It really isn’t very clever to compare President Trump to Adolf Hitler (or, for that matter, other 1930s-era fascists). Even measured by each leader’s worst elements, where Trump is a mild cold, Hitler was the Ebola virus.
Still, it takes a truly special intellect to make Hitler the beneficiary of the comparison, and that’s exactly what Dr. Bandy Lee did on Monday. The Yale University psychiatrist is best known for repeatedly violating her profession’s ethical norms by diagnosing Trump at a distance as mentally ill. But in a now-deleted tweet helpfully saved for posterity by my colleague, Siraj Hashmi, the good doctor offered the following gem of historical insight.
this is literally a “at least the trains ran on time” take pic.twitter.com/Ndr9kHiDSt
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) November 2, 2020
Lee also now appears to have suspended her Twitter account. Prior to doing so, she also implied that the coronavirus threatens to overshadow the Second World War by endangering 7 billion lives (an exceptionally absurd suggestion).
Nevertheless, it’s worth deconstructing Lee’s tweet. Because while Hashmi is right that Lee’s tweet is a textbook example of the “But! Hitler was good on the economy” fallacy, its delusions go way beyond that. I’ve previously written on the false notion that Hitler’s leadership had some strong points, but let’s take each of Lee’s major claims.
First up, “Hitler improved the daily life of his followers.” Really? Hitler sparked a war that literally destroyed his country and cost nearly 6 million German lives in the process, to say nothing of the much larger number of people his regime killed. To be fair to Lee, not all of these dead Germans were followers of Hitler. Regardless, as the war dragged on, Hitler’s delusions forced an ever increasing suffering upon his people. By early 1943, it was clear to many of Hitler’s most loyal servants that he had failed — Germany had not forced the West to sue for peace, and it lacked the industrial capacity required to defeat both the Soviet Union and the Western powers. Following the D-Day landings in June 1944, it was abundantly clear to Hitler’s military commanders that they were headed for defeat. Rather than attempt to make peace and save his followers from doom, Hitler pushed on obstinately and permitted the destruction of his entire nation.
Such soaring idiocy leads us nicely to Lee’s bold assertion that Hitler “had discipline” and “required more of himself to gain the respect of his followers.”
As allied bombing raids wreaked misery and death on both the Nazi war machine and German civilians and as the Third Reich was compressed from all sides, Hitler waltzed with increasing delusion. Confronted by commanders who warned that his strategy was doomed, Hitler did not “require more of himself.” He simply fired the truth-tellers. Top generals who received this treatment included Gerd von Rundstedt, Franz Halder, and Erich von Manstein.
Nor was Hitler “disciplined.” He had a penchant for sleeping in late, a tendency that only increased as the war dragged on. As Hitler relaxed, his people were slowly starved, frozen, or killed into submission. Indeed, Hitler’s lack of discipline was so extraordinary that it actually helped make history. The lethargic German response to the D-Day landings, for example, was precipitated by the fact that Hitler was asleep and no one was willing to disturb his slumber.
In short, Lee ought to read more history.
