Subject: Re: Honoring all veterans
"literal Hitler".

The first step in a dishonest rebuttal is to falsify what your opponent is saying.

I really haven’t seen the term “literal Hitler” used very much.

I’ve seen and used the phrase “following Hitler’s playbook” recently, and though I’ve drawn comparisons between Trump and Hitler, I’ve shied away from calling Trump a “literal Hitler”, for obvious reasons.

Anne Applebaum, Ruth ben Ghiat aand other scholars who study authoritarian leaders prefer the term “authoritarian, and more specifically as regards SOME authoritarian leaders- “fascist”. Trump fits easily into the first category and seems also to fit in the second. For myself, I have no trouble calling him an authoritarian and a fascist, and with his recent demonization of immigrants, and his talk about retribution against his political enemies, he’s beginning to resemble Hitler more and more.

Is he a “literal Hitler?” Certainly not. That’s sloppy language, and I really can’t point to any extensive use of the term,

So Mark’s charge is a red herring- as if to destroy the term “Literal Hitler” somehow gets Tump off the hook for most essentially being an authoritarian….. and most likely a fascist as well.