It’s straight from Mike Godwin, the author of Godwin’s Law — you know, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” He wants us all to know that that is not a proscription, just a description. When he coined it, it was intended as a joke, but it’s not funny anymore.
But when people draw parallels between Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy and Hitler’s progression from fringe figure to Great Dictator, we aren’t joking. Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy.
And that’s why Godwin’s Law isn’t violated — or confirmed — by the Biden reelection campaign’s criticism of Trump’s increasingly unsubtle messaging. We had the luxury of deriving humor from Hitler and Nazi comparisons when doing so was almost always hyperbole. It’s not a luxury we can afford anymore.
It used to be that you could use Godwin’s Law to accuse someone of hyperbole, but not in the case of Trump. He really is a bombastic racist who wants to take over the government and round up his critics in camps. He has said so!
The steady increase in Hitler comparisons during the Trump era is not a sign that my law has been repealed. Quite the opposite. Godwin’s Law is more like a law of thermodynamics than an act of Congress — so, not really repealable. And Trump’s express, self-conscious commitment to a franker form of hate-driven rhetoric probably counts as a special instance of the law: The longer a constitutional republic endures — with strong legal and constitutional limits on governmental power — the probability of a Hitler-like political actor pushing to diminish or erase those limits approaches 100 percent.
Will Trump succeed in being crowned “dictator for a day”? I hope not. But I choose to take Trump’s increasingly heedless transgressiveness — and, yes, I really do think he knows what he’s doing — as a positive development in one sense: More and more of us can see in his cynical rhetoric precisely the kind of dictator he aims to be.
Godwin is so confident that “more and more of us can see” how awful Trump is, but there is a troubling exception. The major media haven’t figured it out. Or they have, and are doing the bidding of their wealthy masters. Rather than calling out the wanna-be dictator, they’re instead doing their best to raise doubts about his opponent, Biden. I’m not a great fan of Biden, but he is a competent bureaucrat, and a far, far better person than Trump. This election ought to be sliding towards a total blowout, but I still see ridiculous headlines and op-eds that are desperately trying to inflate the contest into a nail-biter, and they might succeed.
Every article that whines that Biden is “too old” needs to recognize that yes, he is old and we’d prefer someone younger, but he’s a fit and active man, in contrast to the guy who is only four years younger, has to paint his face orange to look less corpse-like, and who thinks driving around a golf course on a cart is exercise. And is so bad at golf that he has to cheat.
Every article that blames Biden for the economy needs to be taught about relative comparisons. The economy is better than it was under the Republicans, as it always is. If the state of the economy isn’t good enough for you now, why do you still give the time of day to an incompetent crook who is guaranteed to make it worse?
Oh no, his poll numbers are down. Who cares, a year before the election? Poll numbers are going to be jittering up and down like the chart lines on a Trump lie detector test. They’re a game the media plays to drive up interest in their lazy reporting, and no one should care. This should not be a popularity contest, it should be a competence contest. But that isn’t entertaining enough.
Here’s what I want: the presidency should be an office filled by a civil servant, not a drama queen. It’s work. It’s a job. It’s well-rewarded, but the office holder should be recognized for how efficiently and smoothly they keep the country running, and that person should be eminently replaceable — they represent a set of policies that can be promoted by anyone with a history of training in government. Right now, the media are treating it as if it were a reality TV show, and are auditioning for someone sufficiently clownish, who can stir up conflict from week to week and keep the ratings high, and nothing could be more stimulating to the viewers than a needy, narcisstic, Hitler wanna-be. Stupid stereotypes and annoying characters are what made “Big Bang Theory” a commercial success, so let’s repeat that formula in our government.
Biden is far from perfect and, like anyone, has flaws, but at least he’s a sane grown-up, and that’s all I want for my president. You know the Republicans aren’t going to promote one of those, ever again.
