against Bush because he was president and there was nothing they could do about it, this latest drivel is the product of someone who opposes Obama but can do absolutely nothing to change the fact that he is the president and may very well be elected to a second term…oh well, Gingrich can continue the Nazi comparisons well into 2016…
It’s not how the Nazi’s ended, it’s how the Nazi’s started……..
I think I have heard this before… uhhhhh, let’s see….
Stalin! Noooo, LENIN! Nooooo,,, It was MARX!
I knew I’d come up with it.
Juneau…. you closet marxist, you… wink wink nudge nudge, Know what I mean? Know what I mean? You’re a real “goer” aren’t you? Know what I mean? A real goer… Wink wink nudge nudge….
I never heard a single logical comparison of Bush to Hitler. The logic of the left never went beyond this:
Hitler was bad
Bush is bad
Bush = Hitler
Obama’s eagerness to gin up hatred – actual edge-of-violence hatred – for those in private enterprise makes the comparison valid. The folks from AIG and Bank of America would certainly agree. They received death threats and visits to their homes from Obama’s preferred combination of union thugs and “community organizers.”
Mike! You are a laff a minute! I guess these are the same “combination of union thugs and ‘community organizers'” who tore up the “health care” town hall meetings?
Hee hee,Haw haw… you crack me up!
Tell us Mike, do you actually have to be wearing a dunce cap to register GOP these days, or do they just take you at your word that you are a complete frigging moron?
It’s easy to tell the right from the left on OTB – the left seems to feel that facts should be substituted for acidic comments; they seem to think that a solid argument consists of punctuating their lame commentary with an insult, then high-fiving themselves with little shivers of delight as they retreat back into their caves.
Moron: one who lacks the mental capacity to assimilate the facts of reality and adjust their worldview to accommodate a change in the environment.
Ahem – Substituted “with” , not “for” – my bad…
Ha! Hmmm….complaining about “acidic comments,” “lame commentary punctuated with an insult,” and then adding a “retreat back into their caves” remark at the end?
That’s rich…
PS. If you want people to take you seriously, avoid phrases like “seems to feel” or “they seem to think.” It makes you sound like you don’t know what you’re talking about.
“Seems to?” You mean you don’t know for sure? By which technology did you use to get this insight into another person’s thoughts and feelings? A Voight-Kampff machine?
Yeah, luckily the Right doesn’t have any edge-of-violence hatred at all. For example, the guy who voted for the health care bill who had his gas lines cut.
Newt is absolutely right. Obama is a threat to the way of life that’s sacred to this country.
For example:
Right now, the percentage of a fund’s proceeds that investors pay to the manager — called the “carried interest†— gets taxed as if it’s capital gains (at a 15 percent rate, instead of 35 percent), even though the manager doesn’t have any money at risk. It’s as if we treated movie proceeds given to a film’s lead actor as investment income.
See? Tax giveaways to millionaires — part of what makes America great. And the national-socialist Obama wants to tax these managers at the same rate as people who earn their money! HITLER! HITLER! HITLER!
I’m so glad that Gingrich, and so many at OTB, realize how vital it is to put a stop to this kind of thing, and to protect the 15% tax rate for hedge-fund managers.
Juneau. Ummm. Didn’t you mean to have that the other way around?
Kinda bad when you can’t even get a simple putdown right. Must be the MSM’s fault. Or perhaps all the death threats from Obama’s thugs have you rattled.
🙂
Actually, I find it very useful when people compare either Bush or Obama with Hitler … its about as much proof as you need that the person doing so has almost zero knowledge of history, and can be safely ignored in terms of rational discourse afterwards.
Franklin, The ‘guy’ was the brother of a congressman and it was his BBQ that was vandalized.
tom p, Who tore up town hall meetings? There were angry constituents but I don’t recall vandalism or violence.
Ahh, yes, brother. Huge difference, since it was merely a mistake that it was for the brother. After having his address publicized by right-wing nuts and asking for a message to be sent.
My point was, for every left-wing nut (eco terrorist), one can find a right-wing nut (abortion doctor killer). Blind partisans like Mr. Cullen above constantly try to deny this, but it’s actually pretty obvious.
Dear Conservatives,
What kind of dystopian hell hole of a country did we have when taxing millionaires at marginal rates ranging from 90% (in the 40s, 50s) to 71% (60s and 70s) to 50% (80s).
Oh yeah, I forgot, I grew up in LA, which was so reminded me of Bangladesh in the 60s and 70s because of our poor treatment of millionaires in America.
Geesh, it wasn’t until ronald reagan became president and unfettered our precious rich folk from the tyranny of taxes that all those million dollar homes in Malibu and Bel Air and Beverly Hills were built right?
You morons on the right kill me.
Franklin, I get your point but would differ with you a bit. There are nuts on both sides to be sure but people play this incident as if the homes gas lines were cut and it the equivalent of attempted murder rather than vandalism.
The Q, I really don’t see the government as having the moral authority to tax millionaires at the high rates you mention. What makes it their money to take? In the mean time our problems are not about tax revenue but about spending control. You didn’t make it very long before name calling again. Show some self control.
Except Newt is a very bright, very well educated guy. He knows his history. He is deliberately peddling this crap, playing to the lowest common denominator, and crapping on the memory of those who were the victims of the actual Nazis in the process.
Its noteworthy that this does not draw any condemnation from the right, but a little name calling on a blog is cause for near hysteria…
The folks that are obviously on the left here on this blog are hilarious. They try and come off like libertarians, except they think that the right is the only party that has done anything majorly wrong. To top that off, every time someone points out that Obama is reducing our freedoms and foundations, they can only come back with a comparison to Bush (and sometimes Reagan).
If your man is soooo good, and if his stuff is defensible, then defend it with some facts! If you like him, stand up for him and tell me where he is leading this country in the right direction. You lefties on OTB aren’t libertarian in the slightest – you just think that buys you some street cred when it comes to generic trashing of “the right.”
And how exactly is he doing this?
I don’t feel any real need to defend him. I give Obama a B- for his first year and a half. That is up from the “F” we experienced for 8 years, so it is a pretty serious net gain.
Pretty much babble here. The Democrats suck less than the GOP, and that gap has continued to widen, but I still think Democrats tend to suck. The Democratic party was in pretty good shape when Howard Dean was running the DNC, but most career politicians can’t stand him and wanted him gone in spite of his remarkable success there.
As for being a libertarian, it is something that most intelligent people grow out of by the time they are 25.
This deserves a bit more examination. I did not know that “the right” was a political party.
A mind is indeed a terrible thing to waste…
Mr. Plunk,
My point about taxing millionaires at such high rates is to prove to the ignorant right wingers that such “Marxist” policies of the past did not destroy, decimate, injure or hamper America.
So all this tripe about Obama and his radicalization of the U.S. is bullshit.
Thats my point. You guys rant and rave about the “future” destruction of America due to Socialism, but when it actually was practiced in this country (i.e. high confiscatory marginal rates on the sacred rich for decades) conservative predictions of dire dystopian consequences turned out to be bullshit.
Same with the ronald reagan warning back in 1962 about how medicare would open the flood gates of doom and gloom or how in 1994, Republicans warned that the clinton tax hike would add trillions to the deficit and destroy business bla bla bla.
You see Mr. Plunk, even with a mountain of evidence proving the world is flat, you guys stick to your ridiculous flawed nostrums of liberal “socialism” destroying america.
Its a tired canard thats been played since FDR banished the GOP to the ashcan of history.
Conservatives just can’t admit that the New Deal fuc%$ked the rich, helped the poor and widely expanded opportunities for the middle class.
Until the actor convinced right wing fools otherwise and we have been arguing against right wing insanity ever since.