March 16, 2025

RICH LOWRY: Does Anyone Know What a Nazi Is? Not if Elon Musk is considered one.

It’s not just that many of these people need to read a book — they need to get acquainted with the country where they live.

Needless to say, Nazism is not, and never was, normal. It was born of the wrenching destruction of World War I and represented a fundamental break with the norms of Western civilization. It was irrational, bloodthirsty, and obsessed with racial purity and warfare.

If Hitler merely sought to reduce the workforce of the Ministry of the Interior by 15 percent, he wouldn’t have been the most notorious figure in modern history.

Elon Musk wants to balance the budget; Hitler wanted to murder mentally ill people.

Elon Musk seeks to root out fraud from the federal government; Hitler sought to eliminate the supposed malign, pervasive influence of the Jews.

Elon Musk believes that we need to enforce the border and welcome talented foreigners into the United States in abundance; Hitler believed he had to conquer Europe and “cleanse” the East of Untermenschen.

Elon Musk makes trolling posts on X; Hitler made a “prophecy” that if war came, it would bring “the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.”

And so on.

It’s tiresome, of course, to point this out, and the sheer overuse of the Nazi charge means that it has lost much, if not all, of its sting. Still, as long as the other side remains so attached to this smear, we shouldn’t lose our outrage at the poisonous idiocy of it.

Related:

Republicans and conservatives would be thrilled about any cutting of government spending or the size of government. What is Walz implying about the reaction from the other side of the aisle? Or, along with his other constant references to Musk’s South African background, did he not think this analogy through?

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll