We were discussing yes-men last week when I raised a question: How do Donald Trump’s sycophants match up with Adolph Hitler’s? I mentioned Rudolph Hess, the longtime Hitler comrade who flew solo to Scotland with the idea of persuading the British to make a deal with Germany. Hess had fallen out of favor with his beloved Fuhrer and was desperate to please him. Who in Trump’s orbit would demonstrate such servility?

My hard-drinking neighbor Swamp Rabbit dissed me for equating Trump with Hitler. Then he said, “Todd Blanche, Trump’s pick for attorney general. He went beyond flattering Trump and begged for the job. He said ‘I love you, sir‘ in front of the media.”

I grudgingly conceded that Blanche matched up pretty well with Hess — one point for Swamp Rabbit. When it was his turn, he challenged me to name the Trump propagandist who could be a stand-in for Hitler’s evil runt Joseph Goebbels.

“Stephen Miller,” I said. “I’m surprised he can say anything without making a Hitler salute.”

My turn again. I asked Swamp Rabbit which Trump weasel most closely resembles Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s heartless Holocaust architect. He named Christi Noem, the now-fired Homeland Security chief. Last summer, she primped in front of cages crammed with torture victims at a Salvadoran concentration camp. My pick was Marco Rubio, who has bragged about shutting down USAID, a move tantamount to condemning massive numbers of poor people to death by disease or starvation.

Swamp Rabbit balked. “Rubio is a sneaky little suck-up but he ain’t no Himmler. JD Vance should get that role.”

I told him Vance is better imagined as Trump’s Herman Goering. He competes with Rubio to be Trump’s most loyal stooge, just as Himmler and Goering jousted to be Hitler’s.

But Swamp Rabbit wouldn’t concede the point. “I’m tired of this game, Odd Man. Trump’s gang is evil, but they ain’t in the same league with Hitler’s mass-murderin’ goons. Vance is a practicing Catholic. Miller is a Jew.”

I demurred. “They’ve all stood by a convicted criminal who tried to overturn a presidential election and assembled a private army that persecutes nonwhites. They’re on board with his rejection of the Constitution, his support for Vladimir Putin, and his use of the White House as a cash withdrawal machine for himself and his crooked family. Where Trump leads, they follow without question. You really think they wouldn’t match the crimes of Hitler’s crew if given the opportunity?”

We decided to stop bickering and let a third party judge the match game. Swamp Rabbit’s parole officer Victor Cortez is due to drop by soon and he doesn’t like to be overruled.

Footnote: I wanted to match Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with Dr. Josef Mengela until I remembered Mengela wasn’t in Hitler’s Berlin mob. Oh well…