I don’t know how to say this with any more clarity: The Holocaust is not a rhetorical device.
This latest round of egregious hyperbole was launched by the Kentucky Libertarian Party — who I’m not entirely sure even know what a Jew is — when they tweeted out, “Are the vaccine passports going to be yellow, shaped like a star, and sewn on our clothes?” on March 29 (amidst the 2021 Passover holiday, no less).
(And the very next day, putting to bed any question of their antisemitic intent, the same account tweeted out a since-deleted fake Rothschild family member quote about how “being able to issue and control a nation’s money” is more important than being able to write laws. It’s an old quote that’s been attributed at various times to different Rothschild family members and yet not a shred of evidence exists that it was actually ever voiced. Indeed, it’s just another link in the chains of antisemitic bondage Jews are forced to shoulder.)
At the heart of the matter is something that’s certainly worth reasoned discourse in the United States — the idea gaining traction that in order for citizens to enter certain events or buildings, they most show proof of vaccination for COVID-19.
And, much like everything we’ve seen over the last 5 years — the GOP appears to have seized upon the idea as yet another flash grenade in their ongoing culture war.
“Proposals like these smack of 1940s Nazi Germany,” said Madison Cawthorn, a freshman Republican Congressman from North Carolina in an interview with Fox News on March 29. “We must make every effort to keep America from becoming a ‘show your papers society.’ The Constitution and our founding principles decry this type of totalitarianism.”
Even Colorado’s own Lauren Q-bert (R, District 3) didn’t bring up Nazi Germany in her tweet against the idea.
But let’s take a second look at Cawthorn. The youngest member of Congress at 25, he’s one of the new crop of young and remarkably under-educated freshmen. His biggest claim to fame so far is the unearthing of an Instagram post from 2017 of a picture from his visit to Adolf Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest” vacation home near the town of Berchtesgaden in Germany. In the accompanying caption, he said that it had been on his “bucket list” to visit the site for “a while.”
It’s likely only worth mentioning in the context of this greater issue that continues to fester like a wound in the Survivor Generation’s side — this unending co-opting of the Holocaust as a rhetorical device for every pet cause conservatives want to champion. And this nonsense certainly isn’t limited to the South. A casual look at Colorado’s conservative watering troughs reveals the same mindset:
So, here’s the message to all of you: Stop it. Now.
The hyperbole around a so-called “vaccine passport” is already out of hand. But comparing the idea to the yellow Stars of David the Third Reich forced Jews in Europe to wear during Nazi Germany’s rule? On Passover, no less?
Talk about trayf.
