Hitler the victim

Despite the fact that Hitler is almost synonymous with rhetoric (and demagoguery) and everyone thinks they know what he did rhetorically, people are tremendously ignorant about what his rhetoric was and how it worked. Demagoguery isn't about appeals to emotions (which aren't inherently bad) or about appeals to racism (which no one recognizes as racism in the moment). It's about a rhetoric of victimization and freedom from responsibility.

Orwell (and Kenneth Burke) really caught it. As Orwell said of Mein Kampf (a book more referred to than read):

The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is there. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon.

He also says,

Ever since he came to power--till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter...

Is Obama Hitler? No. No comparison. Was Bush? No. Neither are (or were) demagogues. Do we have demagogues in our midst? Yep. And it's someone (two people come to mind) who turn every criticism--legitimate or not--into an attack on every person like them, who are victims of every situation, even ones they have actually created for themselves.