The attorney Mike Godwin coined his famous Rule of Nazi Analogies way back in 1990. Everyone now knows the adage: the longer an online discussion continues, the greater the certainty that someone will make a comparison involving Hitler or the Nazis.

But, most of the time, appeals to the so-called law don’t really challenge ubiquitous and inappropriate Nazi references so much as simply invert their logic. Internet trolls describe everything as Hitleresque—and then an invocation of Godwin implies that Hitler was sui generis. Nazism is everywhere or it’s nowhere. Either way, we can’t imagine fascism politically and so we’re rendered incapable of discussing its re-emergence in the modern age.