Vince Cable is the latest of many LibDem and Labour leaders and followers who are irrisistibly reminded of Hitler when they contemplate some Tory politician. Jeremy Corbyn is reminded of Hitler by Donald Trump, casting Theresa May in the lesser role of Neville Chamberlain at Munich. Even the odd Tory – the very odd Tory 🙂 – insists it’s the Tory leader, not the Labour leader, that reminds them of Hitler.
I think comparing our politicians to Hitler pretty meaningless when even the ones I dislike are obviously more like themselves than like him. Would it be less absurd to ask: who gets his vote? If Adolf had immigrated into Britain recently, or else was already living here, whom would he have voted for last month? Doubtless, like the rest of us, he’d have been less than delighted with either major party, but which one would he have reluctantly chosen? Let’s look at cases.
If Adolf were an immigrant: a year ago, the beeb and other media went wild over the arab girl who posted a peace-symbol selfie against the Geert Wilders rally. They quickly lost interest in the story when shown her earlier tweet – “Hitler didnt kill all the jews, he left some. So we know why he was killing them.” If she had moved to Britain last year, I think we know which party she would have voted for last month. Just as it was when the Mufti of Jerusalem praised Adolf Effendi, so it would have been last month: the common elements of disliking Jews and liking socialist methods would have made her choice easy.
If Adolf already lived here: twenty-five years ago, I encountered the only native Briton I’ve ever met who agreed with Hitler. In a street in Braintree, a group had gathered round a stall collecting signatures for the Maastricht Referendum Petition*. A man signed and commented that we fought Germany in WWII so why were we giving them a say in ruling us now. While others agreed, a batty old woman suddenly said, “We were on the wrong side.” The man both felt and acted utter astonishment: his step back, pointedly dropped jaw and angled-back head well-conveyed what we all felt. I expressed the “no point arguing with her” feeling I sensed in the rest of us by joking, “Clearly, opposition to the eurocrats covers a very wide range of opinion.” My ‘reward’ for saying that was to have her press a leaflet on me. It ‘explained’ that the Jews were behind everything and we needed politicians who would wield state power to stop them, not enable them (I was not persuaded 🙂 ). Twenty-five years ago, I would not have guessed Labour any more likely than Tories to be the recipient of her vote in that year’s election. Today, I’m quite sure Labour got her vote a month ago. Jeremy would deny her remark indignantly – but he and his friends have so much in common with her.
So that is my view of which party any latterday Hitler-lookalike would choose if their views echoed the ‘National’ side of Hitler’s National Socialist ideology. And the more they echoed the ‘Socialist’ side as well, the surer I am of my answer.
I’m still not sure it’s a useful question. I can doubt someone is much like Hitler in character and intent, yet think they are furthering his goals. What do commenters think?
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* The Maastricht Referendum Petition was organised by a group of Tory, Labour and LibDem rebels to ask parliament for a referendum on the UK joining the Maastricht treaty in the early ’90s. From memory, patrons were Margaret Thatcher for Tories, the Duke of Devonshire for LibDems and someone for Labour, and the organising MPs were Austin Mitchell for Labour, and a LibDem MP and a Tory MP whose names I have forgotten. When the petition was voted down, former Tory leader Lady Margaret Thatcher and future Tory leader Iain Duncan-Smith both supported a referendum, while the Labour MPs who ‘agreed’ with them included none other than a certain Jeremy Corbyn, along with Diane Abbott, Ken Livingstone and George Galloway (but also former Labour leader Jim Callaghan). So it seems that opposition to the eurocrats did indeed then, as now, cover “a very wide range of opinion” – and I feel even more sure that Labour had the batty old woman’s vote last month (unless she’s dead; I call her a batty old woman for a reason).
FYI, some Labour backbenchers supported the referendum because they were furious that the Tory-negotiated deal included an opt-out from the EU’s ‘social clause’, i.e. some Labour MPs voted for a referendum so they could renegotiate to give yet more power to the EU (“wide range of opinion” indeed 🙂 ).
In 1936 the Liberal J.M. Keynes praised the totalitarian government of Germany in the introduction the German edition of his book “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” – and he praised the government of Mr Hitler not just for its credit bubble monetary policy and deficit spending (the age old policy of despots and tyrants – a policy now called “Keynesianism” and taught at such universities as Cambridge), but he also praised the German government for precisely its totalitarian economic controls, its government control of wages and prices (and dividends – and basically everything).
As for the modern Liberal Party it is Keynesian to its core. And as for antisemitism – the Liberal Party has many of the new type of cowardly Jew hater, the “I am not antisemitic I am just antizionist” crowd. Mr “Vince” Cable was badly advised to bring up this subject – especially as he connected it to the Islamists his party keeps seeking the votes of, the people who think the only thing wrong with Mr Hitler was that he did not murder enough Jews.
I’d hazard a guess that a rejuvenated (and reanimated) Adolf would move to Brighton and vote Green.
‘Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz’ being one of his slogans.
(’The general welfare before the (selfish) needs of the individual’).
Mr Corbyn would be too like an Old Bolshevik for the old monster.
The only person in England you’ve met who agreed with Hitler? I remember in my youth (back in the 70s) such sentiments being expressed by people of my parents’ generation who were members of golf clubs and the Conservative Party. The line commonly taken was that Communism was worse than Fascism, so we should have sided with Germany against the Russians, and that the Holocaust wasn’t that bad because some German Jews could see what was coming and got out and the rest who were too stupid or poor to get away had only themselves to blame.
Statists always like to claim that one of the most famous and successful statists of all time would have supposedly voted for the party that has less statism than the other, more explicitly statist, parties.
For me, it’s just obvious that Hitler wouldn’t have just voted for Labour, he’d be in the thick of a party that wants to bring big business to heel under the power of the state.
I don’t know what if any present day party Hitler would have voted for, (Oswald Mosley, the closest thing to a British Hitler, was both a Tory and Labourite in his lifetime) but if he were starting out today he would most likely be an alt-right youtube star rather than a beer hall agitator.
Godwin’s Post.
“and other media went wild over the arab girl who posted a peace-symbol selfie against the Geert Wilders rally. They quickly lost interest in the story when shown her earlier tweet”
Realize that for muslims, ‘peace’ means complete non-violent submission to their theocracy and imaginary warlord in the sky.
>I don’t know what if any present day party Hitler would have voted for, (Oswald Mosley, the closest thing to a British Hitler, was both a Tory and Labourite in his lifetime) but if he were starting out today he would most likely be an alt-right youtube star rather than a beer hall agitator.
What absolute shite. How many of them advocate more powers for the state?
Oswald Mosley believed in one thing and one thing only, that he was the bee’s knees and quite the looker to boot. This coming from the man who believed that “infidelity was OK as long as it was only with married women”
Oswald Mosley was primarily a vain opportunist, British fascism just being the particular vehicle of his opportunism.
On the matter of genuine supporters of Adolf, although there are many on places like 4Chan who would claim “Hitler did nothing wrong”, for the most part they are just LARPers who derive pleasure from taking up trolling positions beneath the bridge to wind up the SJW crowd rather than meant sincerely.
Anyone who can wade through the eclectic turgidity of Mein Kampf deserves an award for perseverance.
mila s–Alt-Right?
As opposed to supporting socialist scum who have murdered 150 million–so far–and are still at it in Venezuela where 80 people have been shot dead in the last 3 months by socialist thugscum armed by Maduro.
A vile regime that vermin like Grandpa Death Corbyn openly and brazenly admires and calls a success.
Also Hitler was only number 3 –and a poor number 3–on the list of murdering socialist scum. Why not speculate about the votes of Mao or Uncle Joe? Grandpa Death of course.
Neither Stalin, nor Hitler ever got their hands dirty with actual killing, preferring to get others to do their bidding for them, but at least Stalin actually signed the orders for his political assassination, Hitler didn’t want to get his reputation tarnished with his beloved Volk, which is why he preferred his killings to be carried out by unacknowledged acquiescence.
It would have been interesting to see Hitler on the stand at Nuremberg rather than Fat Hermann attempting to justify the vast roll call of Nazi atrocities, but Hitler chose to kill himself rather than face the consequences of his own actions, as did most of the Nazi leadership. Fairly typical behaviour for cowards.
I find myself bemused that anyone could find either Hitler or the Nazi’s praiseworthy. They failed even on their own bizarre terms.
Let’s not forget that it was a coalition between the Social Democrats of the Weimar Era (SPD) that put Hitler into power as Chancellor of Germany. He could not get there by the votes of his beloved Volk alone.
I was a member of a golf club, and played at others (including the 19th hole) back in the 70s, but somehow I managed to avoid these nazi clubs. 🙂 My family background makes me better able to comment on some Labour party members back then than any Tory, though I did have one distant relative, whom we met at times, who had been a junior minister under Churchill. My more immediate family were ready enough to criticise Tories – and also played golf. I’d be surprised if they’d kept from my tender ears the knowledge that the party of Churchill had many members who regretted the choice of sides. 🙂
There was however one place I distinctly remember encountering just what AndrewWS describes. Circa end-of-60s / early-70s, I recall a fashion on the BBC for socially conscious dramas in which a snobbish golf club was more than once the setting for a demonstration of how harshly the upper crust (sometimes with the complicity of prejudiced police) would deal with such impudent upstarts as dared to think themselves equal, garnishing their action with suitably un-PC remarks.
I recall finding the plots and characterisation of these dramas very forced and unconvincing. They did not strike me as the results of careful observation in actual golf clubs.
John Galt (July 9, 2017 at 9:55 am): “Let’s not forget that it was a coalition between the Social Democrats of the Weimar Era (SPD) that put Hitler into power as Chancellor of Germany.”
The SPD did plenty wrong but they did vote against the enabling act. The communists were the ones who united with the nazis to make democratic rule impossible (as Hitler said after the late 32 elections gave too few seats for a nazi + centre-party majority “but with the communists we still have a majority – no one can govern against us.” The Berlin transport strike in December ’32, in which communists and nazis combined, drove home the message to those who spoke for the ailing Hindenberg. The presidential-powers arrangement by which Hitler became chancellor was one the SPD were not involved with.
It seems rather ironic that earnest lefties and commentators were warning of a return to the 1930s after the referendum, because of a supposed resurgence of nationalism. In the event, we see a student revolutionary leader (albeit not in his first youth), whipping up adoring youngsters whilst deploring any sort of violence or antisemitism. He denies these ugly scenes which he is tacitly encouraging. The failure of the MSM to address this is genuinely alarming. Labour’s election slogan – For the Many not the Few (or the Jew?) – is about as divisive as you can get – fomenting envy and class war.
Some of us still have a lot of sympathy for Neville C. And Munich had much to recommend it too (at a moral/theoretical level – not in the reality of dealing with the Austrian corporal, beyond buying time).
It’s only a division between those who want to lead their own life and those who want to tell them how to do it, the latter is just a manner of degrees, whether by economic persuasion or authoritarian force, it not that someone or their politics is “like” National Socialism, more than the direction they are facing, and the steady progressive* slope towards it.
* pun intended
Have i been smited or did i fail to post?
Snorri,
I cannot see a ‘smited’ post on the system. Must be Russian hackers, everything else is.
Thanks Mr Ed, i just tried again and i failed again: it must be something about the web address. Let’s try writing it down without making it a link:
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=370561
(H/T Instapundit.)
(Editor: for some reason smitebot took a sudden dislike to Snorri and I had to manually unsmite this)
Thanks Mr Ed. I just tried again, twice, and i failed again, twice.
But there is a way around the problem: a link to the Instapundit post which contains the link i tried to post. Just click on Watch the video.
Perhaps somebody can figure out why i could not link directly, but it’s no big deal.
Hitler has been dead for seventy years. They need to get a new bogey man.
Oh, I dunno … I reckon the Antifa crowd could be persuaded to vote for him, provided you simply and plainly tell them what Hirler believed … sort of like THIS. >};oD