Elections are simply entertainment with a serious undertone due to the results.
Can anyone take Trump, Erdogan, Le Pen and Wilders serious? I suppose with Brexit and the US Presidency compromised by a populist movement across the globe, one needs to be reminded of the Fatal Attraction. 😉
Why does everyone keep making Nazi comparisons? | BBC News |
As a row between Turkey and the EU deepened, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused both the Germans and the Dutch of using Nazi tactics.
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Associating someone with Nazis - as in this Turkish TV broadcast - is unlikely to win any logical argumentsBringing up Hitler or Nazi Germany in an argument is hardly new. But recently, it has appeared as part of political discussion on an international scale.
Similar comparisons plagued the US presidential election, and they can be found in every medium, from Twitter to national parliaments. So why is it so widespread?
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A German float in the Rose Monday parade declaring "blonde is the new brown" referenced the brownshirts - Nazi paramilitariesThe answer, according to America’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL), is simply that it is the “most available historical event illustrating right versus wrong.” When an argument descends to such fundamentals, the comparison inevitably turns up.
But “misplaced comparisons trivialise this unique tragedy in human history,” the ADL’s national director Jonathan Greenblatt says, “particularly when public figures invoke the Holocaust in an effort to score political points.”
○ Bibi Netanyahu: Book of Esther, Persecution, Deliverance and the Holocaust
○ Putin Calls Out Netanyahu for Exploiting Purim Story to Disparage Iran | Tikun Olam |In fact, comparing someone to Hitler to invalidate their point is so popular it’s been given its own fake Latin name, the reductio ad Hitlerum – a play on the very real logic term reductio ad absurdum. It’s mostly used to point out the fallacy of comparing almost anyone to Hitler.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: ‘We know Dutch from Srebrenica massacre’ | The Guardian |
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has held the Netherlands responsible for the worst genocide in Europe since the second world war as the row over Turkish ministers addressing pro-Erdoğan rallies in the country deepened.
In a speech televised live on Tuesday, Erdoğan said: “We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre . We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there.”
After Erdoğan’s speech Rutte told the Dutch TV channel RTL Nieuws that Erdoğan “continues to escalate the situation”, adding the Srebrenica claim was “a repugnant historical falsehood”.
“Erdoğan’s tone is getting more and more hysterical, not only against The Netherlands, but also against Germany,” he said. “We won’t sink to that level and now we’re being confronted with an idiotic fact … It’s totally unacceptable.”
- ○ Dutch investment in Turkey not at risk in diplomatic row: EU minister | Hürriyet Daily News |
○ Turkey’s unemployment rate rises to 12.7 pct, highest in seven years
See also my recent diary …
○ Dutch Election Prelude – Political Row with Turkey Escalates
