The language neither trivializes the Holocaust nor does it unfairly hitlerizes Trump. It describes what is going on in a way more of the general population can understand.
There have been many populist governments around the world over time. Hitler wasn't the first to do that sort of thing. Unfortunately, not everyone remembers all the names or knows the history - so comparing him to a lesser-known leader (which he might be more comparable too) just doesn't work. It is like reading a literary reference to a book you've never read - it is easy to miss the context, even after the reference is explained.
So we use Hitler because we understand the Holocaust (and the like) was far too horrible for words to describe and we'd like to avoid going near anything of that manner. We draw comparisons between the early Hitler days and now because we notice them. Coincidentally, it follows a general pattern of authoritarian and fascist leaders and it scares the heck out of us.
And you think, surely, that can't happen here. This is the United States, after all. And at the same time, Trump is up there talking about how we should be using torture and waterboarding more because he's convinced it works. And we aren't sitting here appalled because we've started to become immune to his rhetoric. He's been saying this sort of thing for months. What else are we going to be sensitized to?
Furthermore, what does it mean for me when I go to visit family back in the states? If I get a tan and look "middle eastern", will I get harassed? Are they going to bring up that a portion of my family is Syrian, even though my grandmother was born in the US to immigrant parents? What of my family that still lives there? I know this stuff isn't an issue right now, but I'm afraid of what happens if it escalates. It isn't like we can trust the things that is being said from the top at this point.
This "unhelpful" hyperbole is the only thing we really have to be able to express this stuff to others.
There's a german saying: "It did happen and therefore it can happen again". That could be extended to "It did happen, and therefore it could happen anywhere".
I'm also reminded of Hannah Arendt's theory of the "banality of evil". She basically warned against considering the Holocaust as the result of a singular set of circumstances, describing it instead as a process of many steps, by many (often unremarkable) people, with each step small enough not to trigger significant reactions.
The US is obviously still far, far away from death camps. But the changes in what is politically accepted are already gigantic if you step back. That's a process that has been going on since long before Trump, maybe since Nixon or at the very least GWB. And it includes not just the federal government but also, for example, recent developments in North Carolina.
As a somewhat tangential factoid, that may help to break the shell of the Nazi-cliche and give it back some meaning: I was recently at a festival in Poland and, in the midst of the usual atmosphere created by the beats of electronic music and the somewhat unusual diet that goes with it, I stumbled upon a plaque commemorating the place as the site of "a concentration camp for children aged 6 to 12". You really start to wonder: how much has to happen to a person until they get to the thought, "yeah, those 6 to 12 year olds, we really need to do something about them"?
There's certainly value in being mindful of the Holocaust, and of the great capacity for evil, even if banal, inside of us all, and to acknowledge and fight against it each day. But I remain unconvinced that calling those I disagree with over legitimate policy concerns Hitler is either a) fair or b) particularly useful.
Listen if Hitler is the only comparison you think people understand, and you think the only way to convince them that a thing is bad and should be avoided is because, like, Hitler, and because in some racism dream where you get darker than you are and a bunch of majority culture white rednecks confuses you for a terrorist instead of just a normal american of partially Syrian or Italian or Mexican or native American or Guatemalan extraction that's fine. Call trump Hitler all you want. You won't be the first, and apparently you have a fellow traveler as a professor at MIT. Just don't expect me to take you seriously. Not when you're comparing Trump to Hitler for putting a hold on visas of students from a country whose official policy calls for the destruction of Israel and which is actively hostile to the interests of the united states, and who might facilitate potentially dangerous technology transfers to same. Though for the sake of consistency, and to seem less partisan, you may wish to consider similarly comparing Jimmy Carter to Josef Dzugashvili because he put a much longer hold on Iranian student visas in the late 70's.
There have been many populist governments around the world over time. Hitler wasn't the first to do that sort of thing. Unfortunately, not everyone remembers all the names or knows the history - so comparing him to a lesser-known leader (which he might be more comparable too) just doesn't work. It is like reading a literary reference to a book you've never read - it is easy to miss the context, even after the reference is explained.
So we use Hitler because we understand the Holocaust (and the like) was far too horrible for words to describe and we'd like to avoid going near anything of that manner. We draw comparisons between the early Hitler days and now because we notice them. Coincidentally, it follows a general pattern of authoritarian and fascist leaders and it scares the heck out of us.
And you think, surely, that can't happen here. This is the United States, after all. And at the same time, Trump is up there talking about how we should be using torture and waterboarding more because he's convinced it works. And we aren't sitting here appalled because we've started to become immune to his rhetoric. He's been saying this sort of thing for months. What else are we going to be sensitized to?
Furthermore, what does it mean for me when I go to visit family back in the states? If I get a tan and look "middle eastern", will I get harassed? Are they going to bring up that a portion of my family is Syrian, even though my grandmother was born in the US to immigrant parents? What of my family that still lives there? I know this stuff isn't an issue right now, but I'm afraid of what happens if it escalates. It isn't like we can trust the things that is being said from the top at this point.
This "unhelpful" hyperbole is the only thing we really have to be able to express this stuff to others.