Boebert’s casual Nazi reference used 'millions of murdered souls' to score 'cheap political points': conservative

Like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado — another far-right QAnon supporter serving in the U.S. House of Representatives — has foolishly compared anti-COVID-19 measures to the horrors of the Holocaust. Never Trump conservative Benjamin Parker, in an article published by The Bulwark on July 27, stresses that these casual references to Nazis show how badly the political discourse has deteriorated in the United States.

The things Greene and Boebert are upset about, mask requirements and COVID-19 vaccines, are designed to save lives — which is the polar opposite of Adolf Hitler's regime. But on July 8, Boebert tweeted, "Biden has deployed his Needle Nazis to Mesa County. The people of my district are more than smart enough to make their own decisions about the experimental vaccine and don't need coercion by federal agents. Did I wake up in Communist China?"

Parker explains, "Another freshman member of Congress, Lauren Boebert, dropped a Nazi reference to mock the Biden Administration's vaccination-education efforts: Once again, (House Minority Leader) Kevin McCarthy is delinquent in policing his conference. He has yet to publicly address Rep. Boebert's tweet."

Parker, a senior editor at The Bulwark, goes on to explain why casual Nazi references were, for many years, "off limits in political discourse" in the U.S. — where politicians had a "rule" that "the first person to compare their interlocutor to Hitler loses the argument."

"If Rep. Boebert were to visit Auschwitz," Parker argues, "perhaps she would feel compelled to apologize, just as Rep. Greene did. If she saw where Josef Mengele, the Nazi 'Angel of Death,' conducted his inhumane experiments on prisoners, perhaps she would understand how grotesque it is to refer to Americans participating in vaccination-education efforts aimed at saving lives as 'Needle Nazis.' Perhaps she would know in her heart that she had used millions of murdered souls for cheap political points."

Parker points out that one of the most famous Republicans of the 20^th Century, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, wanted to make sure that fellow Americans realized just how horrific the Holocaust was.

The Never Trumper notes, "It's been 76 years since the end of the Holocaust…. Among the first to anticipate the moral meaning of this moment was Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who in April 1945, ordered the documentation and publication of the horrors of the camps. He wanted to witness the atrocities firsthand so that, 'if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda,' he could rebut the claim."

Parker wraps up his article by stressing that casual Nazi references to score "cheap political points" are an insult those who were slaughtered by the Nazis during the 1930s and World War II.

Parker writes, "The Holocaust used to be out of bounds in political discourse because its enormity shocked the world — at least the free world… When the Holocaust is fair game, everything is Auschwitz, so nothing about Auschwitz is exceptional and worth holding apart. At that point, the memory of millions of murdered innocents is desecrated. But worse, never again becomes: eventually."