Another “Nazi” Casualty

Lesser

The latest “Nazi” casualty is Democrat State Senator Matt Lesser of Middletown.

“Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, Saturday retweeted a comment about a political stunt, organized by an anti-Trump group that was designed to imply the Republican nominee for governor of Virginia is backed by white supremacists,” a Hartford paper tells us.

“Lesser then added his own comment:

“’I did nazi (sic) that coming,’ he tweeted, using the word Nazi as a pun for ‘not see.’”

Plays on words, punning, are usually regarded as harmless fun. But the word “Nazi” is supercharged, a “third rail” of signifiers so packed with historical connotations, principally the wholesale slaughter of Jews by Nazis both in Germany and in other countries conquered by Germany during World War II, that the word properly should be used to condemn the practice of genocide. The supercilious use of the word therefore should be attended with some severe social sanctions. Politicians who, for the most part, live or die by their words should be aware of this.

The resulting brouhaha was, at the very least, politically instructive. Chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party Ben Proto chastised Lesser: “Of all people, Matt Lesser should know better. He was trying to make a funny pun about it. There’s nothing funny about Nazis.” Lesser is Jewish.

Proto also noted that Lesser was “a partisan’s partisan. He has an inability to see any side but his own.” And in the past Lesser had used Twitter as a cudgel with which to beat Republicans.

“Lesser,” the paper noted, “who Hearst CT reported has filed paperwork indicating he is exploring a statewide run, is one of the Connecticut legislature’s most prolific tweeters and frequently engages with Republican critics over social media.”

A stung Lesser responded, “I’ve got to say it’s all been a little rich for Ben Proto and his ilk to be claiming outrage for unspecified reasons at me when they have failed to say anything about [Republican U.S. Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene and Anne Dauphinais.”

In a fact-checking manner, the paper noted, “In fact, Proto did denounce Dauphinais, saying her comments denigrated the Holocaust and “’cheapen[ed] one of the most horrific acts committed by mankind.’”

The paper attempted to contact State Democrat Party Chairwoman Nancy DeNardo, who was “unavailable for comment Sunday. But a spokeswoman for the party issued a statement in support of Lesser.

“'Connecticut Democrats stand with Matt Lesser,’ spokeswoman Patty McQueen said.”

Lesser himself was unwilling to stand by his tweet, removing it, the paper noted, “Hours after Republicans called him out for invoking Nazis.”

The reason for the hasty removal was, according to Lesser, “My wife told me it was a dumb tweet, so I took it down.”

Lesser did not disclose whether or not his wife was a registered Republican, the kind of discreditable Republican he was used to inveighing against in his sharply barbed tweets.

“Lesser’s tweet,” the paper noted, “came after a group of people carrying tiki torches gathered at a campaign stop Friday in Charlottesville by Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin. The crowd aimed to evoke a 2017 rally, when hundreds of white supremacists descended on Charlottesville with tiki torches.”

However, “It turned out that the appearance had been orchestrated by the Lincoln Project, a group formed by Republicans disgruntled over the election of Donald Trump (Emphasis mine).”

So then, Lesser’s original “Nazi” tweet was launched on the supposition that tiki torch bearing Republican Trump supporters had called a rally to support the execrable former President Donald Trump. But in fact the tiki torch crowd was anti-Trump. Strike number one. Lesser accused Proto of not condemning a Republican who had mishandled the “Nazi” term, but Proto, and many other Republicans as well, did chastise Dauphinais. Strike two. And Lesser’s wife considers his politically charged tweet “dumb.” Strike three.

In the journalism business, such self-destructive behavior usually falls under the rubric “hoisting himself with one’s own petard.” In the middle ages, sappers used to destroy heavily fortified walls by means of petards, fused bombs. The word petard in old French means “to break wind,” but the expression “hoist with his own petard,” i.e. "the victim of one’s own schemes," is first found in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Hamlet’s stepfather, the Danish King, enlists two of Hamlet’s schoolfellows, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to betray and kill him through a secret letter written by the Danish King that instructs the English King to put Hamlet to death. Discovering the plot, Hamlet ponders how he might turn the tables on the deadly design: “For tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petar; and shall go hard/ But I will delve one yard below their mines / And blow them at the moon.