If Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had referred to southern border detention centers as "concentration camps" while making clear she understood that the term predated the Holocaust, that it is rooted in a complex history dating back to the Boer War, this would be a different editorial.
If she had said she was consciously using incendiary language to draw attention to the indefensible reality that the Department of Homeland Security keeps more than 52,000 people daily in more than 200 camps, many of them dangerously overcrowded, with the caveat that she did not mean to connect a complex humanitarian crisis with a state-orchestrated campaign of mass murder, this would be a different editorial.
Instead, Ocasio-Cortez deliberately drew an offensive connection between facilities where illegal border crossers are being held awaiting charges and the notorious camps where millions of Jews were held in the Holocaust, mostly awaiting slaughter.
She even said "I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that 'Never Again' means something," invoking the oft-used slogan meant to rally the world to prevent future genocides.
No American should avert his or her eyes from the horrors at the border. No American should be so irresponsible, or insensitive to the memory of Holocaust victims, as to suggest that our government is working on a final solution.
