German anti-immigrant party makes big gains: the meaning for the USA

In 1990, an American attorney and free speech advocate named Mike Godwin propounded a "rule of Nazi analogies", now known as Godwin's Law. In Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age (MIT Press), Mr. Goodwin posited that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1", i.e. if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.

Now applied to any threaded online discussion, such as Internet forums, chat rooms, and comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other rhetoric, Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often referred to as "playing the Hitler card".

In the increasingly turbulent campaign for the US presidensity, we are seeing the Hitler card played almost every day by the opponents of Donald Trump, particularly after the Donald called on his supporters to raise their right hands and promise to vote for him.

Those who have implicitly or explicitly likened Mr. Trump to Hitler need to learn not just Godwin's Law but its corollary: He who plays the Hitler card has already lost the argument! As The Economist reports, "Mr Trump won [Mississippi and Michigan] handsomely, despite...leading a crowd in Orlando in a pledge of allegiance to himself, accompanied by a fascist-style salute."

The results of yesterday's elections in three German states should also be instructive to Mr. Trump's detractors. Supporters of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy of "Willkommenskultur" -- welcoming 1000s of Muslim "refugees" -- were shocked by the strong showing of the "neo-Nazi" Alternativ für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany), led by Frauke Petry, who the lamestream media have already likened to... wait for it... Hitler.

The main plank in the AfD's platform -- some would say the only plank -- was a promise to stop the "Asylchaos" caused by the invasion of the Fatherland by over a million unassimilable Muslim "refugees" and "asylum-seekers" -- something about which the Donald warned in January.

The AfD made huge gains in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, taking a quarter of the vote to become the second-biggest party in the state legislature. In Baden-Württemberg, Frau Merkel's CDU lost a third of its support, reaching a historic low of 27%, while the AfD gained about 15% of the vote. In Rhineland-Palatinate the Social Democrats maintained their position as the strongest party, the CDU came second - in a state they had hoped to win - and the AfD came fourth with 12.5%.

Those who hurl epithets like "Hitler" at their opponents would do well to remember that Hitler was elected democratically, on a wave of popular support for his promise to make Germany great again. The German people wanted their country to be great again, just as Americans want the USA to be great again. Draw your own conclusions.

Note from Ed.: So far, Frau Petry seems to have avoided having her picture taken with her right arm raised in the air!