I know that supporters of the currently ruling coalition of crooks, warmongers, torturers, incompetents, and theocrats are deeply, deeply hurt when they and their pet politicians are compared to Nazis. But could someone suggest to them — politely, of course — that it would help if they stopped borrowing Nazi iconography and phraseology?
Here, for example, is a German cartoon, circa 1924:
And here is a recent cartoon from Investor’s Business Daily — not some obscure website, but the second-largest business newspaper in the country, with a daily circulation of more than 200,000:
Any questions?
H/t: Oliver Wills, who points out that Regnery (which owns the Redstate site) just published a book by Rowan Scarborough accusing the CIA of operating a “secret plan to lose the war,” via Nervous Buddha, which found the two images.
Update This post seems to have struck a nerve. In the unfair way the Blogosphere operates, the links seem to be coming to me, and not to Oliver Willis or Nervous Buddha.
Kevin Drum points out that “stab in the back” is a fairly common metaphor for betrayal, that 99% of the people who see the cartoon won’t think “Nazi iconography,” and that Ramirez didn’t intend them to think about Der Dolchstoss.
All true. My point was that if the New Righties can’t make their case without looking and sounding like Nazis, it’s not unfair to compare them to Nazis. That’s not language policing; it’s just snark. (Kevin’s commenters are much rougher on him than I would have been, but one of them makes a good point: imagine the reaction from the wingnuts if the same cartoon were published, but with the knife labeled “Bush” or “GOP” instead of “Congress.”)
Matt Yglesias points out that he was on the developing Iraq-war version of the Dochstosslegende way back in 2004. So was Kevin Baker.
Meantime, John Hawkins at Right Wing(nut) News has detected a conspiracy so vast …