Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried has hit either peak desperation, or peak absurdity.
In an interview with Florida Public Radio, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate likened Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to – who else? – Adolf Hitler.
Fried ridiculously claimed that DeSantis is turning into the kind of dictator her South Florida friends from Latin America had fled – even as Florida has been gained tens of thousands of new residents since DeSantis took office.
“Growing up in Miami, and having neighbors that were Cubans, hearing stories of so many of our Floridians who have left dictatorships, and socialism, and communist countries, and coming here to the state of Florida for capitalism, for open opportunities to succeed. He is doing everything possible to take away power from local governments, taking away people’s ability to protest, making it harder to vote, talking about, you know, banning books. That’s what dictators do. Instead of listening and trying to govern with the people, he is trying to govern over the people,” Fried said.
Claiming she was a “student of history,” Fried added, “I saw the rise of Hitler. I’ve learned of those stories.”
And when asked by host Melanie Ross if she was definitely comparing DeSantis to a man who murdered 6 million innocent Jews and launched a world war that killed millions more, Fried replied, “In a lot of ways, yes.”
“I have studied Hitler and how he got to power, you know, wanting his own militia and having his own militia,” Freid added.
That was a reference to DeSantis revitalizing the Florida State Guard, a localized defense unit akin to the National Guard but totally under state control.
DeSantis has said for that reason it would be more nimble in responding to emergencies than the National Guard. Such a force can also be found in 22 other states, including New York and California – places where Democratic governors have actually imposed strict lockdowns that turned people into prisoners in their own homes, ordered mandatory vaccines, and even stood by as police treated unvaccinated citizens like criminals.
Continuing, Fried said, “This governor is doing it for the sole purpose of the power and doing so to make fear and instill that and blame people for what is happening in their lives, blaming certain parts of our society and our culture. And that’s exactly what Hitler did to the Jews back, you know, during World War II.”
Even as she supports a president who repeatedly and routinely turns his critics into the “other” by labeling them white supremacists and the cause of the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
“Do I think that we’re going to get to this extent of Hitler’s power, of course not, but the rise of his power and what he did to scapegoat certain parts in especially the Jewish community in Germany and how he utilized taking going after the media, going after and scapegoating people and blaming people and putting fear and then taking over the military — that’s what this governor is doing,” Fried added. “And especially going back to, you know, all of my friends from the Latin American countries who left here for freedom — that’s not what this governor is doing.”
Maybe someone could ask some of Fried’s friends if they would trade life in Florida under DeSantis for the alleged hellhole they left. Radical lefties like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Eric Swalwell didn’t think it was so bad as they vacationed in Miami to ring in the new year.
Floridians are seven months from primary elections, and already Fried, by playing the Hitler card, shows she got nothing in the tank.
Or maybe this “student of history,” like so many in her party, is just that vapid and shallow.
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