Rush Limbaugh suggesting that Hitler was a man "of the left":
This would be hilarious if it wasn't so remarkably wrong in every way. Hitler was a liberal? A liberal?! So what we can deduce is that all of the neo-Nazis, skinheads and white supremacists who largely follow the Hitler/Nazi lead are somehow liberals. In other words, Limbaugh expects us to believe that neo-Nazis are huge supporters of, say, Dennis Kucinich. Nazi fascism was a phenomenon of the far-right. Well beyond any of our most extreme domestic wingnuts. Way, way out there.
One of the cable news shows needs to bring out the top experts in history, World War II, political science, European governments and ideology for a multi-part panel discussion with the singular goal of pounding this into the heads of the brazenly stupid wingnut right: Hitler was an extreme right-wing character. Any other interpretation is just wrong.
As for "national socialism," Dave Neiwert wrote perhaps the sharpest explanation of its relationship to modern socialism:
First, the National Socialists, aka Nazis, were "Socialists" in roughly the same way that the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" was run by Republicans.
This is like suggesting that a hot dog is made from actual dogs. Or that hamburgers are made from ham.
Rush Limbaugh, if he's unaware of the distinction, is phenomenally stupid. But I think he knows the difference and is playing his audience for the dittohead morons they are -- knowing, as the moniker goes, they will ditto this nonsense to everyone they know.