Some of President Obama’s right-wing opponents occasionally equate him to Hitler, but it’s a stupid and inaccurate construct. There is no relationship and the accusation does nothing but diminish the horrific magnitude of the crimes committed by Der Fuhrer and his followers.
Naturally, that charge brings on a rash of pouting and patently fake claims of wounds from the president’s supporters. Trashy comparisons and base insults are thrown around all the time by all political groups – some do it directly and some surreptitiously and/or by proxy – but almost all of them do it. Left-wingers have used Klu Klux Klan comparisons and the liberal anti-war activists have used Hitler accusations against conservative politicians for decades. However, many hardcore antiwar demonstrators disappeared when the president proposed bombing Syria – curious.
Anyone who studied Nazism understands the problem was not just Hitler; it was that he was worshipped blindly. Hitler was the political rock star of the 1930s. We have all seen newsreels of the surging crowds with the glassy-eyed women and strutting legions of men straining to get a look at the leader.
President Obama does not have Hitler’s intentions, but he is the rock star politician of the decade – so far. Most hero worship now takes place online and in social media, but all the symptoms of overzealous hero worship are there. Like other agents of tremendous change, such as former President Ronald Reagan, some of the population always sees transitional politicians in quasi-religious terms. Therein lays the danger – people start believing the advertising and, eventually, so do the subjects themselves.
There is nothing quite as maddening as not being able to lay an existential finger on your political enemies. The Democrats know the feeling well – it was impossible to dislike Reagan; there could have been 10 Iran-Contra investigations and the public couldn’t care less. Obama is not as likeable, but the same thing is happening with investigations of the political shenanigans at the IRS.
Frustrated partisans often settle on besmirching the memory of the departed opposition; that’s why the Democrats can’t stop attacking George W. Bush. They never believed he was “deserving” of the office. It’s just frustration – long held and never to be satisfied. Obama can expect the same treatment from Republicans after he is gone for the same reason.
President Obama does have one big advantage – his race. America was ready for a black president and he came along at the right time. Timing is everything. The majority of the mainstream media are liberal and they, and many other Americans, are dedicated to making sure that America’s first black presidency is not a failure. They have been working extra hard because the president has not made it easy for them.
No matter what Obama’s supporters say, the press has been grading him on a curve. One of his biggest problems is that he spent so much time as a political opportunist, no one knows who the real Barack Obama is even today. Is he the politician who often voted “present” so he would not have a to take a political stance, opposed military intervention, opposed raising the debt limit, and refused to wear an American flag pin; or is he the America-defending killer commander bombarding the earth with drone-borne Hellfire missiles, spying on everyone, wallowing in the presidential perks of lavish vacations, and demanding unlimited access to the nation’s borrowed treasure?
Good and serious questions, but President Obama is not Hitler in any way even if far too many of his followers engage in a similar type of blind worship.
