Former New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is facing fierce backlash after calling for a “de-MAGAfication” of America, language many regard as equating millions of Trump supporters with Nazis and helps create the moral permission structure for political violence.
Krugman, an economist, professor, former columnist at the NYT, and longtime critic of President Donald Trump, made the remarks in a YouTube video posted Sunday. Rather than limiting his criticism to Trump or specific policies, Krugman invoked the language of post-World War II Germany and suggested the United States needs a political “purging.”
“We really need to do a thorough purging of the United States,” Krugman said. “We need a de-MAGAfication, and I am not going over the top by using a word that is very similar to the Denazification that we pursued successfully after World War II in Germany.”
The implication is difficult to miss. Denazification, of course, was the Allied campaign to remove actual Nazis from German public institutions after the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s regime, which, as everyone knows, launched a world war, and presided over mass murder of innocents.