'Godwin’s Law' creator says Trump is 'opening himself up to the Hitler comparison'
Mike Godwin — an attorney who invented one of the fundamental rules of online discourse — said comparing former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler is not only accurate, but that Trump himself is purposefully inviting the comparison.
"Godwin's Law" states that in all internet-based arguments, it's inevitable that one person will eventually invoke Hitler and/or Nazi Germany, thereby losing the argument by default. In a recent interview with Politico, Godwin said that comparing Trump to the German dictator is apt given his recent remarks on the campaign stump dehumanizing his political opponents and immigrants.
"Trump’s opening himself up to the Hitler comparison," Godwin said. "I think that it would be fair to say that Trump knows what he’s doing. I think he chose that rhetoric on purpose."
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Over the weekend, Trump said that undocumented immigrants from South America, Africa and Asia were "poisoning the blood of our country" while campaigning in New Hampshire (which Census records show is 92.6% white). NBC News noted that Hitler deployed the phrase "blood poisoning" in his manifesto "Mein Kampf" when describing his feelings about immigration. Following that event, President Joe Biden's reelection campaign accused the former president of echoing Hitler and other reviled dictators.
"Donald Trump 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," a campaign statement read. "Trump is not shying away from his plan to lock up millions of people into detention camps and continues to lie about that time when Joe Biden obliterated him by over 7 million votes three years ago."
Godwin told Politico that when Trump channels Hitler, he "believes, for whatever reason, that there is some part of his base that really wants to hear this message said that way, and he’s caving to them." He added that the former president "finds it both rewarding personally for himself and he believes it’s necessary to motivate people to help him get elected again."
"What we have of Hitler’s speeches are mostly recorded, and they’re not always particularly coherent... You see again and again Hitler repeating himself. He’ll repeat the same lines or the same sentiment on different occasions," Godwin said. "With Trump, whatever else you might say about him, he knows what kinds of lines generate the kinds of reactions that he wants. The purpose of the rallies is to have applause lines, because that creates good media, that creates video. And if he repeats his lines again and again, it increases the likelihood that a particular line will be repeated in media reporting. So that’s right out of the playbook."
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