Hitler... Hitler... Hitler...

March 4, 2004 9:06 AM

A vote against Bush is a vote for Hitler. Previously it was suggested that a vote for Bush was a vote FOR Hitler. What is with all the darn Hitler talk this election season?
posted by EmoChild (52 comments total)

Well, seeing as Bush has a proven record of not finding bin Laden, I'd say any change to that status quo should make Osama a little worried.
posted by jon_kill at 9:12 AM on March 4, 2004

If we let what the bad guys think about our elections results decide how we vote, the terrorists have won.
posted by jpoulos at 9:15 AM on March 4, 2004

Wow, Godwin's Law twice before the thread even starts. Impressive.
posted by gwint at 9:21 AM on March 4, 2004

A vote for Bush is a vote for Zardoz.
posted by moonbird at 9:23 AM on March 4, 2004

Doesn't Godwin's law only apply if a thread participant is compared to a Nazi/Hitler? If we want to meta-Godwin, can't we? I'd hate to see a group of Godbots shut down all political discourse as it pertains to Nazis or Hitler.
posted by jon_kill at 9:24 AM on March 4, 2004

Come on guys. You know Osama is in some military prison somewhere just waiting for October to be brought out and paraded around. No worries.
posted by xmutex at 9:26 AM on March 4, 2004

How do people like Cole, Republican or Democrat, get elected at all when they say such obviously stupid things?
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:28 AM on March 4, 2004

I keep hearing that about Osama, but really wonder...would we be keeping him healthy--on dialysis and everything? Wouldn't he kill himself, or go on a hunger strike, etc, if we had him locked up?

Here's Cole's homepage (the House is just full of wackos, no?)
posted by amberglow at 9:30 AM on March 4, 2004

I thought a vote for Pat Buchanan was a vote for George Bush. Or at least that's what word was down at the food court a few years back. Darn this is getting confusing.
posted by Stoatfarm at 9:30 AM on March 4, 2004

How do people like Cole, Republican or Democrat, get elected at all when they say such obviously stupid things?

Because stupid people vote for them?
posted by squealy at 9:34 AM on March 4, 2004

You know Osama is in some military prison somewhere just waiting for October

This is my nightmare scenario on this subject: OBL is captured in, say, August, the administration goes to what looks like great lengths to not let the world know he's been found, but the word is "leaked" to, oh, I don't know, Brit Hume by unspecified "intelligence officials" or "Pentagon officials" and the administration is "forced" to admit that they have him. When asked why they tried to keep it a secret, they will claim that they didn't want to appear to be using it as an election tool, and it'll look like they're telling the truth.
posted by deadcowdan at 9:34 AM on March 4, 2004

xmutex, I've been saying the exact same thing for weeks now.

The mud slinging has begun. I can't wait until Bush accuses Kerry of collusion with Jane Fonda during Vietnam again so his lame little Guard duty AWOL stuff can be paraded through the news again.

How about? A vote for Bush will fuck us all?
posted by fenriq at 9:37 AM on March 4, 2004

the word is "leaked" to, oh, I don't know, Brit Hume

Robert Novak, not Brit Hume. I wonder if Novak will give away the names of the agents who find bin Laden, or is that only for agents with family members who don't agree with the president?
posted by eyeballkid at 9:40 AM on March 4, 2004

would we be keeping him healthy--on dialysis and everything?

amberglow -- of course we would.

Osama, being in what I'd guess is a more precarious health situation, could just be under sedation and constant monitoring, and they'll lower him in a cage from the Madison Square Garden ceiling during the Republican Convention.

I'll believe that until it doesn't happen.

And the Bush campaign is going to imply Kerry's complicity in everything from the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and the eating of crack babies, to the Challenger disaster and the making of Gigli in the next eight months.

Girl, you know it's true.
posted by chicobangs at 9:46 AM on March 4, 2004

Not to, like, water down all the rhetoric or anything, but I don't see how Cole's statements equiate a no-vote on Bush as a yes-vote for hitler. From the dubious second source:

In the Yukon Review article, Cole is quoted as asking what Hitler might have thought had Franklin Roosevelt not been re-elected in 1944.

Which doesn't really say anything about our current situation. It doesn't even say that a vote for Dewey was a vote for Hitler, merely "what would Hitler have thunk had...?"

Cole does...

claim [that] if Bush loses his re-election bid, the enemies of the U-S will interpret it as a victory for bin Laden.

Which is something else entirely.

And when did the Yukon Review become an authoritative source? I can't even find a website.

Granted, its an election year and everybody is geeked up about the prospects of Bush getting out of the White House, but really...more rationality, less stretching.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:08 AM on March 4, 2004

more rationality, less stretching

Ogre, get outta here with your plea for "rationality" and "sources." Can't you see we're busy coming up with juicy conspiracy theories about things that haven't even happened yet?
posted by pardonyou? at 10:25 AM on March 4, 2004

I hope this Hitler fellow doesn't win.
posted by mazola at 10:32 AM on March 4, 2004

deadcowdan,

thanks for the scenario. i will now be unable to sleep a wink until this damned election is over and done with.
posted by lord_wolf at 11:02 AM on March 4, 2004

Where were you condemning folks when all those peace protests with Bush = Hitler signs were prancing around?
posted by angry modem at 11:04 AM on March 4, 2004

Nevermind, found them. Everything gets lost in my couch cushions.
posted by angry modem at 11:09 AM on March 4, 2004

Cole's response to the Yukon Review article.
posted by nickmark at 11:14 AM on March 4, 2004

posted by angry modem at 11:33 AM on March 4, 2004

I don't see how Cole's statements equiate a no-vote on Bush as a yes-vote for hitler.

I think you're being overly literal. That 'aid and comfort to the enemy' thing means the reasoning goes: X would like Y to be defeated, so voting for Z gives aid and comfort to X. Not too difficult to grasp. It's a facile argument. For all we know, Osama might really want Nader to win. It's stupid to presume.

But anyway: for some reason, the Japanese didn't take it as a great fillip when Churchill was kicked out in July 1945. And that was a real war.

Where were you condemning folks when all those peace protests with Bush = Hitler signs were prancing around?

Well, it's hard to put 'Remember that Hitler took advantage of an act of (presumed) terrorism to clamp down on civil rights and justify his foreign policy aspirations' on a sign. Unless you write very small.
posted by riviera at 11:38 AM on March 4, 2004

Doesn't Godwin's law only apply if a thread participant is compared to a Nazi/Hitler?

jon_kill, you speak like Hitler. Are you a Nazi?


:p
posted by madman at 11:50 AM on March 4, 2004

So what line will this Hitler fellow be on on the ballots? And can you vote for him by accident if you misalign the pages?
posted by languagehat at 12:00 PM on March 4, 2004

A vote for Bush is a vote for Zardoz.

Well, the giant flying head overlord that we all surely welcome *did* have a habit of shouting "THE GUN IS GOOD! THE PENIS IS BAD!" to his compadres. That's not dissimilar to some Dubya-ist statements.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:09 PM on March 4, 2004

Stop it, angry modem, you're frightening me. Or he is.
posted by kgasmart at 12:23 PM on March 4, 2004

this guy seemed to have said, paraphrasing: "bush's loss would be bin laden's victory". A statement unbecoming anyone, even if they are a state representative from Oklahoma.
but how is it different from the much more direct Bush=Hitler -waving 'pro-peace' demonstrators? i haven't seen discussion on metafilter EVER of their behaviour. Is it because they are not state representatives and are therefore allowed to behave this way? or is it because their stupidity is somehow different because it comes en masse?
posted by bokononito at 12:40 PM on March 4, 2004

or is it because their stupidity is somehow different because it comes en masse?

bokononito, if you can show that any peace demonstration, anywhere, displayed "Bush = Hitler" signs "en masse", that would certainly merit a discussion. But one thing that definitely has been discussed is that mass demonstrations can and often do include a certain number of morons with stupid signs, simply because there are morons in the world and nobody can stop them showing up at demonstrations.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:59 PM on March 4, 2004

Here's a few hundred Bush=Hitler images. Granted, not all of them are pictures of demonstrations, but there's no real doubt that it's a fairly widespread meme. Certainly more widespread than your "certain number of morons" argument would suggest.
posted by pardonyou? at 1:18 PM on March 4, 2004

this guy seemed to have said, paraphrasing: "bush's loss would be bin laden's victory". A statement unbecoming anyone, ...
What's actually funny about this is that the opposite is true: Bush's win really would be Bin Laden's victory.
Bush has done more than anyone to make Osama a bigger deal than he was/is (of course, until he decided to drop Osama for Saddam).
posted by amberglow at 1:34 PM on March 4, 2004

pardonyou, that still doesn't begin to bear out the suggestion that "bush=hitler" was in any way characteristic of the peace demonstrations, only that it shows up a lot on the web. A handful of those are in fact from demonstrations, but the photos may well have been singled out, shot and posted for that very reason.

Meanwhile, while "bush=hitler" is empty (and rather counterproductive) rhetoric, it's matched for untruth by the equally widespread meme "saddam=osama", which more than being empty rhetoric, was essentially used to justify a war. What this tells me is that there are stupid people on both sides, but only one set of them is represented by those who wield our military.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:43 PM on March 4, 2004

Certainly more widespread than your "certain number of morons" argument would suggest.

How many anti-war rallies did you attend, and what percentage of participants had Bush=Hitler sings? For me: >10, <1%.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 1:44 PM on March 4, 2004

Just for the sake of balance, here are some Clinton/Hitler images.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:02 PM on March 4, 2004

So basically, if Bush loses, the terrorists will have won?

I wondered when we'd start hearing this kind of stuff.
posted by SisterHavana at 2:15 PM on March 4, 2004

Primary season's pretty much over now, Sisterhavana.

It's duck season now. Everyone's a hitler nowadays.
posted by chicobangs at 2:18 PM on March 4, 2004

Where were you condemning folks when all those peace protests with Bush = Hitler signs were prancing around?

Because there's no difference at all between what some college kid in Toledo says on a poster board with a magic marker and what a member of Congress says in an interview with the press.
posted by jpoulos at 2:26 PM on March 4, 2004

Why vote for a lesser evil?
posted by homunculus at 2:40 PM on March 4, 2004

From Seymour Hersch's article in the current New Yorker, it sounds like they know where Bin Laden is, and there is a deal with Pakistan to allow a major U.S. military operation to go in and get him some time in the next several months. It would not surprise me if they took their sweet time to coordinate this with the election.
posted by cameldrv at 2:44 PM on March 4, 2004

That Bush = Hitler could achieve the level of meme is of great comfort, practically speaking, to Bush.

First, it is good evidence for how clamorous is the liberal echo chamber. The more liberals reinforce each other's extremist views of the political situation, the less able they are too see political reality and act with proper strategy. Furious anger at a despised opponent has never been much of a winning strategy... case in point: the fact that poll after poll showed Democrat primary voters viewed Kerry as "more electable" than Edwards, when, in fact, this is an obviously, risibly, wrong proposition taking into acccount their respective records, regional bases, and the composition of the electorate.

Second, it is a highly destructive piece of political theater. Electing Kerry will require two things: winning over people who voted for Bush the last time, and getting out left-leaning, but lazy or disenchanted, voters. People who voted for Bush the last time will not persuaded, indeed, will react badly against, the suggestion that they'd voted a Hitler. The sort of people who rarely vote, but who consistently vote Democratic when they do turn out are, to put it politely, not exactly at the top of the educational-intellectual-social hierarchy. Hitler doesn't mean much to them because nothing that isn't current at the more debased level of whatever piece of the popular culture to which they subscribe means much to them.
posted by MattD at 2:48 PM on March 4, 2004

It's duck season now.

That will be welcome news to Cheney and Scalia.
posted by homunculus at 3:08 PM on March 4, 2004

People who voted for Bush the last time will not persuaded, indeed, will react badly against, the suggestion that they'd voted a Hitler. The sort of people who rarely vote, but who consistently vote Democratic when they do turn out are, to put it politely, not exactly at the top of the educational-intellectual-social hierarchy. Hitler doesn't mean much to them because nothing that isn't current at the more debased level of whatever piece of the popular culture to which they subscribe means much to them.


Evidence, please, Mr. MattD. 'Cause on my read it looks like your pulling this stuff right out of your ass.
posted by Wulfgar! at 4:05 PM on March 4, 2004

I like to think of it this way: A vote against Bush is like a vote against Adolf Hitler after he invaded Poland.
posted by graventy at 4:41 PM on March 4, 2004

But Wulfgar, wait! You haven't read the back-cover-blurb version:

...liberal echo chamber...liberals...extremist...Furious anger...despised...obviously, risibly, wrong...a highly destructive piece of political theater...left-leaning, but lazy or disenchanted...not exactly at the top of the educational-intellectual-social hierarchy...debased...

So much tastier when distilled to its savory essence, don't you think?

See also: Newt Gingrich on the language of political control.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:44 PM on March 4, 2004

Cole fails to note that the Roosevelt administration gave the people "The New Deal" versus "Your Fired".

Any comparison between FDR and GW sickens me.

Also, Hitler already considered the US resolve as weak.. he just didn't count on Pearl Harbor and the sleeping industrial capacity brought to bear.
posted by linux at 4:49 PM on March 4, 2004

actually, XQUZYPHYR, another comics on your page is much more appropriate to this and other mefi discussions. Certainly in spirit.
posted by bokononito at 5:01 PM on March 4, 2004

Hitler was more upfront about why he was invading other countries.
posted by Slagman at 6:37 PM on March 4, 2004

I rather think that osama won't be "caught" until after bush is elected again. the specter of osama is a powerful draw for talk radio listeners that think liberals want america to lose the war on terror. if he's caught, there will be even less reason to vote for him.

hey, I just thought of something! people should start accusing republicans of wanting america to lose the war on poverty.
posted by mcsweetie at 11:19 PM on March 4, 2004

Wouldn't all it take for Kerry to get elected involve the people who voted for Gore to vote for him, and the people who voted for Bush to not change their vote? Oh, and of course, for these votes to be accurately counted.
posted by doozer_ex_machina at 3:23 AM on March 5, 2004

It might help if Florida could straighten out its voter roles. From what I heard, they still haven't got that in order.
posted by Goofyy at 7:22 AM on March 5, 2004

Well said...

As I understand it, the number of votes doesn't matter any more -- right?
posted by catchmurray at 7:30 AM on March 5, 2004

As long as we're googling: I see 7,000 hits for "Hitlery." Nothing new here.
posted by subgenius at 8:23 AM on March 5, 2004