I had to superimpose a smiling picture of myself over my usual alarmed face:

As usual I woke up early today and first thing I did was click on the small bedroom televsion which is set to MSNBC. I’d hoped to sleep until 5:00 but alas it was 3:45. I’m glad I decided not to try to catch another hour of sleep and that I turned on the TV because on “Morning Joe” they were reporting on the results of the election in Poland. I needed to wake up to some good news for a change.

The far-right in the United States has given words their own meaning. Pro-life means anti-woman and populist means fascist empowerment for two examples. Thus when I read the word “populist” in the following from “Opposition declares victory in Poland election while vote count continues” (Washington Post, subscription required) I knew this was a good thing:

(Excerpt, emphasisi added) Poland’s political opposition ecstatically declared victory Sunday in the country’s most pivotal election since the fall of the Berlin Wall, after an exit poll suggested that while the ruling hard-right party had placed first, the opposition had a far clearer path to a governing coalition.

“We did it! Really! … Poland has won, democracy has won. We have removed them from power!” opposition leader Donald Tusk — a former prime minister and head of the European Council — told his supporters late Sunday.

An opposition victory would mean a dramatic shift for Poland, where the Law and Justice party has held power for the past eight years, making it one of the most successful populist parties in Europe — and a model of the rollback of democratic norms. The Polish government exerted control over the courts and the media, backed severe restrictions on abortion, targeted LBGTQ+ rights, and undermined the bonds of the European Union.

From the “Morning Joe” discussion I learned that the democratic opposition won against tough odds because the far-right Law and Justice Party (another perverse phraseology) had done everything they could to rig the election. This ought to sound familiar.

That there are groups here and around the world who had they lived in Germany in the 1930’s would have enthusiastically supported Hitler is no surprise. By the time Hitler had maneuvered himself into power it became dangerous for any German not to support him.

Democracy loving Americans following the rise of what has been called by various names, Trumpism, MAGA, and populism top among them, now don’t feel they are stretching things to invoke the name of Hitler when expressing their fears. It has become a convenient shorthand.

Back in 1990 an American attorney and author named Mike Godwin came up with what ended up being called Godwin’s Law:

This is the Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches. Wikipedia

When someone wrote or said something comparing a current person or situation to Hitler or the NAZI Party it was referred to in a disparaging way as Reductio ad Hitlerum a term first used decades before Godwin back in 1951. (See Wikipedia)

These days one doesn’t even have to actually invoke the name Hitler to make the comparison. All they have to do is draw or photoshop a Hitler mustache on someone’s face. This is so easy to do you don’t even need any skill. All you need to do is make a black rectangle on an image on your computer screen and insert it on someone’s upper lip.

Here’s the story behind what became an iconic trademark mustache representing Hitler and all that he stood for. You couldn’t take any other famous mustache (called a toothbrush mustache) and merely transpose it to another face to send the same alarming and negative message that using Hitler’s mustache does. When someone does that they never think of Charlie Chaplin who also had a toothbrush mustache (see photo).

Had Poland’s hardright party won the election I could have invoked the NAZI Party and put a Hitler mustache over a map of the entire country to illustrate this blog story.

It was a relief that I didn’t have to use this picture.