Sometimes Godwin’s Law Does Not Apply

Posted on May 3, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

One of the things I'm fairly squeamish about is comparisons of contemporary figures to Hitler. I do not go as far as those who say that this genocide was unique and superlatively horrible; Cambodia, 'ethnic cleansing', Rwanda, the 20th century has examples of horrors, each different in meaningful ways, each horrible.

Nevertheless, I am highly predisposed to dislike and distrust a statement like this one: “ Rush Limbaugh is as mainstream in America as Hitler was mainstream in Germany, circa 1932.” Trouble is, Digby got evidence, drawn from Day One of David Brock's new site Media Matters for America​.

It ain't pretty.

If there is any decency around, then decent people are going to run away from Limbaugh, despite the TLC they may wish to give this slightly repentant drug abuser.

  • Limbaugh suggests that feminists are into bestiality with dogs
  • “What's good for terrorists is good for John Kerry”
  • “if you want the terrorists running the show, then you will elect John Kerry”
  • “[Speaking about Democrats] I don't know who they are, I don't know what they believe, but I can't relate. I can't possibly understand somebody who hates this country, who was born and raised here. I don't understand how you hate this Constitution. I don't understand how you hate freedom”
  • “These people have become the mainstream thought — thinkers, generators of the Democratic Party. It's who they are. They hate this country. They hate the military of this country.”

(there's quite a bit more where that came from).

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5 Responses to Sometimes Godwin’s Law Does Not Apply

  1. MP says:
    May 4, 2004 at 12:33 am

    Do decent liberals run from Bill Clinton, the slightly repentant adulteror/liar? What about the similarity between Hillary’s paranoia of a right wing conspiracy and Hitler’s paranoia of the Jews? What about John Kerry’s wife with the german last name, “Heinz”? I think you’ve blown the lid off something big here….

  2. John says:
    May 4, 2004 at 3:45 am

    If you think those comments are in some way even close to relating to Hitler then you are not as smart as I thought Prof. Froomkin. The comparison does no justice. Saying someone is wrong is one thing. Comparing him to someone who was a mass murderer is another. Do you think Democrats hate America? Or is their representation of America just skewed from what conservatives think? Perhaps that is the comparison being made, I figured you would understand that…but let’s just say Hitler…after all, maybe you can relate it to Geroge Bush. Wow does that accomplish something.

  3. Michael says:
    May 4, 2004 at 8:23 am

    You need to read more carefully. The comparison — not mine — is to Hitler ** in 1932**. Do you know what he was doing then? Furthermore, the statement is about being mainstream like Hitler. Are you aware of the number of Germans who voted for Hitler in free elections?

    Have a look here:

    In the 1930 elections the Nazi vote jumped dramatically from 810,000 to 6,409,000 (18.3 percent of the total vote) and they received 107 seats in the Reichstag. Prompted by Hjalmar Schacht and Fritz Thyssen, the great industrial magnates began to contribute liberally to the coffers of the NSDAP, reassured by Hitler’s performance before the Industrial Club in Dusseldorf on 27 January 1932 that they had nothing to fear from the radicals in the Party. The following month Hitler officially acquired German citizenship and decided to run for the Presidency, receiving 13,418,011 votes in the run-off elections of 10 April 1931 as against 19,359,650 votes for the victorious von Hindenburg , but four times the vote for the communist candidate, Ernst Thaelmann. In the Reichstag elections of July 1932 the Nazis emerged as the largest political party in Germany, obtaining nearly fourteen million votes (37.3 per cent) and 230 seats. Although the NSDAP fell back in November 1932 to eleven million votes (196 seats), Hitler was helped to power by a camarilla of conservative politicians led by Franz von Papen, who persuaded the reluctant von Hindenburg to nominate “the Bohemian corporal” as Reich Chancellor on 30 January 1933.

  4. s.m. koppelman says:
    May 4, 2004 at 9:28 am

    Hillary Clinton’s “paranoia of a right-wing conspiracy”?

    Funny, I thought she turned out to be right about that.

  5. MP says:
    May 4, 2004 at 12:49 pm

    What about Arnold? Is he indecent?

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