Here we go again.
Pope Francis gave an interview on Friday in which he said that he was taking
a “wait and see” approach to the incoming Trump administration, saying that he
doesn’t “like to get ahead of myself nor judge people prematurely.”
So far so good. But then the pope is asked about populist uprisings
in America and Europe, and the conversation takes a darker turn: “Crises provoke fear, alarm. In my
opinion, the most obvious example of European populism is Germany in 1933. A
people that was immersed in a crisis, that looked for its identity until this
charismatic leader came and promised to give their identity back, and he gave
them a distorted identity, and we all know what happened.”
True, Francis
specifically refused to judge Trump before he has even taken any concrete
actions. But the implications from his second quote are clear.
Now, I don’t know
if equating political leaders with Hitler is as prevalent in Europe or South
America as it is here in the United States. But it would be a little easier to
take such comparisons seriously if we hadn’t lived through years of Democrats
saying Paul Ryan is the second coming of Hitler for wanting to recalculate
Social Security benefits, or that Mitt Romney was Hitler for having binders
filled with the profiles of women applicants for his Cabinet. And that’s not
even touching the legion of Bush-is-Hitler comparisons from a decade ago.
Just stop
already. Obama was not Hitler. Bush was not Hitler. And Trump, though he could
end up being a terrible president, will not be Hitler. There are more than
enough valid points of disagreement with all three people, but making vapid
accusations of being “the next Hitler” gets us nowhere.
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