EDITORIAL: Mayor’s response unconvincing, insufficient

Published 12:00 pm Friday, June 23, 2023

The swastika is a unique symbol, and a powerful one. A symbol that is linked, inextricably and permanently, to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime and the infamous crimes Hitler and his acolytes committed during the Holocaust.

And yet even now, more than three quarters of a century later, people on both sides of the political spectrum sometimes still deploy the swastika, or Hitler, or the Nazis, as propaganda.

None of these uses is appropriate.

None can contribute anything to a legitimate debate about any topic.

The reason is simple and obvious.

Although genocides and other horrific crimes against humanity have happened since World War II, the Holocaust remains the epitome of the horror that results from people with unassailable power treating others as less than human.

Reasonable people recognize that comparing anything today to Hitler or to the Nazi Party is evidence of sloppy thinking and reveals an inability to assemble a cogent argument.

It’s an easy slur, as most slurs are.

Our reaction to Hitler, and to the swastika, is visceral. We can’t help but think of evil, and even the slightest implication that any person or group is sympathetic to the Nazi ideology affixes the inevitable and potentially indelible brand of guilt by association.

A recent local example came from Baker City Mayor Matt Diaz.

Last weekend he shared on his personal Facebook page a meme featuring a collage of four Pride flags — the multicolored flag that celebrates the diversity of the human race and is widely used among advocates for lesbian, gay and transgender people and other minorities.

The collage assembles the flags to create a swastika shape comprising sections of each flag.

To point out that this is a meaningless coincidence, comparable to a group of cumulus clouds that coalesce to resemble, say, an elephant, is so obvious as to be insulting.

Yet Diaz, in a written response to complaints from several Baker City residents who were offended by the meme and have called on the mayor to resign, contends that it is valid to connect certain aspects of the Nazi party with the actions of people who celebrate diversity.

Diaz wrote that he intended with his Facebook post to illustrate how the “ ‘woke’ ideology is being propagandized and militantly forced on American society and culture using the same psychological tactics used by the Nazi party in the 1930s-1940s. It was meant to demonstrate how this movement, under the guise of inclusion and affirmation, is attacking the very foundation of America’s Judeo-Christian values, a movement that some of our citizens have been thoroughly indoctrinated into. It was meant to show the likeness between the two factions.”

This is absurd.

Diaz’s claim that there is a “likeness” between the diversity movement and the Nazis is indefensible.

Although in his comparison between the two he specified the “psychological tactics used by the Nazi party” the reality is that those tactics can’t be separated from the regime’s murder of millions of innocent people across Europe. The Nazis’ infamy persists not because they used particular psychological tactics, something they have in common with many benign political movements. The Nazis remain infamous because they killed millions of innocent people.

Whether the diversity movement is “attacking the very foundation of America’s Judeo-Christian values,” as Diaz believes, is a matter of opinion and a reasonable topic of debate.

But trying to bolster that argument by comparing the movement to the Nazis, in any way, not only is specious, it’s noxious.

Those who celebrate diversity represent the absolute antithesis to the Nazi ideology.

The messages inherent in the Pride flag are that all human lives have equal value, that no one deserves to be treated unfairly — much less being sent to a gas chamber — because of how they look or who they love.

The Nazis dismissed as subhuman those who didn’t meet their putrid concept of Aryan purity, and sent them in their millions to the cold earth.

Diaz’s response had some laudable passages, ones that are consistent with the diversity movement.

“I am not a Nazi sympathizer or supporter, nor will I ever endorse the actions of those that are,” he wrote. “I do not support racism in any form as we are all created in the image of God and the color of our skin or the nation of our birth is not enough to condemn us. To judge someone on the superficial things that cannot be changed, instead of the fruit of their character, is a foolish endeavor and should have no place in a civilized society.”

Yet Diaz goes on to write: “That being said, the fruit of one’s character is a direct reflection of their value system.”

He seems to find that character, among those whose value systems includes promoting diversity, sour rather than sweet.

To contend as he does that such people are threatening “the very foundation of America’s Judeo-Christian values,” is exaggerated but not inherently offensive. Again, this is a subject about which reasonable people can debate and disagree with respect and reason.

Except Diaz goes further — almost immeasurably so — by invoking the Nazis.

Although the post was on Diaz’s personal page, he can’t completely separate himself from his title as mayor. That’s largely a ceremonial position in Baker City’s form of government, but the reality is that many people think of a mayor as representing the city and, by implication, its residents.

Of course Diaz is free to express himself however he chooses. By accepting the title of mayor, Diaz didn’t give up that constitutional right. But he did take on the responsibility of representing 10,000 people, and he needs to recognize that, no matter his intentions or his personal feelings, sharing the flag collage and comparing the Pride movement to the Nazis impugns some of his constituents, and to some extent Baker City, in a way they neither sought nor deserve.

Diaz should either disavow any comparison between the diversity movement and the Nazis, or, if he believes doing so would be dishonest, voluntarily give up the title of mayor.

That he might choose to stay consistent in his beliefs is understandable.

But that’s not nearly as important as respecting the city and its residents.