“The specter of Hitler glimmers,” said Jang Dong-hyeok, the leader of South Korea’s opposition People Power Party (PPP), at a party conference on November 13. He was referring to Lee Jae-myung, South Korea’s president. The day before, in front of the National Assembly swarmed by PPP members waving placards, Jang delivered a barbed speech against Lee.

“Lee’s existence itself is our country’s disaster,” he said. “We need to end Lee Jae-myung! We need to end this administration!” His voice then started to break and crack in passion. “This is war!” he added toward the end.

No holds have been barred in the PPP’s diatribes against Lee. On countless occasions, they compared Lee to Hitler and other historically infamous dictators. They refuse to call him President Lee. Song Eon-eok, the PPP floor leader, keeps calling him a “criminal,” as most PPP legislators do. But the PPP has never been as cutthroat and frantic in their rhetoric and wanting to bring down the Lee administration as they have been in the past few days.

They are latching on to a sordid land development scheme perpetrated by private contractors and investors and high-ranking officials at the city of Seongnam, where Lee was a mayor from 2010 to 2018. The scheme concerned an area called Daejang-dong, nestled between Seongnam and Seoul’s posh southeastern neighborhoods. In return for cash bribes, top decision-makers at the Seongnam Development Corporation (SDC) colluded with an estate develop