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When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

He really is that stupid.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

We will not go back.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Our Failed Major Media Open Thread: ‘Is Biden Allowed to *Do* That?… ‘

Our Failed Major Media Open Thread: ‘Is Biden Allowed to *Do* That?… ‘

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Politico, aka Tiger Beat on the Potomac, “Biden ramps up attacks on Trump by comparing him to Hitler”:

In most situations, comparing a political opponent to Adolf Hitler might seem like an extraordinary step. For Joe Biden’s campaign, it has become part of the routine of running against Donald Trump.

When the former president said that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” during a New Hampshire rally on Saturday, a Biden campaign aide charged with monitoring Trump immediately circulated the comments to staffers, according to senior officials.

Within hours, the campaign released a statement attacking Trump for having “channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy.”

It was the fourth time in the past six weeks that Biden’s campaign has likened Trump’s remarks to Hitler’s in written statements and probably not the last. The president’s team has been ramping up attacks on Trump as it barrels toward a likely rematch with him, and historians say that Trump’s recent comments about immigrants — as well as those likening his political foes to “vermin” — have echoed Hitler’s words.

Biden’s more aggressive posture also underscores that threats to democracy remain at the core of his messaging push even as he tries to simultaneously persuade voters that he is best equipped to handle the economy. It’s similar to the strategy Democrats successfully employed in the 2022 midterms — and a throughline that senior campaign officials said dates back to Trump’s response to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., which inspired Biden’s own presidential run.

“Every time he says it, we are going to call it out,” said Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director. “He’s going to echo the rhetoric of Hitler and Mussolini, and we’re going to make sure that people understand just how serious that is every single time.”…

Biden campaign aides said that this is not merely a debate about language, and they are intent on showing voters what a more autocratic second term of Trump would mean for their own rights.

To help make that case, the campaign launched a TV advertisement last week, in both Spanish and English, that likened Trump to Latin American strongmen. In the spots, images of Trump flash alongside those of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro as a narrator says that Republicans, “like dictators, want to take things away — our health insurance, our rights and freedoms, and even our safety.”

I believe the correct response would be: No lies told!

Reader Interactions

119Comments

  4. 4.

    Alison Rose

    God, that Politico piece. Oy vey. I mean…if people want the Hitler comparisons to stop, Trump could always stop, you know, acting and talking like Hitler. In any other case, it’s a comparison I loathe because it’s usually some whiny little bitch complaining that they can’t walk around Safeway barefoot or whatever, but in this case, yeah it’s accurate.

    Like, Politico itself had an interview with Mike Godwin who was like “yeah, it’s apt”.

  5. 5.

    Parfigliano

    It would all most be worth a 2nd Trump term just to see the look on the faces of our major media players as they are tied to a post and shot by the Trump regime.

  7. 7.

    zhena gogolia

    and historians say that Trump’s recent comments about immigrants — as well as those likening his political foes to “vermin” — have echoed Hitler’s words.

    Why is it that this phrasing bothers me so much? Why does it sound like “well, some people say” — it’s a fact! Can’t they verify it and report it as such?

  8. 8.

    Lyrebird

    Holy mackerel.

    “historians say”????????  really???  Maybe you could go check the gddmn Hitler quotes yourself and decide whether there’s a resemblance, but I guess that would be too much work.

    I agreed with this proposed tag the other day:

    AL > AI

    and I add that

    AL >>>>>> Politico

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    Mike Godwin, yes the guy who coined Godwin’s Law, has an op-ed in the Washington Post saying that yes, by all means compare Trump to Hitler. So, we officially have permission.

    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

  10. 10.

    Bill Arnold

    Digby, on that Politico piece IIRC:

    Joe Biden didn’t compare Trump to Hitler. Trump compared himself to Hitler by blatantly using his fascist rhetoric.

    ETA, yes, it was that politico piece, here: Framing (Digby, 2023/12/19)

  16. 16.

    Righteous Hazard

    Hell yes.

    The fact that America survived 1/6 shoulda been the end of it. But dipshits like McCarthy and some addled beltway pundits decided to rehabilitate the traitor trump.

    Glad to see Biden and his people saying it, so that those of us who are not fucking delusional can rally around the goddamned truth and Joe Biden at the same time.

  17. 17.

    trollhattan

    “Ramps up” I approve. Let’s find an Evel Knievel ramp to get some distance and trajectory on this sucker.

    The judges would also accept Mussolini, but our conservatives don’t really relate to that guy.

  18. 18.

    Mike in Pasadena

    Anne, thank you for bringing the Politico article re Fiona Hill to our attention. You are a treasure we cannot do without. A million thanks are insufficient.

    Mike

  23. 23.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: Trump doesn’t even speak German! How can he “echo Hitler’s words”?! HITLER NEVER SAID BIGLY!

    That was snark, BTW.

  27. 27.

    Joe Falco

    I really hope the comparisons to past Latin American strongmen resonates with the Hispanic voting population and drive more of them to vote D. It’s nuts to me that the Republicans made as much in-roads with that group as they did in previous elections. I understand they are not a monolithic voting group, but do they really think Republicans will deem them “white” enough not to get hassled by laws Republicans would pass to stamp out any sign of “illegals” amongst them? The Chamber of Commerce Republican types that would at least tolerate migrants in exchange for them being ground down to subservient exploited laborers no longer roam the halls of Congress like they once did. The freaks that control the GOP in Congress and in too many statehouses believe in the Great Replacement Theory and would just as soon outlaw Hispanics in general or make their lives tough enough to willingly deport themselves.

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    The media is all over Trump’s defense of his Hitler rhetoric.*

    He’s never read Mein Kampf.  Yes, that is his defense.

    Link “It’s true. They are destroying the blood of our country,” Trump told a crowd of supporters in Waterloo, Iowa. “They don’t like it when I said that. I never read Mein Kampf.” Trump said Hitler used language “in a much different way”.

    He never read it but Hitler used those phrases in a different way in that book that Hitler wrote and he didn’t read.  Get it?

     

    ETA: *and by that I mean the media is all over the quoting of what Trump said.

  29. 29.

    Old School

    When Hitler referred to vermin immigrants, he was referring to immigrants to Germany.

    Trump was referring to the U.S.

    It’s completely different.

  31. 31.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Miss Bianca: As long as Kash Patel is far enough ahead of me in line that I can hear his screams of death agony before I get thrown into the oven, I guess it’s tolerable …. [ok, ok, no not really; that’s just a really sardonic take]

  32. 32.

    catclub

    by Trump’s standards he is barely a citizen himself – his mother was an immigrant.

    Also 4 of his kids were born to an immigrant mother.

     

    More like Hitler the Austrian in Germany

  34. 34.

    Dan B

    @Lyrebird: And in related news a black gay conservative was greeted with shouts of “faggot” and “ni#*$%r” and concluded they were not Trump supporters.  I guess he’d modify his opinion as they were stringing him up.  There are other thrills they’d like to visit upon him, no doubt.

  36. 36.

    different-church-lady

    @dmsilev: ​
      It’s more like, “As a Trump campaign grows longer, the probability of him quoting Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

  37. 37.

    mrmoshpotato

    Our Failed Major Media Open Thread: ‘Is Biden Allowed to *Do* That?…

    How dare he!  After being preceded by a fucking fascist traitor who sucks Kremlin asshole; one of the best (and first Black) Presidents that this country has ever seen (despite being punched in the face by Rethuglicans everyday); and a thieving war-criminal puppet pile of shit for Dick Cheney.

  40. 40.

    hells littlest angel

    I’m fine with Biden’s campaign likening Trump to Hitler as long as it also reminds people that Hitler — like maybe a certain someone else — was a creepy little sexual degenerate. For that matter, say Hitler was dirty, diseased and incontinent, and wore elevator shoes and a mansierre — it’s not like he can sue them.

  41. 41.

    Bill Arnold

    @Old School:
    At least in his Veterans Day post on Truth Social, “vermin” was his domestic opposition. And also “Fascists”, who he pledged to solve permanently “root out”.

    In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

  42. 42.

    Chetan Murthy

    @hells littlest angel: Heh, for a second I thought you were saying Hitler was all those things, but then I did the math (counted how many of them TFG was) and reailzed what you were saying.  Excellent!

  44. 44.

    Scout211

    Stephen Miller said that United States is being overrun by immigrants and can only be saved by “massive” deportations.

    The white nationalist and former Trump White House adviser was backing up chilling comments from his old boss, who over the weekend echoed Adolf Hitler by accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.”

    “We are being conquered,” Miller said to Fox News’s Jesse Watters. “This is a complete resettlement of America in real time. It took hundreds of years, going back long even before our founding, going back all the way to the earliest days of the colonies in America to slowly build everything that we have.

    Massive deportation?!

  47. 47.

    Lyrebird

    @Dan B: Scary.

    Not trying to take away that individual person’s right to support whoever, but sfaict the orange menace has made his white supremacist sympathies clear from the get go.  Like back when he was pushing for (eta: Black and Latino) teenagers to be put to death over forced confessions.  UGH.

  49. 49.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishments☘🌈 Koch

     

     

    @Baud: He can say “I never read The Little Red Book and Mao used language differently” and the media will accept it.

  52. 52.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in NC:

    @Suzanne: How about the fat orange fascist shitstain who has been sucking Kremlin asshole since at least 1987 when the traitorous shitc*** returned from the Soviet Union and trashed NATO?

  53. 53.

    Quinerly

    Has anyone posted Serwer’s AM article in The Atantic? Looks like a good one to get those like me up to speed…..”The Colorado Ruling Calls The Originalists’ Bluff.”

    I’m out of freebies. That 12ft ladder site that got me around the Atlantic’s paywall is no longer available. (I miss that site….someone here turned me on to it) Thanks!

  55. 55.

    Another Scott

    @Scout211: The old claim wasn’t about MK, of course…

    VanityFair.com (from 2015):

    Donald Trump appears to take aspects of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office, Ivana told a friend, he clicks his heels and says, “Heil Hitler,” possibly as a family joke.

    Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.

    It’s the kerning stuff all over again.

    Grrr…,
    Scott.

  56. 56.

    Scout211

    @Martin: You mean this book?

    An image of Donald Trump with his arm raised in a salute has been included on the cover of a collection of Adolf Hitler’s speeches.

    Publisher Ishi Press International has illustrated the back cover of Hitler’s collected speeches My New Order: volume one and the front cover of volume two with photographs of the presidential candidate. It declares in the book’s blurb that: “There are clear similarities between the speeches of Trump and the speeches of Hitler”, citing everything from repetition to name calling and a lack of logical justification for views held.

  57. 57.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishments☘🌈 Koch

    I’m not comfortable comparing Dump to Hitler.  Hitler was a decorated veteran and an artist, while Dump is neither.

  58. 58.

    Miss Bianca

    @mrmoshpotato: OK, just so I’ve got this straight…saying “shit snacks” is “gross”, but saying

    the fat orange fascist shitstain who has been sucking Kremlin asshole since at least 1987

    isn’t?

    Just for the sake of clarification.

    ETA: because truth be told, I find your constant hammering on the above theme in the above words to be kind of gross, my own self.

  59. 59.

    jimmiraybob

    @Scout211: ​
     
    Just to be clear, Ivana Trump told her lawyer that Donald Trump kept Hitler’s speeches beside the bed, not a copy of Mein Kampf.

  63. 63.

    moonbat

    Call ’em out, Biden. Call them all out. Loud and clear.

    Let’s just put a permanent end to the polite game the media has been playing since 2015 by pretending Trump isn’t who he is or he doesn’t “really mean it”  or that it CANNOT happen here in the good ole US of A. Those formulae will have us as (and I cannot believe I am quoting her) Liz Cheney said, sleepwalking into a fascist dictatorship.

    Better we put all cards on the table and make this next election a clear choice. Make people understand that elections DO have consequences and make it a choice between fascism and democracy. Don’t leave anyone a fig leaf of respectability to hide behind. Those are your choices.

  64. 64.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Miss Bianca: I didn’t attack you for saying “shit snacks” but feel free to pie me if you find my language objectionable.

    You’re an adult, and I am not taking part in this argument that has nothing to do with me.

    Go get pissed at whomever took you to task over “shit snacks.”. I won’t be wasting my energy – or my hate over this.

  65. 65.

    different-church-lady

    NYT PITCHBOT PITCHBOT: “Trump calls for ‘final solution’ to immigration issues. But are comparisons to Hitler fair?”

  66. 66.

    Scout211

    Some better news tonight:

    CNN-Two Georgia election workers recently awarded nearly $150 millionby a jury for the harm caused by defamatory statements Rudy Giuliani made about them following the 2020 election can begin trying to collect from him immediately, according to a new court order.

    Typically, the women who had sued Giuliani and won would have to wait 30 days to begin attempting to claim his assets in other states. But Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court, who oversaw the high-profile trial last week, gave Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman’s attorneys the ability to attempt to collect on Wednesday.
    . . .

    Moss and Freeman’s team have already identified assets Giuliani has in New York and Florida, such as properties in both states, according to court documents. His New York co-op apartment has been listed for sale at more than $6.1 million, and Moss and Freeman’s lawyers have also noted he has a new deal for a Newsmax streaming show that may indicate some income, in addition to other media appearances he makes.

  74. 74.

    Josie

    @Joe Falco: ​ Things could get interesting for Hispanics here in Texas, since Abbott and his cronies passed a bill authorizing the officers of the law to arrest anyone suspected of being in the state illegally. Guess who will be at risk of being asked for their papers, regardless of their legal standing.​

  76. 76.

    Jackie

    @Parfigliano: What the hell?!!!

    It would all most be worth a 2nd Trump term just to see the look on the faces of our major media players as they are tied to a post and shot by the Trump regime.

  77. 77.

    Subsole

    @Scout211:

    Yes.

    Round up anyone darker than chalk, anyone with epicanthic folds, anyone that “looks foreign” (bye bye Greeks, Italians, and Balkanians), anyone in a headscarf, anyone who “looks fruity” to your high school gym coach (the one that rolled up on his golf cart and told you to run faster. You remember him.) anyone who commits any sort of civil infraction including but not limited to “eyeballing the ethical purity inspector”, and any woman who is wearing pants.

  78. 78.

    Martin

    @Scout211: Yes. He admitted to owning it in a Barbara Walters interview in the 90s.

    The problem with the media narrative is it doesn’t make sense. That’s not really the language you’d find in Mein Kampf which is more of an autobiography, it’s the language you’d find in Hitler’s speeches where he’s trying to energize a crowd. The sentiment is there, but not the presentation.

  80. 80.

    Subsole

    @Another Scott:

    Are Hitler’s speeches masterful?

    Trump is, in at least one way, a carbon copy of Hitler.

    He’s a bitter, wretched little flake who managed to sell stupidity to the gullible, hate to the hateful, arrogance to the arrogant, and cruelty to bullies.

    Is that effective? Sure. But does it require a lot of skill? I dunno.

  85. 85.

    Subsole

    @Jackie:

    No. Man’s They’ve got a point.

    I am tired of these simpering media failures in the ” smart enough to operate a word processor, too stupid to process words” club running cover for the scum of Satan’s septic tank while heaping all forms of abuse on the folks doing the hard work of keeping America a democracy.

    It is an expression of frustration. Let it be. We’re all tired and scared and we come here for reinforcement of some sort.

    I bring this all up not to argue or call you out. I simply have noticed that lately everyone seems to be just…nasty with each other, here. Quick to anger, quick to attack, quick to accuse. I am too.

    Maybe we all just need to breathe a couple times before we hit post.

    I love this place. Let’s not turn it into Twitter

     

    Edit: I actually have no idea if Parfigliano is a man. Apologies.

  92. 92.

    Scout211

    @Mr. Bemused Senior:Ishi Press International?? WTF!? Publisher of Go books? Sam Sloan?

    These two volumes of the original book were published by Ishi Press International in 2016 with commentary added to illustrate the similarity of Trump’s rhetoric to Hitler’s speeches.

    Reviews listed on the Amazon page illustrate the reactions to the commentary that was added:

    If this was just a collection of speeches it would be okay, but the author includes obviously biased editorial against the GOP (similar to watching Rachel Maddow or Ed Schultz). The book was a waste of my time.

    Ridiculous that the publisher would put our Presidents face on a book of Hitler speeches. The left is a joke.

  96. 96.

    Alison Rose

    Just saw that Ted Cruz recently claimed the reason liberal women are so angry is because liberal men are bad in bed.

    1. My dude, we have a whole lot of reasons to be angry, and most of them are caused by you and your ilk.

    2. LOL forever at the idea that conservative men, who don’t give a single shit about women or what they want, would be good in bed.

  102. 102.

    brantl

    There are some dramatic differences between Trump and Hitler; Hitler had much better hair, and a more pleasant demeanor.

  105. 105.

    RaflW

    @zhena gogolia: Reading a news article about Moms for Liberty [like their name is a very dark joke, but anyway…] and the article said some critics say mumbo jumbo to insulate themselves from naming a fact.

    Why say “branded as anti-LGBTQ by opponents” as if it is impossible for a *news organization* full of reporters to dig into the factual stance of a powerful group and say it simply IS anti-LGBTQ. There was no hidden agenda with M4L. Nothing requiring “opponents” to decode it.

  106. 106.

    RevRick

    @Subsole: We dismiss at our own peril the power of fascism, which is all dark emotions stirred up and weaponized. All fascism is rooted in two sentiments: the first is a nostalgic feeling of an idealized racial/national past identity, and the second, a combination of fear and disgust directed at others who have sabotaged/threatened/betrayed that past glory. These others are both external and internal, and usually they are alleged to have conspired against their race/nation. The language of dehumanization (vermin, illegals, criminals, addicts) is meant to evoke disgust and fear, especially when coupled with words like invasion or impurity of blood.
    Fascism cannot be answered with appeals to reason, because it is at its heart irrational. It is limbic centered, not cortex centered. It can only be countered with better emotions.

  108. 108.

    Poe Larity

    Somehow it seems fitting that we have an election over Godwin’s Law.

    The Intertubes are complete.

  109. 109.

    scav

    @Alison Rose: Well, for that matter, there is reason to suppose conservative christians are massively bad at sex (and know it) — why else would they be so panicked about their children even getting a mere hint that there might be valid alternatives to their parents marriages?

  111. 111.

    Jackie

    @Subsole: I’m sorry, but suggesting a second trump term may be worth it because… No. Just no. I refuse to give up our democracy “just to prove a point.”

  113. 113.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    “I think of Trump as Hitler without the warmth”

    – Gilbert Gottfried

  114. 114.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @p.a.: ​Actually, Adlai Stevenson:

    I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.

    Though to tell the truth it sounds more like Will Rogers – I don’t think Adlai would’ve let them off the hook that easily.

  115. 115.

    Kay

    Another witch hunt by the anti woke ninnies. This is what the NYTimes thinks voters care about- the congressional statements of Ivy League presidents. I saw Christopher Rufo is all excited abut this. Expect 5000 boring essays by the cottage industry of anti wokeness. Andrew Sullivan will write a column!

    The Republican-led Committee on Education and the Workforce shared its plans to widen its scrutiny of Dr Gay’s handling of antisemitism on Harvard’s campus.
    Chairwoman Virginia Foxx said the inquiry would see if students and staff are held to the same academic standard.

  116. 116.

    Miss Bianca

    @mrmoshpotato: It was YOU who “took me to task.” Maybe you were joking, or maybe you were just too drunk to remember.

    @zhena gogolia: No, it was this guy. I remember because he took the time to block quote it and say “gross”.

    But whatever. It’s certainly not worth making a fuss about it. I just thought it was pretty rich, considering.

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