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The Idiot of the Week award from El American goes to Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has confused the Gestapo with gazpacho.
In an appearance on OAN, Marjorie Taylor Greene accused Nancy Pelosi of having a “gazpacho police” to spy on members of Congress. The confusion between the Gestapo —Nazi Germany’s secret police— and gazpacho —a cold vegetable soup typical of Andalusia, Spain— has provoked hilarity and generated many, many memes.
Beyond Marjorie Taylor Greene’s amusing confusion, this kind of comparison of the current situation with Nazi Germany only serves to give ammunition to political rivals to detract from the message they are trying to convey. This resource is so hackneyed that the Internet has already coined the term “reductio ad Hitlerum” to mock anyone who pulls Hitler out of his sleeve to try to shore up an argument.
Also popular has been the so-called Godwin’s Law, which states that as a political discussion drags on, the likelihood that a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis will be used increases exponentially. The truth is that these types of analogies have become tiresome and have generated a kind of immunity among the public that attends these discussions.
As commonplace as it is to resort to Hitler and the Nazi period to criticize anything, it is something we should overcome because, in addition, the situation of government control and censorship today is of such magnitude and has taken on such an entity of its own that it is beginning to overshadow what was achieved in the last century.
The confusion of Marjorie Taylor Greene
We recommend to Marjorie Taylor Greene that when comparing with totalitarian ideologies born in the last century, it would be much more accurate to resort to communism, with the KGB in the Soviet Union, or the Stasi in East Germany, which are the model that has been continued and perfected by the left. There is much talk of the Nazi concentration camps, but very little of the communist Czechs and gulags. Note to Marjorie Taylor Greene: don’t confuse the gulags with goulash, a typical Hungarian soup.
Using Hitler and Nazism as the epitome of evil is tedious enough, and besides, it is unfair to those who have striven to surpass Hitler and are not given “credit.” Mao Zedong killed some 80 million people with his Great Leap Forward Cultural Revolution. Iosif Stalin killed some 25 million between his Great Purge and the Ukrainian Holodomor, not counting the millions he sent to die in wars. Both far outnumbered the approximately 17 million people Hitler killed—counting war casualties. Yet no one thinks of Mao or Stalin when it comes to exemplifying evil.
How many millions must be killed to dethrone Adolf Hitler? How far must censorship and political repression grow to forget the Gestapo? At least Marjorie Taylor Greene has started by forgetting her name and calling it gazpacho, but her biggest confusion is to make these comparisons that only lead to missing the target and not being taken seriously.
Maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene is a big fan of Seinfeld, and mixing the Gestapo with gazpacho was the result of a strange association of ideas with “The Soup Nazi,” but in any case, it is no excuse, and she deserves the Idiot of the Week award from El American.
Ignacio Manuel García Medina, Business Management teacher. Artist and lecturer specialized in Popular Culture for various platforms. Presenter of the program "Pop Libertario" for the Juan de Mariana Institute. Lives in the Canary Islands, Spain // Ignacio M. García Medina es profesor de Gestión de Empresas. Es miembro del Instituto Juan de Mariana y conferenciante especializado en Cultura Popular e ideas de la Libertad.
Social Networks: @ignaciomgm