Russell Brand blasted Hillary Clinton for likening former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and MAGA supporters to Nazis. The popular online commentator also criticized liberals for labeling anyone they don’t like as fascists.
Clinton recently compared Trump to Adolf Hitler for holding lengthy energetic rallies. The twice-failed presidential candidate claimed that a few Trump supporters raising a finger during a rally was similar to Nazis members doing the “sieg heil” salute.
“Now look, Nazis are definitely bad,” Brand began.
He then said that calling people Nazis because of a finger gesture allows people to disparage Trump supporters “rather than having a genuine concern.”
“Once you say someone’s a Nazi, do you know what you’re saying? ‘We don’t have to deal with you. We don’t have to talk to you. You’re out. You’re out of the conversation,'” Brand exclaimed.
“Millions of millions and millions of people died is a really heavy thing to call someone,” Brand said of Hitler’s Nazis. “Don’t just say it because they’ve done something funny with their finger.”
Brand added, “Whether you like Donald Trump or don’t like Donald Trump, comparing him to a Nazi is illegitimate. It’s wrong. And it’s a way of avoiding your own political shortcomings. And that’s the real problem.”
Brand then highlighted how Democrats have funded political candidates who align with Trump.
The Washington Post reported in September, “Democrats have spent nearly $19 million across eight states in primaries this year amplifying far-right Republican candidates who have questioned or denied the validity of the 2020 election.”
Brand asked, “But if Trump supporters are so bad, why, as we’ve told you before on this channel, why are the Democrats funding MAGA candidates?”
The actor questioned, “If you truly believe these [are] Nazis, you wouldn’t take the risk?”
“What I’m saying is, if you’re serious about fascism, and you’re serious about Nazis, don’t spend penny one on supporting their campaigns,” he said in the video. “That’s a pretty serious allegation.”
Brand pointed out that Hillary’s 2016 campaign reportedly followed the same playbook of elevating candidates they thought were too “extreme” to win.
He said, “Hillary initially supported measures that would highlight Trump’s campaign because they thought, ‘This guy, he’s never going to win anything.'”
In November 2016, Politico published a memo sent from Clinton’s campaign to the Democratic National Committee, “The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.”
The alleged “Pied Piper” candidates were Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Ben Carson.
Brand also noted, “Hillary Clinton and her acolytes and their hegemonist Democrat pals crushed” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile have said the Democratic National Committee was “rigged” in favor of Clinton during the 2016 primary.
Clinton praised the election of Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s first woman prime minister.
“The election of the first woman prime minister in a country always represents a break with the past, and that is certainly a good thing,” Clinton said.
However, liberals and legacy media have overwhelmingly slammed Meloni as a “fascist.”
Brand asked, “Is ‘fascist’ just a convenient term to bring down people you don’t agree with?”
The comedian continued, “Do you just call people fascists and Nazis so that you can malign, marginalize them, and disengage from conversation, which is the one thing you actually need to do – engage in conversation.”
He proposed, “Has fascism simply become a kind of bullet to end conversation, to end debate? And if that is the case, and I suspect it is then that’s the last thing America and the world need right now – what they need are open arms, open discourse.”
“A lot of people are frustrated. A lot of people are angry because of the failings of neoliberalism. People are willing to look at ethno-nationalist populist ideas,” he explained. “They’re attracted by brilliant public orators like Donald Trump, and that’s our fault. We should do better.”
Brand said he is against fascism, but warned that the political ideology that we need to be concerned about is neoliberalism.
“I would define loosely as the pose of social liberalism… meanwhile, allowing economic power to carry on unchecked, allowing it to cross borders, evade taxation, and organizing the state to facilitate the interests of corporations all the while going, ‘Oh, we care about this vulnerable person. We care about that vulnerable person.'”
“Neoliberalism is a political and economic agenda that advantages elite, centralizes financial and indeed political power, and leads to the rise of far-right, far-left because Stalin was no great shakes, nor was Mao,” Brand stated.
“So if you want to prevent extremism, what you have to have is a functional democracy,” he suggested. “Not a democracy, where you highlight Trump in order to ensure that your own party and he says the Democrat party can neglect ordinary blue-collar Americans of all hues, colors, and persuasions.”