"Not Many People Know it...."

 

TN GOP state senator uses Hitler as an example of how people can make something of themselves after being homeless.

This is absurd. pic.twitter.com/bhyTWIz6C1

— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) April 14, 2022

There was a time when I would wonder if this kind of nut-picking was fair. Can you really point to what some state legislator dumbass says and then somehow judge the whole GOP because of it? And as I looked around me, I eventually decided yes. Yes, I absolutely should make the connection. When someone takes a look at the life story of Adolf Hitler, the takeaway should not actually be that, say what you will about the man, he was a real go-getter. (And a terrific dancer!) 

There is a real problem when a party regularly demonstrates that they don't actually see the problem with Hitler comparisons because, well...they don't see the problem. They are deliberately not seeing the problem.  And if Republicans wonder where folks get the idea from that they are represented by people like Patrick Little or Arthur Jones or Paul Nehlen, or...you get the picture. 

This was a gaffe. They guy made an unfortunate positive reference to Hitler, in regards to a bill that punishes people who have no homes for camping in public spaces. (I rankle at the term "camping"--it's called "living". People exist with bodies that have to go somewhere. They are living in those bodies in those places because shelters are for whatever reason not a possibility for them. But it isn't a pastime for them and they don't have a home to otherwise go be in. 

Why am I pointing this out? The idea that vagrancy is a choice and should be punished is to classify the people as the problem. There is a long history of the in the US and elsewhere--but it certainly isn't helpful. And absent good options, it can lead to people deciding where "undesirable people" or "asocials" need to go. 

I worry about that. Republicans are very good at labelling people as the problem. And they are even re-locating people they consider a problem. Stupid, dangerous stunts today--but with a kernel of something very dangerous in them that makes me wonder what we will see from them in the future. The party of "Don't say Gay" and "Where's your Papers?" feels like they aren't making mistakes when stuff like this pops out, just letting a mask slip/