Carto's Cutlass Supreme wrote:It's really about the invocation, because as the example shows, you don't need an apt comparison. The most abstract, tenuous analogy works every time! 82 years ago this week!, not 75, 50 or 25 years . Comparing one night (nacht) to 4 years of presidency.
This past Summer a mob burnt down a historic Church within walking distance of the White House. That wasn't compared to the Kristalnacht. LOL.
That raises several questions in two fields. One is the events of the so-called Kristalnacht and surrounding conditions and policy.
The other one would be the validity to draw an analogy (comparison would be something different) tot the Trump administration.
CNN will of course try to invoke something different with such "Nazi-comparisons". It uses the anchor of "Crystal Night" to invoke a myth they believe still got much power with people. It's an argumentum ad Hitlerum. With the Hitler Myth getting most of it's charge from the Holocaust Myth. Bear in mind that the veracity of the narrative is quite irrelevant here. What counts is that it has a present in the public mind. And that it has some moral relevance to the audience. The moral relevance and hence metapolitical power does differ between populations. But I think it's still strong in the US. It's probably not as strong as in e.G. Germany and I'm not even sure how strong it really is in e.g. Israel. Jews do however realise that it gives them a competitive advantage in politics and even in the business fields, since it gives more weight to the Antisemitism card.
Surrounding 'Kristalnacht' there are many open questions. People think that the NSDAP/SA did organise it. But there is a problem. There were celebrations of the inner party circle on this date. Something with an event from their struggle years: The so-called "Beer Hall Putch", which was why Hitler was also imprisoned for a while. Picking such a date for a coordinated pogrom is rather unlikely. Could it be spontaneous riots against Jews all over Germany? Well, if it was wide-spread, it would have required some organisation and planning. Unlikely without the approval of the higher echelons as well. The fair was also an egg in the face of Hitler. An embarrassment for NS-Germany at the time. There were also consequences for party members at the time. Goebbels was seen as a culprit due to speeches related to the murder of a German diplomat (by a Jew). Mind you there was still a boycott campaign against Germany going as well. One could also ask the cui bono question: "Who Benefits", but such evidence is merely circumstantial, one would need more evidence that there weren't only benefactors, but also some involvement of those benefactors.
The BLM-pogroms are of course also an interesting matter here. They are wide-spread over the whole US, but they went on for longer. Good question is how well are they organised, I suppose they are organised as protests between leading BLM members - that actually can calculate that it will go with riots, looting, arson, etc. even if that isn't always reported. Focusing something like that on one night would require far more detailed organisation.
Amanpour uses Kristallnacht as an anchor and then gets on with book burning and then draws a line to "the Holocaust". Well, book burning wasn't unique an NS-phenomenon and its extension is also wildly exaggerated. One must bear in mind the nature of those books and why they became prevalent in Germany. The Weimar crisis bankrupted a larger number of small publishers, which is why the book-marketed went skewed in general many of those remaining (and growing) publishers having political connections, since parties and their members are a good customer base. Did Trump and MAGA go out and burn books? Not that I know of, and I'm sure if they did, we'd never hear the end of it. They called slanted journalism "fake news". Which I find not necessarily a fitting term. Events are barely faked and journalists barely make up facts themselves, what they do is mislead you by creating a narrative wherein they may use some facts to lead the audience to conclusions. They use innuendo, loaded language, omissions to achieve this and sometimes sequence plays a role as well. This seems to be difficult to grasp for people, since many seem to think a lie is a known non-fact presented as one. That happens, but most of the time it doesn't work like that. Some facts are used on a selective base that favours certain conclusion. Hence the problem is with the interpretation and often emotional manipulation in that.
Note that CNN doesn't insist here that MAGA crowds have rampaged buildings of their opponents or assaulted them in a massive case. Her argument was that Trump "attacked the same values" and that's were they draw the analogy to National Socialism.
Good question what those values are supposed to be. And why she drags NS into this. Probably the old "crimes against humanity" canard, which can mean almost everything, hence doesn't tell you really anything. It depends highly on what a person imagines at the moment.
Well, so far some thoughts. I just wonder what aspects we should look in deeper. The historical events and what is imagined about it nowadays or the abusive "Nazi-Comparison" game?
