So, there is an academic debate going on, are #Trump, #Bolsanaro #fascists, then this one, have their actions on #COVID19 been genocidal, with both of these authors engaged on both topics. 1/ https://twitter.com/jasonintrator/status/1351184052028641283

. @jasonintrator & @FinchelsteinF's critics say, these men are not Hitler, Mussolini and this is not the Holocaust. This becomes a definitional struggle, it-is/it-ain't. What though if this definitional debate is obscuring something far more profound? 2/

That we are faced with an evil, which makes these comparison utterable, even if debatable. What we've seen over the past four years is grotesque, over this past year, unforgivable with 400,000 deaths in the US alone. 3/

The question for me is when do the alarm bells ring out for all of us on what is happening? For 4 years we saw a desperate normalization of #Trump, even during the pandemic, by leading reporters at places like @nytimes. 4/

He's not Hitler, he's not Mussolini, the deaths this past year were about a virus, not a genocide, those who suggest otherwise are trading in hyperbole. Now we can go back to sleep. 5/

But perhaps this is not about #Trump, but us. #Trump is evil. No one wants to say it out loud. Except people like @HawleyMO & @tedcruz would like to franchise it for their own gain. And we have an entire party, the @GOP who is all too willing to go along. 6/

And we let #Trump with his own full knowledge of the seriousness of the pandemic get away with murder--death by public policy. Again, with his party all-in, the media too submissive to sound the alarm even as the body count rose. 7/

So the historians, philosophers will debate all this, put it all in its context. I don't have the training or skills to do this. But what we can all do is bear witness. Remember. Write down the stories of the cruelty and hate. Tell the tales of the dead. end/