Nothing good comes from comparing anything to Hitler or Nazi Germany. Because nothing, no matter how awful, could be as bad, and the comparison is an insult to the millions who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

Period.

End of story.

So there was no way to avoid the backlash to the perceived Nazi comparison when Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the detention centers housing asylum-seeking immigrants near the border “concentration camps.”

Among other things she said, “The U.S. is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are … If that doesn’t bother you ... I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that ‘never again’ means something.”

A good thing done the wrong way

Raising concerns about conditions in the detention centers is an important thing for a politician to do.

Trying to raise those concerns with a concentration camp comparison only caused the argument to get lost to history and rhetoric.

Which is where it is now.

Republican politicians, along with some Democrats, have been railing against Ocasio-Cortez for several days. She refuses to apologize. The argument goes on.

Arizona Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs have been among the congresswoman’s many critics. Biggs called statements by Ocasio-Cortez “despicable.”

Weird, though.

Arizona's 'concentration camp?'

Biggs and Gosar were supporters of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. They backed him politically and urged President Donald Trump to pardon Arpaio after he was convicted of criminal contempt.

What makes this odd is that Arpaio, unlike Ocasio-Cortez, didn’t compare some other detention facility to a concentration camp. He compared his own unique outdoor detention facility – Tent City – to a concentration camp. He said so at a public gathering.

Arpaio claimed later he was joking about the blazing hot outdoor compound in which Army surplus tents housed arrested individuals and low-level offenders outside the Durango Jail for 24 years.

But since when is any reference to a concentration camp funny?

Then, when he was pressed on the issue by a reporter from the Guardian, Arpaio doubled down, saying, “But even if it was a concentration camp, what difference does it make? I still survived. I still kept getting re-elected.”

Where was the outrage then?

Where was it for the 24 years the sheriff’s self-proclaimed "concentration camp" was in operation?

If anything, it was just the opposite.

Praise instead of condemnation

Arpaio was one of the first high-profile politicians to support Donald Trump, who was overjoyed to have the support. More or less every Republican candidate for president (except for John McCain), asked/begged for Arpaio’s endorsement. Gov. Doug Ducey did so. As did just about every GOP congressional candidate and state legislative candidate and county office candidate and city office candidate.

Arpaio’s facility was not shut down until after he lost the election to current Sheriff Paul Penzone.

I don’t recall any of the Republican politicians who are lambasting Ocasio-Cortez lashing out against Arpaio or calling his Tent City a concentration camp.

Then again, they didn’t need to.

Arpaio took care of that himself.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.