Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott loves a rhetorical flourish, but it may be time for him to change up his metaphors.
In an interview on the Sydney radio station 2GB on Thursday, the prime minister linked the Islamic State's brutal techniques of oppression to the Nazis' attempted genocide of the Jews.
"The Nazis did terrible evil but they had a sufficient sense of shame to try to hide it," he said. "These people boast about their evil, this is the extraordinary thing." The discussion came as the Australian government weighs up whether to join U.S. air strikes in Syria against the group.
The term "Nazis" immediately trended on Australian Twitter, as people expressed their disgust with the comparison.
The Nazis were, and ISIS/Daesh are, barbaric, imperialistic, genocidal maniacs, the personification of evil. Comparisons not needed. #auspol— Michael Byrnes (@MichaelByrnes) September 3, 2015
THINGS TONY ABBOTT LIKES LESS THAN NAZIS: ISIS People smugglers The Carbon Tax Q&A Fairfax THINGS TONY ABBOTT LIKES MORE THAN NAZIS: Onions— John Johnsonson (@JohnJohnsonson) September 3, 2015
Using historical analogies in politics. Man. It should be like gun safety, you have to do a course before you can cite the Nazis.— Liam Hogan (@liamvhogan) September 3, 2015
At university, if someone randomly mentioned the Nazis to support their argument, you knew they were an idiot #auspol pic.twitter.com/jVoOEcaFPV— Declan Fay (@declanf) September 3, 2015
This isn't the first time Abbott has reached for the National Socialists to make a point.
On the same radio station in September 2014, Abbott made a very similar argument about the terrorist group. "We’ve seen in the century just gone, the most unspeakable things happen, but the atrocities that were committed by the Nazis, by the communists and others, they were ashamed of them, they tried to cover them up," he explained. "This mob, by contrast, as soon as they’ve done something gruesome and ghastly and unspeakable, they’re advertising it on the internet for all to see."
He doesn't need the situation to rise to the level of horror exhibited by ISIS to break out the spectre of Hitler, however.
During question time in Australian parliament in March 2015, Abbott called the Labor Party leader Bill Shorten the "Dr Goebbels of economic policy," referring to Hitler's propaganda minister. He soon apologised and withdrew the statement, ABC News reported.
Jewish Member of Parliament Michael Danby walked out to show his objection. "It is silly to use an example of the ultimate evil in politics," Danby told the outlet. "He's the Prime Minister - he is supposed to have standards."
In February, Abbott also made an unfortunate semantic slip, accusing the Labor Party of causing a "holocaust" of job losses. "Under members opposite defence jobs in this country declined by 10%. There was a holocaust of jobs in defence industries under members opposite," he said, according to Fairfax Media.
He later retracted the remark.
Surely we can agree it's time all politicians retired the Nazis from their verbal repertoire.