Harris Goes Godwin

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In politics, you can always rely on two things appearing on a regular basis: Hyperbole and projection. Oftentimes, you get the Exacta, a two-for-one, and it's easy to predict when you're going to get that twofer: when a candidate starts to panic.

Lo and behold, Vice President Kamala Harris, escalating to five-klaxon mode:

Donald Trump is out for unchecked power. He wants a military like Adolf Hitler had, who will be loyal to him, not our Constitution.

Forgive my snorting at Harris's implication that she has the slightest loyalty to the Constitution. She and her party routinely wipe their collectivist asses with it, on everything from free speech to gun rights to enumerated powers to the separation of powers to federalism itself. They have been the ones chasing unchecked power, and every election cycle brings a ratcheting up of that pursuit. Harris wants to neuter the Supreme Court - the institution tasked with saying "no" to government excesses and overreach - and to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate for whatever legislation she regards as too important to be trusted to established processes. Her boss's boss, Barack Obama, clucked his tongue at executive overreach when he was a candidate and George W. was President, but embraced it the moment he didn't get his way in Congress. Her boss, Joe Biden, likewise ran amok with substantial executive action after promising a return to moderation and normalcy.

Now, Harris, actually losing electoral ground to the Untethered Orange Id despite promising the moon and the stars to anyone who votes for her, is moving on from policy and onto the personal.

On the scale of personal affronts, likening someone to Adolph Hitler is going to eleven. It is the nuclear option. It is the Rubicon. It is a brutality that is so offensive, it should be used with the greatest judiciousness.

Or, perhaps not.

"Sunny" on Twitter X helpfully compiled a list of individuals and groups that have been likened to Hitler by Democrats and leftists:

• Nikki Haley

• McCain Supporters

• Ron DeSantis

• John McCain

• George W. Bush

• Dick Cheney

• NYC Republicans

• Glenn Youngkin supporters

• Mitch McConnell

• The Border Patrol en toto

• Israel

• Police Departments

• Pro-Lifers

• The First Amendment

• Barry Goldwater

• Mitt Romney

• Thomas Dewey

• and... The entirety of the United States

A brief Internet search offers up a plethora of Bush-Hitler comparisons, just as a reminder that we've seen this before.

Calling someone "Hitler" ain't what it used to be.

Attorney Mike Godwin, thirty-four years ago, offered what is now called Godwin's Law:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

That such comparisons trivialize the monstrosity of the Third Reich; the Holocaust; the persecution and slaughter of Romani, the disabled, gays, blacks, political dissidents, Jehovah's Witnesses, Slavic people, mixed-race people, and more; the promulgation of world war; and all the other horrors perpetrated under Adolph's leadership is a plaint that has become almost quaint by now. Those who Godwin are rarely influenced by rationality.

“Rarely influenced by rationality” is an apt conclusion for a giant swathe of people on social media.

That Harris is, according-to-Hoyle, more fascist than Trump is, of course, not to be mentioned.

The old lawyer's adage comes to mind:

If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts;

if you have the law on your side, pound the law;

if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.

Harris isn't winning on policy. It's clear she intends to continue and even expand on Biden's policies, and that's not selling to an electorate that still feels the sting of Biden's inflation, sees the border continue to be unprotected, sees migrants sapping public resources (to the tune of $150B and counting), and sees a long list of "not good" stuff coming out of this administration.

She's not winning on "loyalty to the Constitution," aka the law. She is on record as wanting to upend norms, such as the independence of the judiciary and the filibuster, and her team has engaged in a long series of deceits and creativities in their relentless drive to "get" Trump.

So, losing on both fronts, she's now pounding the table. She not only went Godwin, she declared Trump to be "unhinged."

I've called him "untethered," and I still feel it is an apt descriptor, but that's a description of his politics, not a mental assessment.

Perhaps sensing that Reductio Ad Hitlerum is a bomb that shouldn’t be dropped too often, she and the Dems have latched onto a lesser version of the same tactic: calling Trump a fascist. A word that, in modern parlance, has been fuzzed up so badly it mostly means “someone I don’t like who’s on the other team.” Despite that, I delved into how the “fascism” accusation is a classic bit of projection here, and a pulling back of the curtain here.

Oh, and let’s not overlook this howler:

Her party weaponized the DoJ, the FBI, state-level prosecution offices, dozens of insiders and “experts” (remember the 51 intelligence experts who attested that the Hunter Biden laptop was a fake?), and more before, during, and after Trump’s presidency. Ms. Harris, please take a look in the mirror.

Trump’s a lot of things, but he is not Hitler 2.0 and he is not a fascist. Repeating the slurs over and over isn’t going to make them true, and escalating the rhetoric in this fashion is not only a horrific disrespect to the victims of Hitler and of actual fascism, it’s a reckless escalation that could have terrible consequences for the nation.

The election predictions continue to show a tight race, but Harris's recent activities and utterances point at a growing fear that she's losing. Hyperbole, lies, and personal attacks. Aka “pounding the table.”

Rather clear signs of panic, nine days before the election.