Politicizing Concentration Camps Verboten (Unless You’re Liberal)

Much hay has been made regarding U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s recent comparison of temporary detention centers on the Texas/Mexico border to World War II Germany concentration camps.

On that embarrassing note we’ll spare you the details. The freshman Congressman made the comparison, earning her share of negative reaction from conservatives (naturally), New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and even Speaker Nancy Pelosi who warned that loose tongues can sink ships when it comes to careless choices of wording and bad metaphors.

The interesting note on the Pelosi admonition is that the mainstream media bulwark the Washington Post chose to make this their push-article on social media. The much-publicized WaPo headline read:

Pelosi warns Democrats that Republicans can exploit their words as controversy continues over Ocasio-Cortez’s “concentration camp” comments (read story)

Read: Uh-oh, you guys better be careful! But what happens when its a Republican entity making a comparison to liberal policy? Would you believe it happened six months ago? Here’s the headline from January:

Texas Republicans criticized for their Holocaust Remembrance Day message: ‘Leftism kills’ (read story)

The occasion was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and a county-level Republican Party in Texas posted to social media “a candle and a star-shaped yellow badge, the symbol the Nazis forced Jewish people to wear during the Holocaust to identify and psychologically isolate them” along with the message “Leftism kills. In memory of the 6 million Jews lost to Nazi hatred in the name of National Socialism. We will never forget.”

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The WaPo article framed the article as a massive reaction to the social media comment, and noted that it was soon removed — only indirectly mentioning death threats county party headquarters said they received following the post.

The January article noted that “The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has cautioned against using the Holocaust — including making Holocaust analogies — to make political points.” However it seems this time Holocaust remembrance groups are split on their opinion on AOC’s comparison with even the Auschwitz Museum in Germany jumping on the pro-AOC bandwagon with a retweet of an earlier U.S. border policy retweet.

From the hip: Comparing contemporary political challenges to one of history’s biggest atrocities is a risky if not idiotic and ill-advised move. To that Pelosi was correct. But if Republicans or conservatives make that comparison, the mainstream media joins in on the clobbering. Meanwhile, the political reality is that Congress — both parties — has failed to pass a substantive immigration reform package. Until Congress does and President Trump signs something into law, we will continue to have immigrants crossing fences and barriers to risk getting in to what AOC’s considers a concentration camp.

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