Republicans seem to keep calling people who are trying to end the deadly coronavirus pandemic by getting vaccinated, vaccinating others, wearing a mask, or enforcing requirements to do so “Nazis.”
Many are commenting just how disturbing it is to hear Hitler, Holocaust, and Nazi references in our every day consumption of news, and many are wondering why there’s an explosion of offensive Nazi-linked rhetoric from the right.
For some, especially perhaps those who lost family members or know of people slaughtered by Hitler in the Holocaust, it can be exceptionally painful to hear an elected official or TV personality on a conservative cable network comparing Americans refusing to get vaccinated to Jews, or co-opting and wearing the Star of David – which Hitler forced Jews to wear before murdering them.
It’s disturbing to hear terms like “Needle Nazis,” “Nazis of the air,” or hear that Speaker Pelosi’s policy on mask wearing in the halls of Congress is “exactly” like what Jews endured during the Holocaust.
On Thursday U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) called federal workers being sent to Colorado to assist in vaccinating local residents “Needle Nazis.”
Fox News personality Tomi Lahren, also on Thursday, referred to airline flight attendants enforcing TSA rules that require masks on all commercial flights “Nazis of the air.”
On Tuesday Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) viciously attacked President Joe Biden after he mentioned the possibility of sending federal workers door-to-door to share information on the vaccine with people who may not have been vaccinated, in areas of low vaccination rates.
“People have a choice,” Greene declared, “they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations. You can’t force people to be part of the human experiment.”
Brownshirts were Hitler’s Nazi stormtroopers who helped in his rise to power, and the Nazis infamously conducted horrific human experiments on unwilling victims of their war crimes.
Greene just 22 days earlier had apologized for her attack on Speaker Pelosi. And yes, Greene is the one who claimed the policy of requiring a face mask be worn in Congress – specifically because Republicans refuse to get vaccinated – was “exactly” like the Holocaust.
While Greene’s apology lasted just a few short weeks, she never has apologized for comparing the Democratic Party to Hitler’s Party.
Many seem to have already forgotten that before her attack on the Speaker of the House, Greene invoked “Nazis” and made another disturbing comparison to the Star of David and vaccine passports, which do not exist.
Let’s not forget Washington state Republican Rep. Jim Walsh, who last week declared on Facebook “we’re all Jews” to defend his wearing of a gold Star of David. He claimed it was to protest vaccine mandates. There are no vaccine mandates in Washington.
There of course was the hat store owner who thought it was a good idea to sell wearable gold colored Stars of David imprinted with the words “not vaccinated,” because she apparently thought selfishly choosing to not protect yourself and others from contracting a deadly virus that continues to mutate and become more contagious and more deadly is like being a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. (Her political affiliation is unknown, but her Instagram page makes clear she’s no fan of President Biden.)
It’s of course not just pandemic related.
According to a new book by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender, then-President Donald Trump praised Hitler, stunning White House chief of staff John Kelly.
Late last month a U.S. Congressman, Republican Rep. Scott Perry, compared Democrats to Nazis.
“They are not the loyal opposition,” he said of Democrats. “They are the opposition to everything you love and believe in.”
“Go fight them,” he added. Vice reported on Perry’s “extended tirade that argued Democrats are disloyal, unpatriotic, dangerous traitors to America—and twice invoked Nazis to make his point.”
The Hitler references started early this year, when one Republican lawmaker was caught praising the fascist Nazi dictator.
Republican Illinois Congresswoman Mary Miller told attendees at the Save the Republic Rally that “Hitler was right.”
She was wrong, and the Hitler, Nazi, and Holocaust references need to stop.