We’re into the third straight week of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., defending her claim that U.S. migrant detention centers are reminiscent of concentration camps, and she still doesn’t seem to understand that words, just like actions, have consequences.
She remains unapologetic, even after Holocaust survivors spoke up and asked her not to use their loss as a means for political gain. Ocasio-Cortez has claimed that by “concentration camp,” she meant the academic, historical definition and not the well-known definition identified with Nazi Germany’s death camps for Jewish people. She clearly invoked the latter, however, with the phrase “Never again,” and she even argued that Jewish members of her constituency supported her message.
We know what Ocasio-Cortez meant and, even worse, we know she doesn’t care. When presented with bipartisan condemnation, she painted herself as the victim (she’s pretty good at that) and went looking for Jewish residents and historians who would back her up.
The news cycle might have left it behind, but Ocasio-Cortez’s carelessness still matters, three weeks later. We remember the Holocaust not because we want to, but because we need to. And we need to remember it because right now the memory and truth of the Holocaust is under assault from academics and politicos alike. Ocasio-Cortez’s reference cheapens its memory, whether she’ll admit it or not.
As my colleague Seth Mandel explained on Twitter, there are a few ways to make Nazi comparisons, both of which are unfortunately prevalent in our political discourse. The first is to compare a specific person, like Trump, to a Nazi. This is a common rhetorical exercise that typically goes unnoticed. The second, however, is much more alarming. It uses the victims as a comparison point, a model for what happens when a group of people are forced to endure unparalleled suffering.
Comparing Trump to Hitler insults only Trump, says Mandel. But comparing migrant detention centers — which do provide food, medical treatment, and care to fleeing migrants — to concentration camps, where millions of Jews were brutalized and killed after being ripped from their homes by the Third Reich, insults the memory of those who lost their lives at the hands of evil men, and those who carry those memories with them today.
Memory is sacred, and the heavy loss of the Holocaust remains embedded in the Jewish consciousness. to minimize this reality just to take a jab at the other party is just not worth it. Ocasio-Cortez should know better.
