How timely is this? Just as Scott Walker, the conservative governor of Wisconsin, is announcing his bid for the Republican nomination for president, a University of Wisconsin professor comes out with some nonsense from her grandfather showing similarities between Walker and........
Adolf Hitler. And it's "terrifying".
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/23329/
"Thank you for your question. Please note that I have taken time out of my unpaid vacation to respond, as a courtesy to the timeliness of your request."
-Sara Goldrick-Rab
I guess the first question I would ask this professor's grandfather is whether he ever psychoanalyzed Adolf Hitler or Scott Walker. I'll go out on a limb and guess that the answer is no.
"My grandfather, a psychologist, just walked me through similarities between Walker and Hitler. There are so many- it's terrifying."
And those similarities are?
This is the kind of mindset that is teaching our children when we send them off to college. They have to sit in a classroom and be taught by some ditzy, mothball-brained, left-wing radical who is "terrified" that Scott Walker has similarities to Adolf Hitler.
That in itself is terrifying.
The limited description available at your link may be valid: that is, there are some significant similarities from a psychoanalyst's point of view. You link doesn't give us the full text.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, I'm not a psychoanalyst. I'm merely someone who grew up in Joe McCarthy's home town in the middle of the 20th century, who has had a chance to watch Scott Walker in local as well as state government. Comparisons to Hitler are not helpful. Walker doesn't have an SA, and I don't think he's likely to have the political vacuum to build one. If elected president, he could do a lot of damage, but I rather suspect that he will retire peacefully after his last term, whether the voters give him a second one, or not.
Walker is an overgrown spoiled brat and a snake oil salesman. He keeps taxes down by deferring essential maintenance, borrowing to support whatever he really wants to spend money on (hint, that costs taxpayers MORE in the long run, but looks good on his own balance sheet), and never tells you what he really means to do until after the next election. If he wants to do something he believes a majority of voters oppose, he simple demurs if a question is asked, and then acts after the election is over. He is a VERY ACCOMPLISHED liar, and the Democrats don't know how to handle that.
His track record is to centralize more power at whatever level he currently holds office, eviscerating local autonomy at both the county and city levels, rural and urban, break up anything nonpartisan in state government, working to put it under his direct control, and to give large gobs of money to favored insider business owners about to go bankrupt. (Think of everything Gary every said about Solyndra, reduced to state level expenditures, but multiplied in number of beneficiaries). Scott Walker lusts for power, and will adopt any framework that seems to promise him an opportunity to get his hands on it. In that sense, I think Hitler was a bit more principled, but had the opportunity to be a lot more wrong.
So there is a lot to worry about, even for sincere conservatives, at the prospect of Walker becoming president of the United States. You might even find some parallels to Hitler -- but that's not a helpful way to define whether to vote for him. Everyone has their own opinion about what a "similarity to Hitler" might mean, or how serious it is.
How about this for similarities?
ReplyDeletePrior to becoming chancellor, Hitler gained strong support in the universities.
Yeah, two thirds of the SS had Ph.D's. And I don't buy the argument that Walker is somehow less qualified because he lacks a bachelor's degree. Abraham Lincoln didn't have one either. I'm not sure Dwight Eisenhower did.
ReplyDeleteBut lack of a degree doesn't mean that one is the smartest, most capable, or best qualified either. It means you have to show some evidence, other than a degree, of your ability.
(Gary doesn't like unions any better than Hitler did. But Gary does have some good points Adolf lacked.)