Dem Rep. to Columnist: Stop Comparing Black Republicans to Nazi Collaborators
A few weeks ago, Neil Steinberg ran an opinion column in the Chicago Sun-Times in which he compared African-American Republicans to Jews who collaborated with Nazis during World War II. Now, African-American Republicans may be the free-market unicorns of politics, but according to Rep. Danny Davis, a black Democratic congressman from Chicago, calling them Nazi collaborators is definitely not a good idea.
The column, which blasted Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner for allegedly buying off black voters in Chicago, got renewed attention when it was retweeted by his Democrat opponent, current Illinois governor Pat Quinn. (Upon learning that the author literally compared black Republicans to Nazi collaborators, the tweet was quietly deleted.)
“I read Neil Steinberg’s piece and quite frankly it surprised me, that it went beyond my characterization of African Americans who are supporting Rauner,” Davis told the Washington Free Beacon, adding that he “certainly would not have made the statement that Neil made in his column…It sounded like he was saying these individuals [black supporters of Rauner] were selling themselves, selling their souls.”
Lest you think Davis is reacting to a hyperbolic, out-of-context statement, here’s the relevant passages from the column:
Let me be clear: As a general rule, individuals will sell out the interests of their groups in return for personal benefit. It isn’t just a black thing. Jews collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, helping them to round up their own people in the hopes they’d be the last to go….
Still, knowing this, I had to smile, broadly at Mike Sneed’s item Thursday on Hermene Hartman, publisher of an obscure Chicago African-American periodical, N’DIGO, who pocketed $51,000 of Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner’s bottomless pail of money and then decided, my God, he’s the man to back, the billionaire with a heart of gold that beats in time to the hopes of the black community. She wrote a lengthy tribute to Rauner’s “fresh approaches,” never mentioning the money she pocketed.
That’s not a “fresh approach.” That’s the oldest, stalest, machine, buy ’em-a-beer-and-get-’em-to-the-polls approach.
In summation: any time that someone within a certain ethnic group acts contrary to the the prevailing ideals held by the ethnic group in general, you can call them a Nazi. Welp, that’s the final lesson of the day from “Reductio ad Hitleram 101,” folks. For homework, please write one op-ed of 200 words where you make three rhetorical comparisons to Nazis.
[The Free Beacon]
[Image via Danny Davis/House.gov]
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