Opinion Yes, it’s okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don’t let me stop you.

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December 20, 2023 at 2:57 p.m. EST
(Michelle Kondrich/The Washington Post; photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post; AP)
6 min

Mike Godwin is an attorney and author in Washington.

My very minor status as an authority on Adolf Hitler comparisons stems from having coined “Godwin’s Law” about three decades ago. I originally framed this “law” as a pseudoscientific postulate: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” (That is, its likelihood approaches 100 percent.)

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