CNN’s Chris Cillizza Hits Jim Clyburn’s Trumpism Remarks: ‘Let’s Stop Making the Nazi Germany Comparison’

CNN’s Chris Cillizza criticized Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the House’s third-ranking Democrat, for comparing America’s current political climate to that of pre-Nazi Germany.

Friday, Clyburn connected the state of American politics to that in Germany before Adolf Hitler took power in the early 1930s. He later doubled down on the comment. The Democrat from South Carolina aimed his comments at some supporters of former President Donald Trump.

In a piece he published on CNN’s website Monday, Cillizza opined Clyburn had broken what he called “the first rule of politics”:

Rule No. 1 of politics goes like this: Don’t compare anything to Nazi Germany. Just don’t.

[…]

[It’s] worth noting here that comparing anything to the Nazi regime, which led to the systemic murder of more than 6 million Jews, is a mistake. It just is. There is nothing in our current moment that suggests we are anywhere close to that.

Cillizza agreed democracy might be threatened by those who choose not to accept election results but criticized Clyburn’s language.

“We absolutely should be vigilant about the potential rise of authoritarian politicians who would wipe out things like the rule of law to further their own political ambitions,” Cillizza wrote. “But let’s stop making the Nazi Germany comparison. For all of our sakes.”

Clyburn told Fox News digital the U.S. is “on track to repeat what happened in Germany.”

Later, during an interview with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday, the Democratic House Majority Whip said, “The facts are very clear. I’ve studied history all of my life. I’ve taught history. I’m telling you, what I see here are parallels to what the history was in this world back in the 1930s in Germany, in Italy.”