A few weeks ago I wrote that if Donald Trump and his supporters want to thwart a possible attempt at a comeback by Hillary Clinton in 2020, they should hope that her supporters should keep up their arrogant and nasty attacks on Trump, since their attacks only make Trump look better and themselves and their possible candidate worse. Now, on the eve of the vote by the Electoral College that will probably make Trump’s election official, they’ve ratcheted up their attacks on him. How so? By accusing Donald Trump of being both a Nazi and guilty of incest (yes—you read that right: Incest).
One shouldn’t be surprised that Trump is being accused of being not only a fascist, but a fascist of the worst kind—an out-and-out Nazi. After all, we have in American politics a long tradition of calling those we dislike the worst sort of names—monarchist, communist, socialist, racist, etc., etc., etc. In local politics, for example, my arguments against tax breaks, subsidies, and other forms of favoritism to some local businesses and not to others have led supporters of Prop 1 and SEDA to call me a communist. On campus my advocacy for free markets and free trade on has led others to call me a racist. So people are calling Donald Trump a Nazi? So what else is new?
This benefits Trump partly because it shows how dishonest his critics can be. Hitler murdered millions of people—in gas chambers, in slave labor camps, in the war he waged on humanity. To equate Trump with Hitler is to equate Hitler with Trump. Trump has waged no wars, established no concentration camps, enslaved nobody, and murdered nobody. Therefore to say Trump and Hitler are equals is to either accuse Trump of crimes he has not committed, or to absolve Hitler of crimes he (Hitler) had. And to say Hitler didn’t do what anyone with a general knowledge of modern history knows he did is to deny and trivialize Hitler’s crimes and make a mockery of the suffering of the millions of people whom Hitler enslaved and slaughtered. Moreover, calling Trump a Nazi sets the bar of success for his administration very low. All Trump has to do is refrain from setting up death camps and launching genocidal wars, and he will easily prove himself a far better president than his critics predicted, and show how dishonest and idiotic his extreme accusers really are. By the way, for articles and videos debating whether Trump is a Nazi, google or go to Youtube and enter “Donald Trump as Nazi.
Much the same can be said for those accusing Trump of incest as well, as discussed here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/12/15/how-to-actually-libel-donald-trump/?utm_term=.72b6d40c344f. Only one accusation is has surfaced so far, and the context in which it was made may indicate that the accuser simply meant her comment to be a joke. Yet it does raise serious issues.
Of course, nobody can seriously believe that Trump has had an inappropriate relationship with his daughter, and to make such a horrific accusation against him is to simply make him a more sympathetic figure. But this false accusation of incest, when added to the false accusations against the Duke University lacrosse team, the University of Virginia fraternity, or anyone Lena Dunham writes about, also raises more questions about the credibility of those who make such sensational accusations, and make it less likely that genuine accusations made by genuine victims will be taken with the seriousness they deserve (too much crying wolf).
The right way to resist Donald Trump is to use facts, reason, and the record he will compile in the next four years as the soon-to-be designated truly elected president. Whether facts, reason, and record will do him in in 2020 remains to be seen. But false and wild accusations, whether of Nazism, incest, or some other abomination will make him look more sympathetic, his critics more untrustworthy, and the real problems of political extremism and sexual depravity more difficult to solve.
Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville and taught politics and government at Tarleton since 1987. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990 to the present). He was Mayor Pro Tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014. He is a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Stephenville Rotary Club, and does volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.
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