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When you never knew your grandparents because all four were murdered in Nazi gas chambers (along with almost everyone else in your parents' lives), you're particularly sensitive to Hitler comparisons. George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Stephen Harper. No, no, no, no. Ridiculous. Outrageous. Wrong.

And now we have Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump has been compared to Hitler by everyone from conservative commentator Glenn Beck to comedian Louis C.K. to Memphis Grizzlies forward Matt Barnes. A "Trump Hitler" Google search on Thursday yielded about 46.5 million results: serious headlines such as "Israeli journalist watches in horror as Trump's rise mirrors Hitler"; more, shall we say, entertaining headlines as in "David Duke says Trump-Hitler Comparisons Can Only Help Hitler's Reputation"; the requisite images of Mr. Trump altered to show him with a Hitler mustache; and diversions such as "Donald Trump or Adolf Hitler: Quiz" (I scored an embarrassing nine out of 14).

Mr. Trump has earned his comparisons to Hitler with his open racism and scapegoating, divisive lowest-common-denominator politics and unapologetic, even gleeful inflammation of anger and incitement of violence. He has aimed to turn the populace against Mexicans by painting them as criminal infiltrators, he has promised to build a wall to keep them out, and he has threatened to bar Muslims from the United States altogether. He also initially refused to disavow the endorsement of Mr. Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard.

"I know nothing about David Duke, I know nothing about white supremacists," Mr. Trump told CNN, pleading ignorance about the anti-Semitic racist former KKK leader who is pretty much a household name. How is it possible that I know who David Duke is, but Mr. Trump doesn't?

Equally reminiscent of Hitler's rise – and perhaps even more chilling – are the crowds cheering on his outrageous, bigoted pronouncements with wild adoration.

The Trumpites acting out Heil Hitler-esque salutes or sporting neo-Nazi tattoos – those people are idiot zealots going for purposeful provocation. It's the everyday Ma and Pa (or college student) followers that scare the hell out of me.

The Fuhrer also whipped seemingly ordinary people into a frenzy of reverence – men with outstretched right arms, women with fawning smiles, children bearing flowers.

Today he is the face of evil, but as he rose, he had great support and not just from a few on the fringe. Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party won 37 per cent of the vote in the July, 1932, German elections and 43.9 per cent of the vote in March, 1933, after he called another election (this time as Chancellor). Jew-blaming was a major theme in speeches as he vowed to restore jobs and pride to a deeply wounded post-First World War Germany.

Of course this "make Germany great again" narrative resonates today. I was particularly struck by a description of a 1925 review of Hitler's manifesto Mein Kampf for a Vienna paper by Stefan Grossman, as recalled in a recent Times of Israel piece: "Why Jews Didn't Blink an Eye When 'Mein Kampf' First Came Out."

"Reading this 'long and yet pathetic book,' Mr. Grossman wondered how it was possible that an 'obsessive psychopath' like Hitler managed to attract thousands of people to his political assemblies," Raphael Ahren writes. "The explanation is simple, Grossman posited: A speaker is allowed a certain amount of lunacy; it actually makes him more appealing."

Okay so maybe the comparisons are understandable.

But they're also dodgy. And I don't think they're useful. In fact, I would call them dangerous.

When you play the hyperbolic Hitler card, you are playing fast and loose with history, and the future. You water down the horrors of the Holocaust and distract from the ominous, and very real, possibilities of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump is a xenophobic, sexist, boorish, unsophisticated bully. He is using resentment to exploit divisions and earn support. He has called Mexicans rapists and drug dealers. He has said Syrian refugees "probably are ISIS." He has again and again commented on the appearance of women (or referred to their menstrual cycles). He has talked about his desire to punch a protester in the face, offered to pay the legal fees of supporters who beat up protesters, warned there could be riots if he doesn't get the Republican nomination. And ordinary citizens (along with racist thugs) seem to be lapping it up, even inciting it – with violence and ugliness. "Go to Auschwitz," one sign-carrying supporter told protesters as he left a Trump rally in Cleveland.

This is all of the gravest concern.

When you call him Hitler, though, you open the door to the protestations: Oh, he's not going to build concentration camps or gas Jews or invade Poland or bomb Britain. He's not that bad. Or, maybe he's not bad at all, the line of thinking might continue.

Very early in the Internet age, lawyer and author Mike Godwin observed that the longer an online discussion continues, the greater the chance a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis will be invoked. It has since been applied to mean: If you mention Hitler or the Nazis as a comparison in a discussion thread, the thread is automatically over and you have lost the argument.

Hitler comparisons are futile. The analogy is always inappropriate.

Mr. Trump is awful, but he's not shoving babies into gas chambers.

Comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler is lazy, distracting, inaccurate and inadequate. Mr. Trump's own unique threat needs to be exposed, examined and disseminated. It is dangerous enough on its own.

Editor's note: an earlier version of this column incorrectly referred to lawyer and author Mike Godwin as Miles Godwin. This version has been corrected.

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