If you look up the word hyperbole in the dictionary, you will find that a picture of former Massachusetts Governor William Weld accompanies the entry.
According to Weld, Donald Trump’s immigration plan is no different from the developments of the night in 1938 when Nazi Germany gave paramilitary groups the nod to viciously crush the Jewish population.
Weld said Thursday that Trump’s plan reminded him of Kristallnacht, the infamous “night of broken windows” that served as a preamble to worse things for Europe’s Jewish population.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The interview with The New York Times was Weld’s first since agreeing to run as Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson’s vice president in 2016.
Weld was not short on historical drama, telling the Times:
I can hear the glass crunching on Kristallnacht in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vienna when I hear that, honest.
Weld’s comment was as ignorant of the history of the period as it is in its odious comparison. Kristallnacht occurred before Germany’s invasion of Poland. So no one heard “the glass crunching in the ghettos of Warsaw.”
The criticism in any case was a reference specifically to Trump’s plan to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S.
By some estimates, German authorities and citizens murdered hundreds of Jews and hauled 30,000 more off to concentration camps allegedly in retaliation for the assassination of a German official by a Polish Jew. Giving the night its name, broken glass lined the streets of cities across Germany and Austria after angry citizens destroyed thousands of Jewish shops and hundreds of synagogues.
“I’m not horrified about everything Mr. Trump has done at all,” Weld told The Times, adding: “I think he’s done a lot. But when I think about some of the positions, I think they’re way out there.”
Weld would know. When it comes to saying things that are “way out there,” he’s something of an expert.
In addition to deporting the illegal immigrant population, Trump has promised to build a wall on the southern border and prioritize the interests of current U.S. residents when crafting immigration policy.
This report, by Rachel Stoltzfoos, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
*UPDATE* In a previous edit of this article, the title and body text erroneously stated that William Weld was a Democrat. Weld was in fact a Republican.
We apologize for the error.
