You don't need to go the reductio ad Hitlerum route. Distraction, lawfare, divide-and-conquer are old, tried, and tested tactics for diverting attention, grinding down the opposition, and scattering threats. It isn't unique to this administration nor to our times.
(Incidentally, in the US, divide-and-conquer often happens on racial grounds, for example. When American oligarchy starts feeling threatened, it can easily reach for the race card by giving the appropriate people a platform to manufacture paranoia, grievance, outrage, indignation, and antipathy. Solidarity breaks down. People stop talking about how badly they're being governed and manipulated by gov't and private interest and shift focus toward hating each other. Indeed, this is how democracies function in practice. Whereas dictatorships often rely on a good deal of brute force, oligarchs in democracies must be craftier in their methods - this includes the abuse of media, or the phenomenon of sexual lib, as described by Aldous Huxley, as another intersecting example. The citizen cannot know he is subject to manipulation or coercion. Media and education become instruments of conditioning and inculcation, with society functioning as a force multiplier.)
I don't think I did, at least not harshly. I was just seemingly finding a political pattern which I recognised from earlier, and that happened to be what it was. Was I incorrect in my observation or were you reminded of https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-... perhaps?
I partly agree with your general observation in parenthesis there, it seems this situation is being significantly sponsored by the American oligarchy (e.g. Thiel).
> You don't need to go the reductio ad Hitlerum route.
And yet, when the people at the top, the ones implementing these strategies and policies, are explicitly lionizing Hitler in a variety of ways, on top of mimicking his policies, strategies, values, and ideals, suddenly treating the comparison as if it's absurd or illogical starts to seem like it's trying to distract us from something...
(Incidentally, in the US, divide-and-conquer often happens on racial grounds, for example. When American oligarchy starts feeling threatened, it can easily reach for the race card by giving the appropriate people a platform to manufacture paranoia, grievance, outrage, indignation, and antipathy. Solidarity breaks down. People stop talking about how badly they're being governed and manipulated by gov't and private interest and shift focus toward hating each other. Indeed, this is how democracies function in practice. Whereas dictatorships often rely on a good deal of brute force, oligarchs in democracies must be craftier in their methods - this includes the abuse of media, or the phenomenon of sexual lib, as described by Aldous Huxley, as another intersecting example. The citizen cannot know he is subject to manipulation or coercion. Media and education become instruments of conditioning and inculcation, with society functioning as a force multiplier.)