Ken Burns is a historian who, it seems, may not have a firm grasp on the history he claims to know as he fell directly into the trap of Godwin’s Law on his most recent CNN appearance.
What is it that he tripped up on you ask?
He characterized Governor Ron DeSantis busing illegal immigrants safely out of his state to the plush mecca of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts as somehow “authoritarian” and in the same vein as Hitler and the Nazis.
Such a sound historical comparison.
As my colleague Sister Toldjah covered here earlier about the “nontreversy,” as she called it, DeSantis sending illegals north has the elites’ britches in a bunch.
In her article What Joe Biden and the Media Don’t Want You to Know About the ‘Bused Migrants’ Nontroversy…
So apparently it’s ok for the Biden administration to dump illegal immigrants across the country but when Abbott and DeSantis do it, it’s suddenly “sick and dehumanizing” and like a modern-day Auschwitz?
As per the norm, Democrats and their apologists in the press are once again revealing their true colors here. They’re pro-open borders provided the only borders illegal immigrants cross are in southern states like Texas, Florida, and Arizona, where resources are stretched very thin. But once they make it into blue states, all of a sudden it’s reprehensible and dangerous (except when the Biden administration does it under the cover of darkness).
Funny how that double standard works.
Now you might not want to blame Burns for getting tripped up here totally. He was thrown a softball question by a soon-to-be flushed out of his morning gig at CNN John Berman. Yet Burns just could not resist the idiotic comparison and fell for it.
From The Wrap…
“All of your documentaries are about history,” Berman began, “but all of them also make you think about where we are. We woke up to the news this morning that Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida sent two planeloads of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, including kids and whatnot. And I’m not saying, this is not a 1-for-1, this is not a parallel here in any way, but it does address some of the same themes that are part of this documentary.”
Berman is not saying shipping people safely with essential things like food and water to the playground of Biden supporters is a 1-for-1 comparison with the horrific actions of the holocaust but, you know. He is.
Ken Burns has done some fabulous work in the past and I have thoroughly enjoyed his Civil War and Baseball documentaries on PBS. He is a professional and his staff does a great job of putting in the time to research the subjects that they are focused on. Yet, just because he is currently doing a documentary on the Holocaust does not mean that you can draw a direct line to anything going on today and say that there is a comparison to what the Nazis did before and during World War II. Berman’s question was so ill-logically phrased that someone with Ken Burns’s historical background should have at least brushed the question aside or flat-out denied its premise.
As I mentioned above Burns fell right into the Godwin’s Law trap, and while I find it amusing, it actually is not funny for somebody who claims to understand history. As the law clearly states:
Godwin’s law, short for Godwin’s law (or rule) of Nazi analogies, is an Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches.
There is an old adage that says that history repeats itself and that has proven to be true on many an occasion, mostly due to ignorance. However, I think we can add now that historians often repeat not facts but how they and others feel in their clique about historical events. This is not helpful for future generations interested in what happened in the past.
Ken Burns fell into the Godwin’s Law trap because he was making an ignorant comment based on a moronic comparison that he did not have the courage to refute.
History will not treat him kindly for it.
