'Sunny With a Chance of Idiocy': Weatherman Gets Canned After Calling Anti-Lockdown Protestors Nazis

AP featured image — In this Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017, photo, a wax figure of Adolf Hitler is displayed against the backdrop of an image of Auschwitz-Birkenau complex of concentration camps, at De Mata Museum in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Rights groups have expressed outrage over the display calling it “sickening” and that “It mocks the victims who went in and never came out.” (AP Photo/Slamet Riyadi)

Ahh — the old Nazi comparison. It’s a favorite of many. Wanna insult some political faction? Just compare them to Hitler’s henchmen.

It’s such a best-loved method of degradation, it’s sometimes applied to things that are the polar opposite.

Such was the case for a Minnesota weatherman recently.

Amid American’s crippling COVID-19 closure, meteorologist Sven Sundgaard reposted an online comment attributed to Rabbi Michael Adam Latz. The remark labeled anti-lockdown protestors as “white nationalist Nazi sympathizer gun fetishist miscreants.”

Yes — miscreants.

That was April 19th, and on Friday — May 1st — news station KARE11 parted ways with their forecaster.

Former U.S. congressman Jason Lewis was no doubt stoked:

Today’s forecast: mostly sunny w/ a chance of idiocy.

First ‘sports reporter’ @KFANRosen attacks the right to peaceably assemble.

Now ‘weatherman’ @svensundgaard does this. #Covid_19 models are about as accurate as his forecasts.@kare11 should fire him!https://t.co/awo2Wiesfo

— Jason Lewis (@LewisForMN) April 30, 2020

At the time of this writing, KARE11’s post has garnered 5.8K comments and 7.8K reactions — for and against.

One Facebooker wrote, “I wasn’t one of the protestors but found his comments referring to people as Nazi’s as absurd and unworthy of any legitimate news station. Again, thank you!”

Another:

“I am on the side of science and Sven. Due to the poor ethics of KARE 11, I have decided to part ways with KARE 11.”

It wasn’t the first time Sven turned to the Third Reich when searching for an analogy.

During a 2015 Star Tribune interview, he had this to say about some folks greeting President Obama with a Confederate flag:

“I had a great-great-grandfather who fought in the Civil War in the 38th Iowa Infantry. Injured because those, what’s the word we should use, morons and racists in the South wanted to preserve their way of life. They lost. Actually what I’ve likened it to, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration, let’s pretend that Germany were a state in the U.S. and they still wanted to fly the Nazi flag. Get real.”

To be clear, KARE11’s post about “ethics and other policies” was the only comment made by the Minneapolis station. So officially, they didn’t necessarily sack Sven for his assertion of similarity between Open America activists and murderous, goose-stepping socialists.

But I gotta think it didn’t help.

It was an odd bit of eyesight — perceiving those protesting perceived tyranny as tyrannical.

But this is the world in which we live — one that wants to paint so many as Hitler.

Speaking of, one such frequently-framed fellow’s notably on the side of the ralliers: