OPINION:
Democrats and members of the left have been taking their mouths on some wild rides lately, calling out President Donald Trump as Hitler, characterizing his border control as concentration campy and such.
And if they think they’re winning the hearts and minds — and votes — of the American people with this rhetoric, they should think again.
Even CNN’s Chris Cuomo chided fellow CNNer Don Lemon on this point.
In a recent on-air chit-chat, Lemon drew a comparison between Trump and Hitler, and said, Fox News reported: “Think about Hitler. … If you could look back in history, would you say, ’Well, I’m so glad that person was allowed a platform so that they could spread their hate and propaganda and lies,’ or would you say, ’That probably wasn’t the right thing to do — to spread that because you knew in that moment that was a bad person and they were doing bad things. And not only were they hurting people. They were killing people.”
Even Cuomo went — what the freak, Don.
“That’s a very extreme example,” Cuomo said.
And when Lemon doubled down, Cuomo responded again: “Comparing anything to an extreme like a Hitler — it weakens the argument because you are now taking a guy who says things you don’t like [i.e. Trump] and comparing him to a genocidal maniac.”
Ouch.
You know you’ve hit rock bottom when even Cuomo thinks you’ve hit rock bottom.
What’s more, you know you’re in trouble politically when you’re a Democrat and even Cuomo recognizes — on-air, live, for all the world to see and hear — the power of the Donald.
“One simple question,” Cuomo said, to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, during another recent televised discussion, Mediaite reported. “Why don’t the Democrats pack stadiums the way this president does?”
Ouch, yet again.
But for an answer, see Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“The U.S. is running concentration camps on our southern border and that is exactly what they are,” the socialist said, on Instagram Live, about Trump’s border policies. “If that doesn’t bother you … I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that ’never again’ means something.”
It’s not as if Ocasio-Cortez didn’t have the opportunity to reel in her remarks. Plenty of people pointed out the lunacy of comparing legal border protections with the extermination of millions upon millions of Jews. But when confronted with fact, she doubled down. To her great shame — and to the great shame of every Democrat who kept silent about her shameful comparisons.
“This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, a day after making the initial remark. “This is not hyperbole. It is the conclusion of expert analysis.”
The “expert analysis” turned out to be an author, Andrea Pitzer, who expressed the opinion in her book that migrant shelters set up by the government are one and the same as concentration camps.
This is not winning rhetoric.
This is not political messaging that captivates America’s imaginations, stokes citizen passions, ignites and inspires the get-out-and-vote mentality the left, at this time of high economic confidence, so desperately needs to compete in 2020.
This is stupid talk. Wild-eyed crazy talk. And it’s branding the Democratic Party as a batch of wild-eyed crazed loons, completely unfit for public office.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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