Now that there’s a very real chance that Donald Trump could win the presidency, prominent political figures like former presidential candidate Mitt Romney are urging Americans not to vote for him. And now Louis CK is getting in on the anti-Trump train, saying that the candidate is as insidious as Hitler.
In his postscript to his weekly email newsletter, printed in full by the Daily Beast, Louis CK empathizes with us for how discouraged we feel about American democracy that we would throw away our votes on Trump as a form of catharsis:
…Voting for Trump is a way of saying “f*ck it. F*ck them all”. I really get it. It’s a version of national Suicide. Or it’s like a big hit off of a crack pipe. Somehow we can’t help it. Or we know that if we vote for Trump our phones will be a reliable source of dopamine for the next four years. I mean I can’t wait to read about Trump every day. It’s a rush. But you have to know this is not healthy.
He tells conservatives that Trump will only say what they want to hear to get elected. And that he has threatened very prominent politicians because they have offered mild criticism of him, such as when John McCain told voters to think twice about voting for him.
In his letter, CK references the CBS news article linked above, and then by way of commentary, asks:
Do you really want a guy to be president who threatens John McCain? Because John McCain cautiously and intelligently asked for people to be thoughtful before voting for him? He didn’t even insult Trump. He just asked you to take a good look. And Trump told him to look out.
And perhaps for those of us who think the Trump/Hilter comparison is a bit much, the comedian asks to imagine if 1930s Germany saw Hilter for who he really was. To them, “Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb over who would say anything at all.”
While Louis CK anticipates criticism of being just another dumb “celebrity with an opinion,” what he says doesn’t seem far off from the comparison that respected scholar Noam Chomsky recently made. Specifically, Chomsky discussed how we’re living amid social conditions similar to those in the 1930s that created Hitler.
(via Daily Beast)