You Can’t Call Hitler A Nazi! It’s Too Emotive!

By Loretta Lynch, Attorney General

There is entirely too much emotive language being used in our society’s rhetoric, especially in the aftermath of the Orlando shootings. If we are to face the myriad cultural, legal, security, and bigotry challenges with any degree of seriousness, we cannot allow ourselves to indulge in flinging around epithets whose effect is to distract from the sober reality and to trigger an emotional, rather than logical, reaction. That is why I am so shocked that people keep calling Adolph Hitler a “Nazi.” That is an emotive term, and we must avoid it.

Emotional reactivity is what the enemy wants. You will notice that I did not identify the enemy by name. That would grant the enemy a moral victory, of acknowledging that we even have that entity as an enemy. No, identifying that enemy by its name, or anything approximating its name, would also trigger an emotional reaction, and we cannot allow ourselves to use our hearts. We are best off avoiding mention of such things. So please, stop referring to the leader of the Third German Reich as a Nazi.

Not only does it generate a negative emotional reaction in people, it triggers. There are still those walking among us who fought Hitler, who suffered under Hitler and his followers. Have you no conscience, sparking such trauma again the souls of those heroes? Call him a fascist, a racist, a demagogue – those terms are fine. They are not nearly as emotionally laden. But by no means may we call him a Nazi. It might be factually true, but it alienates and sets on edge a whole group of people by implying that Nazis are just assumed to be like Hitler, and we need to be inclusive at a time such as this, not divisive.

It might help to apply the following approach to deciding whether or not to employ a term with emotional baggage. Ask yourself who might hear or read the term, even indirectly? Are such people likely to make sweeping negative assumptions about the individual or group begin described as “Nazi” based on your use of the term? Of course they are. We all do it. That fact underscores the importance of avoiding the word as a reference to anyone, including Hitler.

So please, everyone, let us be more circumspect in our language. As the president has said, words matter. From now on, this department will refer to the movement headed by Adolph Hitler as [omitted].