rule
EDIT: shoutout to @[email protected] for making a version of the gif that’s actually 41kb, the title was a reference to this meme:

(except it said 41kb, I can’t find that version for some reason)
rule
EDIT: shoutout to @[email protected] for making a version of the gif that’s actually 41kb, the title was a reference to this meme:

(except it said 41kb, I can’t find that version for some reason)
For anyone unfamiliar with what they’re referencing, it’s more commonly called “Reductio ad Hitlerum” (or more generally, “guilt by association”) and a good summary is given by wikipedia:
However it’s important to make note of the most important consideration when applying this rule:
In this case, exploiting and amplifying distrust in the government (then the weimar republic) was a core aspect of how the Nazi state rose to power, with particular attention needing to be paid to the idea of ‘Dolchstoss im Rücken’ (“stab in the back”), a conspiracy theory about the Weimar government which the Nazis “made […] an integral part of their official history of the 1920s, portraying the Weimar Republic as the work of the “November criminals” who had “stabbed the nation in the back” in order to seize power.” If that sounds suspiciously like the GOP messaging about the idea “the election was stolen” or “democrats are criminals”, well, that’s because there are some extremely relevant parallels between the rise of fascism ~95 years ago and the rise of fascism today.
In terms of either the classic definition, or it’s expansion to the MAGA movement, it’s fairly clear that this fallacy is not applicable to this conversation.