Republican Strategist Shuts Down Comparisons To German Dictator On CNN

In a widely criticized article published by The Atlantic with questionable sourcing, Jeffrey Goldberg insisted that Donald Trump consistently praised Adolf Hitler and said he needed the kind of generals the late dictator had. Harris went on to cite the article in a press conference she held at the Naval Observatory. While such rhetoric may seem like an effective attack strategy, recent polling indicates that voters are largely rejecting these comparisons, and they may not resonate as intended.

The Daily Caller reports:

Vice President Kamala Harris used a Wednesday press conference to highlight claims from an article in The Atlantic that former President Donald Trump expressed a desire for generals like those who served under Hitler. Jennings told Jamal Simmons, a former aide to Harris, that he was “calloused” to Hitler comparisons.

Republican strategist Scott Jennings explained the sentiment in a panel on CNN.

“Now, I’m calloused on this Hitler business because I lived through the Bush years and I used to peer out my window onto Pennsylvania Avenue and I saw everybody marching around in their brown uniforms, signs up, ‘Bush is Hitler, Bush is Hitler.’ And then they did it to John McCain. They did it to Mitt Romney. They’ve done it to Donald Trump. Even did it to Paul Ryan, I recall at one point. So I’ve heard it all before.”

He then went on to highlight the Democratic senators in swing state running ads, aligning themselves with Trump, exposing the absurdity of these claims.

“It probably will shock Kamala Harris and the rest of her campaign staff to learn that there are incumbent Democrat U.S. senators in this country right now running television ads touting all their work with this modern-day Hitler,” Jennings said, later adding, “I mean, if he were really Hitler, if he were really a threat to democracy, not a single Democrat in this country would be running ads touting their work with Donald Trump.”

He continued, highlighting the growing anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment on college campuses, championed by left wing organizations and leaders.

“I think the reason Democrats are freaking out about it right now is because what they have learned is that it‘s not Republicans who are the Hitlers or the Nazis, it‘s actually emanating from within their own party. If you want to find Hitler-ish, Nazi-esque antisemitic tendencies, look on the left, not on the right.”

For years, Democrats have employed the Hitler analogy as a rhetorical weapon against Trump and various Republican figures. During the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, this tactic aimed to paint Trump as a ruthless totalitarian leader, invoking fears of a regime reminiscent of Nazi Germany. However, the impact of this strategy appears to be waning. Many voters seem to recognize these comparisons as hyperbolic and inappropriate.

The reality is that voters have lived through one Trump presidency and despite the dire warnings, it never devolved into the authoritarian regime that critics predicted. The alarmist rhetoric surrounding Trump has not materialized into the catastrophic outcomes many opponents had forecast. As a result, the historical comparisons may come off as disingenuous, leading voters to question the motives behind such assertions.