I agree, but I also think historical comparisons are permissible and don't prevent you from using what words you want?

But what is the conclusion we are meant to draw from the historical comparison? Accusations of belligerence have been thrown around many times in history - Soviets accusing NATO, the Allies accusing the Axis, the Axis accusing the Allies, North Korea accusing NATO, pretty much everyone accusing NATO... NATO accusing everyone else... ;) Virtually every pair of groups that don't get along exchange accusations of aggression.

In order for the comparison to be informative, it must also be accompanied by some argument about whether or not the accusations are accurate, which sort of takes us back to the original question.

historical comparisons with clearly demarcated "bad" sides are pretty much just veiled bad faith arguments.

I would say that the bad argument was arguing that someone deserved to be fired because they were "divisive" and "dogmatic" on twitter.

I was only trying to point out the parallels in bad argumentation between now and then.

Then it's a good thing I never made an argument about whether she deserved to be fired.

Top level comment said, paraphrased, "it's a shame people dismiss her as a Twitter personality when she has a highly respected body of work in the field."

My reply was to press that, in my view, she's not being dismissed as "just a Twitter personality", but rather her Twitter behavior is worthy of examination in itself.

Finally, I've never read civil rights era letters to the editor, so I'm not referencing or borrowing any specific rhetoric from there. I'm using bog standard English language words to describe the arguments and advocacies that I am seeing in the present.