Hitler!

HITLER!

We live in an age haunted by the ghost of Hitler—a pale specter sporting a swastika and a Charlie Chaplin mustache. Hitler! What a loaded word. A name so stained by evil that it’s disappeared as a surname, assuming only the ignoble role of ultimate pejorative. When we want to fear-monger we compare somebody to Hitler. The more heated the rhetoric the more likely it is that the ghost of Hitler will appear—summoned from the grave by our séance of accusation.

This is especially true on the internet. Godwin’s Law states—

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

Essentially this means a political discussion on Facebook with more than a hundred comments has nearly a 100% chance of Hitler showing up! Somebody is going to call somebody else a Hitler. This hurling of the Hitler epithet is not the result of reasoned analysis (though it may pretend to be), but is a pure act of scapegoating.

Hitler drew horns on the Jews to scapegoat them, now we draw Hitler mustaches on our enemies—but it’s the same thing! It’s the air the devil breathes.

BZ