Way back in 2004 Moveon.org ran a contest for people to create ads critical of President Bush; within the hundreds of submissions was one which compared George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler. At the time Moveon was roundly excoriated across the political spectrum: the RNC called the submission “the worst and most vile form of political hate speech.,” and Democratic candidates were called upon to condemn the ad and Moveon.org. This week congressman Gohmert (R-TX) took the floor of the US House of Representatives and quoted Thomas Sowell’s bizarre op-ed column comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler:
There’s a brilliant man named Thomas Sowell. And, um, I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, but I sure would have voted for Thomas Sowell. This man, well, his article says quite a lot. His editorial, um, says here — and it’s just been posted this week — but it says, “When Adolph Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920’s” — and I’m quoting from Thomas Sowell in his editorial:
‘leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics. Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler’s rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions. ‘Useful idiots’ was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.’
And this isn’t in the article — this is my comment — but we do have useful idiots today, who are heard to say, ‘Wow, what we really need is for the president to be a dictator for a little while.’ They know not what they say
In the early 90’s Mike Godwin stated that argument, in Usenet, that went on long enough would eventually needlessly invoke Hitler or the Nazis, and that this was the moment for the argument to end – this has been known as Godwin’s Law. The law is now smashed, no longer applicable, a remnant a more pleasant time in American discourse. For today, every argument seems to begin and end with Hitler or Nazis. As Steve Benen put it:
Far-right rhetoric is routinely exasperating, but this Nazi preoccupation holds a special place in the lexicon. Remember when Obama’s efforts to rescue American auto manufacturing were compared to Hitler? And how many times did Republicans compare health care reform to the Nazis? Or how about the time a Republican congressman compared Obama to Hitler over national-service opportunities? Let’s also not forget Newt Gingrich’s recent assertion that Obama and his backers are actually worse than Nazis.
On its face, the fact that so many conservatives rely on Hitler comparisons so often is a reminder of an unfortunate truth — much of the discourse on the right has gone hopelessly insane.
As a rhetorical device Hitler/Nazi comparisons have nearly become passe and cliche, due to their over use. Like referring to an opponent as an Islamist, fascist, socialist, or communist (terms which are often strung together, but reflect radically incompatible political ideologies), the Nazi comparison only appeals to the most extreme partisans and conspiracy mongers. This is a major problem: it softens the real horror of Nazi Germany and the ideology which brutally exterminated millions of human beings. Additionally, it makes any relevant use of the comparison impossible — such as when discussing white-power movements around the globe.
In order to reclaim Nazism to it’s proper place in our historical discourse I am proposing that those on the right substitute the term Jacobin or Jacobinism when hyperbolically denigrating their opponents. From a right-wing perspective the Jacobins seem have it all:
- They helped to violently overthrow a conservative established order
- They became rabidly opposed to the religious establishment
- They allowed women into the political discourse
- They violently pursued a secular social order
- They ‘redistributed wealth’ of the social elites to the masses
- They helped spread the metric system
- They were French
I am certain that people can think of many more reasons that the right-wing should choose Jacobinism as its newest pejorative.
Of course, Jacobinism also carries with it a rich heritage of conspiracy theories, most of which tie the Jacobins to the Illuminati, the Free-Masons, and a host of other secret, world dominating, societies. I believe we could if we get Glann Beck a copy of Abbé Barruel’s 18th century best seller Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism we could get the right-wing to adopt this new meme within days. After all, Barruel defined Jacobinism as a worldwide “conspiracy of impiety” against God and Christianity, and a “conspiracy of
anarchy” against society in general. This exaggerating rhetoric certainly fits the right-wing discourse more accurately then any Nazi comparison could.
Those of us who are progressives, or slightly left in our political leanings need to help return Nazism to it’s proper place in the historical discourse, and proudly proclaim “We are Jacobins”.