Yes, Ken Langone, founder of Home Depot and right-wing billionaire, said this:
“Because if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.”
Yet another Godwinite. When the peons dare to express dissatisfaction with the extreme inequality baked into our society right now, we're Nazis. But if we shut up and let the billionaires do the driving, it's all good.
Really? Screw these people.
Also, can we unpack the whole "with different words" part? Because you know, "with different words", if you go back to 1933 and call for poor people to die rather than allow them access to health care because poor people don't deserve any help from anyone, well...perhaps that might be a call for extermination by class, rather than race.
Before you get too outraged, though, keep in mind that Langone has a point. If you think about it, Hitler’s advocating for the mass killing of Europe’s Jewish population is a lot like Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s call for more regulation on Wall Street and a more equitable distribution of America’s wealth — just so long as you use “different words,” as Langone puts it.
Instead of Warren saying something like, “Wall Street is out of control and too big to fail,” for example, just use “different words” — replace “Wall Street” with “World Jewry” and replace “out of control and too big to fail” with “responsible for all of Germany’s problems and in dire need of physical extermination.” See how easy that is? The magic of words, people. The magic of words.
Will Bunch offers some perspective too:
Ken Langone's dad was union plumber in Great Depression, surely aided by FDR's New Deal. But 75 years later, liberals are Nazis?...WTF?
— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) March 18, 2014
Don't bother reading the rest of that Politico article. It's one big celebration of the resurgence of corporate Republicans and timidity of corporate Democrats. They live in their own bubble. The only thing worth remembering is that the co-founder of Home Depot thinks liberals are Nazis.
Update: Langone apologized after his spew fell on his pal, Democrat-in-name-only Andrew Cuomo.
