# What Effect Will Trump's Concentration Camps have on his reelection campaign? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 19, 2019, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738 "2019-06-19T12:15:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/261 "2019-06-23T11:45:32Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > This will spill out into the open eventually. That’s what’s going on bit by bit. Just yesterday, [this video](https://www.indy100.com/article/trump-detained-migrant-children-soap-beds-toothbrushes-8970156) depicting an administration lawyer went a wee bit viral. In it, she argues that the requirement for “safe and sanitary conditions” does not mean that we necessarily need beds, soap, or toothbrushes. Anyone not currently flashing back to “Eichmann in Jerusalem” probably hasn’t read or even heard of the book, because this is the banality of evil on full display. Someone “just doing her job” and “just following orders” to justify keeping children in conditions that are barely fit for livestock. Thankfully, the judges were having absolutely none of it. But it’s still very disturbing that this is an argument being made. From two days ago, here’s the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/us/migrant-children-border-soap.html): Children as young as 7 and 8, many of them wearing clothes caked with snot and tears, are caring for infants they’ve just met, the lawyers said. Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants. Teenage mothers are wearing clothes stained with breast milk. Most of the young detainees have not been able to shower or wash their clothes since they arrived at the facility, those who visited said. They have no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap. “There is a stench,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, one of the lawyers who visited the facility. “The overwhelming majority of children have not bathed since they crossed the border.” (To the people who think “concentration camp” is inappropriate, what would you call this? Again, rhetorical question, I _really_ don’t care.) Anyways, the progressives in congress have released a statement opposing the new supplementary funding bill: “These radicalized, criminal agencies are destroying families and killing innocent children,” they said in their statement. “It is absolutely unconscionable to even consider giving one more dollar to support this President’s deportation force that openly commits human rights abuses and refuses to be held accountable to the American people.” “That is why in good conscience,” they continued, “we cannot support this supplemental funding bill, which gives even more money to ICE and CBP and continues to support a fundamentally cruel and broken immigration system.” ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/262 "2019-06-23T11:51:16Z")
(Whoops, forgot a link for that last part: ['Not One More Dollar': Even as Trump Postpones Raids, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, and Tlaib Vow to Oppose All Funding for 'Hateful Border Agenda'](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/22/not-one-more-dollar-even-trump-postpones-raids-ocasio-cortez-omar-pressley-and-tlaib) ) ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/263 "2019-06-23T13:40:43Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > That’s what’s going on bit by bit. Just yesterday, [this video](https://www.indy100.com/article/trump-detained-migrant-children-soap-beds-toothbrushes-8970156) depicting an administration lawyer went a wee bit viral. In it, she argues that the requirement for “safe and sanitary conditions” does not mean that we necessarily need beds, soap, or toothbrushes. Anyone not currently flashing back to “Eichmann in Jerusalem” probably hasn’t read or even heard of the book, because this is the banality of evil on full display. Someone “just doing her job” and “just following orders” to justify keeping children in conditions that are barely fit for livestock. > > Thankfully, the judges were having absolutely none of it. But it’s still very disturbing that this is an argument being made. > > From two days ago, here’s the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/us/migrant-children-border-soap.html): > > Children as young as 7 and 8, many of them wearing clothes caked with snot and tears, are caring for infants they’ve just met, the lawyers said. Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants. Teenage mothers are wearing clothes stained with breast milk. > > Most of the young detainees have not been able to shower or wash their clothes since they arrived at the facility, those who visited said. They have no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap. > > “There is a stench,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, one of the lawyers who visited the facility. “The overwhelming majority of children have not bathed since they crossed the border.” > > (To the people who think “concentration camp” is inappropriate, what would you call this? Again, rhetorical question, I _really_ don’t care.) > > Anyways, the progressives in congress have released a statement opposing the new supplementary funding bill: > > “These radicalized, criminal agencies are destroying families and killing innocent children,” they said in their statement. “It is absolutely unconscionable to even consider giving one more dollar to support this President’s deportation force that openly commits human rights abuses and refuses to be held accountable to the American people.” > > “That is why in good conscience,” they continued, “we cannot support this supplemental funding bill, which gives even more money to ICE and CBP and continues to support a fundamentally cruel and broken immigration system.” I would actually submit that Trump would be better off having an activist leak the pictures. That way they can sustain short-term outrage and embarrassment and maybe actually take the situation more seriously. If they don’t, what’ll likely happen is that the system totally gets overwhelmed and then they have to start releasing people en mass, or they simply give up trying to apprehend them in the first place. In other words, it results in complete chaos. Cities and towns become overwhelmed with refugees like what happened in Europe with the migrants storming into cities and towns by the tens of thousands. Trump would lose with moderates and progressives who think he’s an inhumane sadistic fuck, and he would also lose with his base and right-leaning independents because he would be exposed as incompetent and a fraud on his signature issue. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/264 "2019-06-23T14:34:02Z")
This is a very distressing situation and I feel absolutely powerless. I’m losing sleep because I don’t know how to help. I’m feeling a powerful urge to just get in my car and drive to Texas to at least help with caring for the babies, but I doubt I could get anywhere close. This sickens me. This is NOT making America great again. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/265 "2019-06-23T14:45:30Z")
You aren’t without power here, the ACLU is fighting this and you can help them. It may seem indirect and fruitless, but it will not be. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/266 "2019-06-23T21:25:52Z")
This whole situation is disgusting. When we get that morally empty shitbag out of office the next DOJ had better aggressively prosecute every single person who contributed to these camps. Many of the people involved in this shit need to die in prison; not just to punish them for their evil, to to serve as a warning for the next set of Nazi wannabes. You gotta think even many Trump supporters would be shocked by what’s happening–it’s just that right wing news is hiding it from them. I bet this is the issue that finally finishes Trump, once it becomes more widely known. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/267 "2019-06-23T22:01:41Z")
I don’t think that running concentration camps is going to lose Trump any support. It may motivate other people to come out and vote against him, but his supporters are clearly ready to excuse him, and will go back to old tired rhetoric like ‘they shouldn’t have come here illegally’ when defending the practice of imprisoning children and not even providing them soap to bathe with. Also, it’s darkly amusing to look back at Trump supporters in the past who defended him with things along the lines of ‘he may not on the best of terms with Mexicans, but he’s not creating concentration camps, stop exaggerating’. While I don’t think there was that much on this board, I definitely remember seeing and hearing that. And on this board there are things like the below from just two years ago that make you wonder what’s next, [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=828153](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=828153) (2017) > [@](#): > > Trump has not suspended the Constitution. He has not declared martial law. He has not proclaimed himself president in perpetuum. \*\*He is not rounding people up into barb wire detention camps. \*\*He is not having critics assassinated. He is not having protesters machine gunned on the streets. He has not shut down newspapers, magazines and television stations. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/268 "2019-06-23T22:25:36Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Actually, airplane stowaways are sometimes put on the next plane going back to where they came from. > > But hey, I’ve long since given up on you understanding nuance, context, or the concept of looking at cases individually and you’re resorting to sarcasm when someone doesn’t give you a neat, one-size-fits-all rule. > > And nowhere near $5k a month is given or required. As you damn well know. And I’ve given up on you understanding that policy should not be made based on unlikely occurrences of situations. Unless you want to argue that so many people are sneaking into the US stowing away on airplanes that we need to take that into account when forming policies. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/269 "2019-06-23T23:16:39Z")
Most immigrants - of any sort - are not coming across the US/Mexican border. They’re coming in via other methods, such as air travel. The most common route of entry for illegal migrants is not dashing across the US/Mexican border. It’s coming to the US on a legitimate visa and overstaying the limit of that visa. Basically, they come here for whatever reason and simply don’t go home. Focusing on the southwestern border is a diversion, nothing more. If you could stop every person coming across that US/Mexican border you would not stop illegal immigration. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/270 "2019-06-23T23:31:35Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Most immigrants - of any sort - are not coming across the US/Mexican border. They’re coming in via other methods, such as air travel. > > The most common route of entry for illegal migrants is not dashing across the US/Mexican border. It’s coming to the US on a legitimate visa and overstaying the limit of that visa. Basically, they come here for whatever reason and simply don’t go home. > > Focusing on the southwestern border is a diversion, nothing more. If you could stop every person coming across that US/Mexican border you would not stop illegal immigration. Yes, I know. I never said otherwise. I know how to read statistics. My point was, people flying into the US have visas and permissions to come to the US. They won’t be stopped at the “border” of Dulles Airport and thrown into detention facilities. My question was, people who apply for refugee status (which is what they need to do when outside of the US, according to my reading, unless I’m wrong), do we take them into custody and bring them to the US? Or do they fend for themselves until the US makes a decision on their status? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/271 "2019-06-24T01:27:30Z")
In the past people could present themselves at the physical US border (US/Mexico or US/Canada) and ask for asylum. In the past, the practice was to take their information, give them a court date, and release them into the general population. MOST of them turned up for their court date. In other words, **crossing the US border without permission to ask for asylum is _perfectly legal_.** It is not a criminal act. Of course, once a person does that they are then obligated to show up for a hearing to determine whether or not their request has merit, at which point either they are granted permission to stay or are told to leave. Failure to leave after one’s claim has been denied, that’s when you start to edge into illegality but it is still no more than a misdemeanor. The other way to wind up in trouble is to wait more than a year after arrival in the US to seek asylum - but that would not seem to apply to any of the folks currently being held in overcrowded, unsanitary “facilities” under discussion here. To answer your question a bit more specifically - about 90% of people seeking asylum in the US apply abroad, which is hardly surprising given only a few nations in the world share a physical border with the US. The remaining 10% ask after physically arriving in the US. Which is a legal way to ask for asylum, regardless of whether those people came on a visa of some sort or just walked across/stowed away on a vehicle. Those 10% are allowed to “fend for themselves” as you put it in the sense that until recently they weren’t locked up. Refugees who applied for asylum outside the US can ask for a loan to pay for transportation to the US if they can’t provide it themselves. Those who walked here, obviously, have no need of such. The past year or so has seen more mass movement of people at any time since WWII. Everyone’s immigration system is overloaded, including those that process asylum seekers and refugees. That’s still no excuse for the overcrowding, the lack of sanitary facilities and supplies, and the other inhumane treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/272 "2019-06-25T09:18:49Z")
So, we finally have some expert speaking up to say that AOC was wrong about concentration camps. It’s… _sigh_… The [US Holocaust Museum](https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/us-holocaust-museum-reiterates-its-rejection-of-analogies-with-the-holocaust). But pay close attention to what they actually say, and you get a little closer look at what’s going on: > [@](#): > > The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary. That position has repeatedly and unambiguously been made clear in the Museum’s official statement on the matter – a statement that is reiterated and reaffirmed now. The link to the Museum’s statement is here. > > The Museum further reiterates that a statement ascribed to a Museum staff historian regarding recent attempts to analogize the situation on the United States southern border to concentration camps in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s does not reflect the position of the Museum. > > The Museum deeply regrets any offense to Holocaust survivors and others that may have been engendered by any statement ascribed to a Museum historian in a personal capacity. Firstly: wait, that’s not what I just said. That’s not even close to what I just said! Where did I get the idea that the Holocaust Museum was clapping back at AOC? Oh, NYPost, you [crafty ol’ lying shitbags](https://nypost.com/2019/06/24/us-holocaust-museum-denounces-aocs-concentration-camp-remarks/). “Erbelding and reps for the museum did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Post.” _ **I wonder why** _. But that’s not the only awful thing here. Look closer at the actual statement. “The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary.” What the fuck kind of statement is that? What, exactly, does “never again” mean, then? Is this mission accomplished, then, if nothing is analogous to the holocaust? Can we pack it all in, and stop banging on about it? Probably not, because… the holocaust museum [has an exhibit on Syria](https://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/syria). Rightfully, in my eyes, but how is this not drawing parallels to the holocaust? It’s a holocaust museum. Why have this if you can’t create analogies? Why have the [Early Warning Project](https://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/how-to-prevent-genocide/early-warning-project) if historians show up, alarm bells blazing, and you reply like this? I wonder if all this has anything to do with [this](https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/president-trump-appoints-howard-m-lorber-as-museum-chairman)? > [@](#): > > WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Donald J. Trump appointed Howard M. Lorber as Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Lorber is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Vector Group and Chairman of Douglas Elliman. Nah, couldn’t be. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/273 "2019-06-25T13:05:05Z")
[**Government moves migrant kids after AP exposes bad treatment**](https://www.apnews.com/a7a9acc4c6a546829a258e008d10d705) > [@](#): > > The U.S. government has removed most of the children from a remote Border Patrol station in Texas following reports that more than 300 children were detained there, caring for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation. > > Just 30 children remained at the station outside El Paso Monday, said Rep. Veronica Escobar after her office was briefed on the situation by an official with Customs and Border Protection. > > Attorneys who visited Clint last week said older children were trying to take care of infants and toddlers, The Associated Press first reported Thursday. They described a 4-year-old with matted hair who had gone without a shower for days, and hungry, inconsolable children struggling to soothe one another. Some had been locked for three weeks inside the facility, where 15 children were sick with the flu and another 10 were in medical quarantine. > … > > **Although it’s unclear where all the children held at Clint have been moved,** Escobar said some were sent to another facility on the north side of El Paso called Border Patrol Station 1. Escobar said it’s a temporary site with roll-out mattresses, showers, medical facilities and air conditioning. > > But Clara Long, an attorney who interviewed children at Border Patrol Station 1 last week, said **conditions were not necessarily better there.** > > “One boy I spoke with said his family didn’t get mattresses or blankets for the first two nights, and he and his mom came down with a fever,” said Long, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch. “He said there were no toothbrushes, and it was very, very cold.” > … My bold. Texas is a big state. They oughta be able to put those [del]criminals[/del] kids where NO ONE will be able to find them, fer Pete’s sake. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/274 "2019-06-25T13:33:35Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > They oughta be able to put those [del]criminals[/del] kids where NO ONE will be able to find them, fer Pete’s sake. Maybe you meant “future terrorists”. Because at least some are now radicalized. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/275 "2019-06-25T13:44:54Z")
I think the camps help mobilize Trump’s base, who are white nationalists. His re-election strategy is clearly to keep them fired up and engaged to either win another electoral college victory, or for it to be close enough that he can claim that he actually won and encourage his violent and racist base to refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of his successor. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/276 "2019-06-25T16:17:38Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Also, quick meta note. > > I’d rather we not discuss whether or not we’re actually running concentration camps at the borders. At least if you don’t have at least some form of expertise (say, a historian, or a holocaust expert) to weigh in with. … I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but ask and ye shall receive. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum [released a statement that rejected the sort of usage of the “concentration camps” label](https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/statement-regarding-the-museums-position-on-holocaust-analogies) that your thread makes use of: > [@](#): > > The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary. That position has repeatedly and unambiguously been made clear in the Museum’s official statement on the matter – a statement that is reiterated and reaffirmed now. The link to the Museum’s statement is here. > > The Museum further reiterates that a statement ascribed to a Museum staff historian regarding recent attempts to analogize the situation on the United States southern border to concentration camps in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s does not reflect the position of the Museum. > > The Museum deeply regrets any offense to Holocaust survivors and others that may have been engendered by any statement ascribed to a Museum historian in a personal capacity. The Museum’s earlier statement referred to it as a “rhetorical cudgel”: > [@](#): > > Nazis seem to be everywhere these days. I don’t mean self-proclaimed neo-Nazis. I’m talking about folks being labeled as Nazis, Hitler, Gestapo, Goering — take your pick — by their political opponents. American politicians from across the ideological spectrum, influential media figures, and ordinary people on social media casually use Holocaust terminology to bash anyone or any policy with which they disagree. The takedown is so common that it’s even earned its own term, reductio ad Hitlerum. > > … > > Perhaps most popular this year have been accusations of “Nazism” and “fascism” against federal authorities for their treatment of children separated from their parents at the US border with Mexico. “Remember, other governments put kids in camps,” is a typical rallying cry from some immigration advocates. Even a person as well versed in the tenuous balance between national security and compassion, the former head of the CIA, took to Twitter to criticize federal policies toward illegal migrants using a black and white photo of the iconic train tracks leading the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. > > … > Careless Holocaust analogies may demonize, demean, and intimidate their targets. But there is a cost for all of us because they distract from the real issues challenging our society, because they shut down productive, thoughtful discourse. At a time when our country needs dialogue more than ever, it is especially dangerous to exploit the memory of the Holocaust as a rhetorical cudgel. We owe the survivors more than that. And we owe ourselves more than that. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/277 "2019-06-25T16:30:03Z")
Was that post intended to be a defense of some sort? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/278 "2019-06-25T16:49:50Z")
It should be noted that the Holocaust Museum’s statement doesn’t actually criticize any particular comparison (such as AOC’s), just “attempts to analogize the situation on the United States southern border to concentration camps in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s”. The USHM doesn’t say anything about analogizing the migrant camps to concentration camps in general. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/279 "2019-06-25T18:03:19Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but ask and ye shall receive. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum [released a statement that rejected the sort of usage of the “concentration camps” label](https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/statement-regarding-the-museums-position-on-holocaust-analogies) that your thread makes use of: > > The Museum’s earlier statement referred to it as a “rhetorical cudgel”: The topic is “concentration camp”, not “holocaust”, despite your attempts to conflate the two. Who here has compared what is happening to those children a “holocaust”? ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2019, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738/280 "2019-06-25T18:31:20Z")
…and if it isn’t the Holocaust, there is nothing to see here, nothing to discuss, and we can all just forget about the 50,000+ civilians detained in conditions so poor that over 30 have died and news of the treatment is causing national outrage. It isn’t the Holocaust, folks, so the detention of all these thousands, most of whom have committed no crime whatsoever, simply has a weight of zero. Jesus, can’t even hold 50,000 and counting innocent civilians in shit conditions, without blankets, soap, showers, until they get sick and die, without some liberal comparing it to the Holocaust. Just move on because this is TOTALLY NORMAL if it isn’t literally the Holocaust. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-effect-will-trumps-concentration-camps-have-on-his-reelection-campaign/835738.md?page=15)