magicalkittycat
1mo ago
"Nazi" in the current parlance just means "politically sane".
Are swatiskas "politically sane?" Is "We like Hitler?" politically sane? Is Holocaust denialism politically sane? Because those are the things being called Nazi in this post.
What else does the mainstream left have then the nazi-scare?
One argument many moderate conservatives are making is exactly this, the rise of Nazism is literally feeding left wing discourse a valuable weapon. When figures like Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Myron Gaines, etc openly deny the holocaust and spread hateful neonazi conspiracy theories, they push away the normies and validate calling the right Nazis.
In politics you don't outrun the bear, you outrun the other party. The Dems made themselves too caustic, the pendelum swung too far. While they seek to moderate their image now, the growth of unashamed open air nazism by high level conservative figures is a great way to make the exact same mistake.
One of the things I think on is that Hitler was quite popular when elected. He got 43.9% of the vote. Presumably there would have a bunch of Jewish people (just like now with Jewish people having a wide range of beliefs) who would have gone "Wow Hitler is so great in so many ways" and agreed with him on most topics and just wished he dropped the antisemitism part. But of course, Hitler didn't drop it and those Jews died too.
You could have a hypothetical Jew with 99.9% of policy agreement with Hitler on every other topic except antisemitism, and that .1% is the difference between life and death. The same hypothetical Jew would be better off with someone who they disagree 99.9% of policies with as long as that .1% they agree on was "don't kill the Jews"
The violent and hateful members of "Your own side" will come after you too, because they are violent and hateful and that .1% of disagreement on "should the Jews die?" or "should I attack people who disagree with me?" is all that matters.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
Biden and his viziers(because let's be honest, he wasn't calling the shots) refused to disown left wing radicalism the way you yourself note republican highers-up disowning nazi rhetoric.
I agree! Heck as many will point out, the silence around Jay Jones currently is a pretty good mirror at how people seem unwilling to disown and denounce those "on the same side". I think that "same side" rhetoric is nonsense and that the extremist radical violence lovers make themselves the enemies of all moderate non violence wanting folk regardless of any similarities shared, but the tribalism seems to have taken discourse everywhere.
I encourage you to think about this the same way you told others to react to the people praising the murder of Charlie Kirk.
I do, at the end of the day the individual actors are responsible for themselves. The average non Nazi conservative is not a Nazi because some other conservatives who are not them are Nazis. Many conservatives have actively condemned the growing nazi problem even, I linked some in the post!
Nothing here is contradicted in.
X person/type of person exists
Y other person is not responsible for X person.
Wouldn't you rather talk about something the other team did? Do you have statistics to prove who's more anti-Semitic?
I don't know if there's any good statistics that could show "who is more anti-semitic" but polls of Jewish people seem to be that they're about equal and I ask chatgpt for "Survey on anti semitic beliefs among left and right wing youth" and it tells me
In the U.S., a YouGov survey (fall 2020) of ~2,500 young adults (18-30) found that those who identified as very conservative were far more likely to believe long-standing antisemitic stereotypes (e.g. “Jews have too much power,” “Jewish businesses should be boycotted in protest of Israel’s actions,” or “American Jews are more loyal to Israel than the U.S.”) than very liberal youth.
And
Moderates (on either side) tend to have lower levels of agreement with overt antisemitic stereotypes compared to those who identify as far right or far left. The extremes show more of these beliefs.
So it seems about equal, maybe right slanted but overall "horseshoe theory" if anything.
Have you weighed what's coming out of the other side on that front lately?
Yep! I tend to save that for more left leaning communities. Conversations are more interesting to me talking about different perspectives and takes, rather than circle jerking around. All the things I agree with the typical Motte user on I don't bother to post too much of here, because I find it very lame. I don't need nor want people to pat me on the back and say I'm such a good boy for also opposing the rise in left wing antisemitism and violence. I see it as a waste, a conversation with little merit but stroking our egos.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
The very understandable reaction: "fuck it, you're calling me a Nazi, I might as well be one."
So are you saying you're a Nazi then? I guess add another on the pile of growing unashamed nazism.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
Which is to say they posted a video containing a Michael Jackson song. Of all the controversies surrounding Michael Jackson, that was the least
Sure so why that particular verse in that particular version of that particular song? Even if you were to blindly pick Micheal Jackson songs at random, that seems unlikely.
"Was spotted." This was an op... did you send them?
Yeah it was spotted hanging there, with photographic evidence. That article came out recently and I did not see it yet, although there still lies a question of why did Dave Taylor's office use the flag while others threw theirs away.
Who?
Host of the Fresh and Fit podcast with over a million and a half subscribers in four years.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
Because Modern Conservatism™ by and large doesn’t view this as a big deal. See all the responses to your previous top-level post; it’s just not a problem, and if it is then it doesn’t matter; the Left is ultimately such a horrifying boogeyman to The Right that in the end they’ll still side with anyone if it leads to The Left’s defeat- even if it requires ever-more-uncomfortable rationalizations.
This is actually a big tribalist issue that seems to be happening across both aisles right now and it genuinely scares me. There's a joke that goes
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
The man in the in the joke is unlucky. Despite all the assumed similarities between the Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, and the Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912 ("on the same side"", he stumbled upon a radical 1879er who supports violence on disagreement.
Had a normie non violence supporting Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, or any other religious group member stumbled upon on him, he would still be alive. Despite all the similarities between the two councils, and all the differences between his religions and the other beliefs, the only one that truly matters there is the willingness to use violence.
Look at authoritarian dictatorships and you see something like this. You can be a great and wonderful ally to Xi, or Putin, or Kim Jong Un, you still don't get a pass to disagree with them much. Deng Xiaopeng was a true believer with relatively minor variance from Mao, and he was condemned as the "number two capitalist roader" and purged twice in 1967 and 1976.
Things like the two party system and the idea of "left wing" vs "right wing" leads people to forming tribalist ideas of sides, but there are no sides. There are loose coalitions, with wide disagreements inside them. Communist left wing groups splinter all the time from purity tests and purging, and I'm sure there was plenty of Jews in Germany that approved Hitler's non antisemitic policies yet they died just the same.
The true threat of the Baptist man in the joke isn't the normie atheist, or the normie Hindu, or the normie Buddhist but of "his own side" willing to use violence over disagreement.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
It seems that a great deal of discourse is broken down because the definition of Nazi is no longer universal. It probably would behoove to figure out what everyone is talking about because I think I’m seeing;
To some degree this is true and has happened with pretty much all words because people are assholes and will abuse them as they wish. Like how "communist" refers to both places like China and the idea of having universal healthcare like the UK, or how Karen means "woman at the store raising a fuss" and "female employee who told me they don't accept returns without receipt". Generic terms with negative associations are used as attack dogs in place of just saying your grievance.
It's similar to this article on estranged parents and the missing missing reasons or the usage of terms like "he thinks money grows on trees". Saying the actual thing that's in dispute risks disagreement, while everyone can nod their head to "of course money doesn't grow on trees"
But I do think you can still tell when it's real, especially when people volunteer it themselves. You can tell the pro-Stalin real commie crowd apart from the "I'm such a socialist, I wish we were like Norway" crowd by exactly what I just said right there in this sentence. They volunteer the info, one says Stalin and the other mentions the Scandinavian nations. In the same way you could tell between the Nazi "Hitler is awesome" and a hypothetical "Man I'm such a Nazi, I wish we were more like [insert normal right wing leaning country here] because I'm stupid and thinks that's what Nazism means now" by the fact that one is saying they love Hitler, think the Holocaust is fake, and that the Jews are scummy and dishonest and the other is giving a normal country.
Of course people "hide their power level" sometimes, but it's a much tougher balance then between trying to spot it vs being overly paranoid.
Following the recent Politico expose on the Young Republicans groupchat leak among mid 20s-30s leaders of the organization containing comments about gas chambering their political opponents and antisemitic remarks like this
“I was about to say you’re giving nationals to [sic] much credit and expecting the Jew to be honest,”
In the followup to this, yes you heard it right, at least four new antisemitic and/or Nazi controversies in the past day or so.
A flag with a swatiska embedded in it was spotted in the office of Representative Dave Taylor. Rep. Taylor has called it out and condemned it, and it's quite possible he never noticed it before himself but it does seem to be another sign of the embedded antisemitic and pro nazi rhetoric in lower level staffers if one of them put it up.
“The content of that image does not reflect the values or standards of this office, my staff, or myself, and I condemn it in the strongest terms,” Taylor said in a statement
Additionally, the Border Patrol posted a video on an Instagram containing an antisemitic slur. While the higher ups of the border patrol likely don't have much to do with what gets posted on the social media, it's again another bad sign that the lower levels who coordinate posts and approve them are antisemitic. Someone had to specifically pick that particular verse of that particular version of that particular song, they knew what they were posting and whatever approval process they use, the others would have heard the lyrics and yet signed on.
The third controversy is the most explicit of them all. Myron Gaines, host of the Fresh and Fit podcast (1.58 million subscribers on YouTube alone) posted
Yeah we like Hitler. No one gives a fuck what you woke jews think anymore.
Bro was a revolutionary leader and saved germany. The jews declared war on Germany first.
If can israel deny a genocide with 4k video proof, I'm questjoning everything you guys have said about the painter during WW2.
Now, I never would have imagine that the word woke includes "thinking the Holocaust is real and Hitler is bad", but that seems to be where we are at now. Gaines is also a former employee of the DHS, which is just another point of evidence of low level gop aligned staffers having pro Nazi/antisemitic views.
But in fact, all of this seems to be par for the course, according to Andrew Torba, CEO of Gab. who also wades into the ring of antisemitic Holocaust denialism with comments like
That's right, at least two major conservative names have directly engaged in unashamed pro Nazi/Holocaust denialism/etc rhetoric in response to the group chat leak and both of them strongly believe that many other high level conservatives agree with them (Myron's use of "We like Hitler and Torba saying it's normal).
As Richard Hanania (Writer of "The Origins of Woke" who has been in many conservative spaces before) explained months before the leak, this is actually pretty common. As he's said before, the two types of comments he tends to get "it can't be that bad" and "lol that's exactly what it's like" such as this agreement from National Review reporter James Lynch
Everyone involved with the young right already knew this was happening.
Hanania was first to articulate it in depth from a place of familiarity.
What's interesting is that the one thing both the Nazi denouncers (Hanania/Lynch/etc) and Nazi defenders (Myron/Torba/etc) here both seem to agree on, is that this is common among the young right. There seems to be a broad consensus that this gropyer antisemitic Nazism is growing among conservatives, especially young ones. We've seen this with Kanye and his descent into Nazism, we've seen this with John Reid and Mike Robinson both exposed over their Nazi fetish. We've seen this with Tucker Carlson and Daryl Cooper. The rapid growth of figures like Nick "six million cookies" Fuentes, Ian Carroll and Theo Von. In fact a neo Nazi inspired kid was even behind a recent school shooting in Colorado a few months ago
EW Erickson says https://x.com/EWErickson/status/1978812093773041964
This is why the “no enemies to the right of me” stuff cannot work. There are enemies there and we cannot be silent. This stuff is festering and needs to be excised from the right.
Ben Shapiro says that unity with radicals will destroy the right wing as it pushes moderate Americans away.
Right wing conservative libertarian speaker Phil Magness says
The same people calling for conservative "unity" in the wake of the Hitler chat group leaks also spent the last decade trying to purge classical liberals & free market economics from the conservative movement.
They don't want "unity." They want room for Nazis in that movement.
So with all this recent controversy, how big of a Nazi problem is actually festering, and why do the Nazis seem to feel so comfortable in modern conservativism? They even seem to be dropping hints at the highest levels if the border patrol video was intended as a dog whistle to be dropped before deleting. Is this growing widespread agreement (from Hanania to Torba) that this is just the tip of the iceberg among young conservatives accurate? Will this growing trend of Nazi radicalism destroy the Republicans chances among moderates in the future like embracing left wing radicalism hurt Biden? And how do the non Nazi conservatives and moderates balance fighting off Nazi accusations from the left also working to stem this apparant rise of unashamed nazism and Holocaust denialism?
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
I think you have a very sad and hateful view of what men are like if you believe they're all joking about how Jews are dishonest and gas chambers.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
Well I guess we've proven the group chat's fears that any disagreement = getting called a RINO and lib correct.
This "world" I'm living in is also called TheMotte. Every other comment here is agreeing with me.
That's crazy, the place you choose to associate with has similar opinions to you? Incredible! That totally disproves the idea that other people exist with different views.
Also "every other comment" except for the ones like me who are disagreeing with you.
Similar to the percentage of men that jerk off to porn. Sorry if that is also a revelation to you.
If you think the amount of men who joke about their love for Hitler and say Jews are dishonest is the same as men who like porn, you seem to have a very pessimistic and sad view of men. There are lots of fantastic guys. Even lots of fantastic conservative guys who are actively condemning this behavior like Governor Scott, or some of the guys at the Babylon bee or some of the National Review reporters.
I don't think I'm the one lacking in theory of mind. Everyone here is telling you this is a common experience and your response has basically been 'no way!' how many people would you need to hear it from to believe us?
And there are also lots of men who say "No, I don't talk about how Jews are dishonest all the time". Sure maybe they're pretty much all lying, but it's also possible that you are stuck in a Hitler Bubble where you associate with others in the hitler bubble and you can't fathom that there are tons of great and fine men not in the Hitler Bubble.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
Now a bit regarding Nazism specifically. The left has so abused the term Nazi/fascist, similar to abuse of Antisemite or Communist/Socialist, that at some point you can’t be surprised when people start to think Nazism isn’t so bad, and start to wear the badge in defiance. In a weird way it becomes analogous to blacks reclaiming the word “nigger”
Lots of people manage to be called Nazi/fascist inappropriately without becoming pro Nazi. I wonder what the difference here is between the anti Nazi conservatives and the pro Nazi conservatives are. My guess at the most obvious explanation would be that the pro nazis are just pro nazi to begin with and any excuse they give is just that, an excuse.
Now maybe we could say that it's because "Nazism" as a term has become diluted, like how "Communism is when the government does stuff" happened among many youth.
But diluted communism/socialism is typically like "I'm such a socialist, I wish we were like Norway". For Nazism to be diluted, I wouldn't expect Hitler and gas chambers, I'd expect "I'm such a Nazi, I wish we were like Slovakia" or something. The dilution in the mainstream is typically from shared misunderstandings.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
Interesting how pretty much all of this is just "people who don't show perfect loyalty to the tribe". In which case I suppose there's a question to be asked.
Why should the Gov Scott/Stefanik/Roger Stone/etc crew who are appalled by Nazism and bigotry have to show their loyalty to the Nazi side and accept their anti American values, instead of the Nazi side having to show their loyalty to the Gov Scott/etc side and stop being Nazis?
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
There are no literal Nazis, and there haven't been in 80 years. That's part of the point here, you're chasing boogeymen.
So "I love Hitler" is about as literal Nazi as possible in a world where the Nazi party is no longer around?
In my opinion there is literally nothing that can be said between two consenting adults in a private conversation that I would consider unacceptable behavior.
So two adults coordinating a child porn ring is acceptable as long as it's done in private? Might need to walk back your literally nothing claim here.
It's fine if you are 1-3. You'll just have to trust me when I say that these conversations take place all the time
I'm sorry, but if you're in such a world where you genuinely believe that every man jokes this way and anyone who doesn't is just a liar, it says a lot more about you and the people you hang out with in your dark matter world than about men in general.
This type of defense is truly incredible just as a concept though. Like it's literally "Yes all men!" but as an endorsement, it comes off as a lack of imagination and theory of mind.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
Was there any actual support for Hitler? The single quote appears to be, as per the context The_Nybbler provided, a reducto ad absurdum joke.
I don't understand what the humor here is in
A: "Let's elect the most hardcore of our beliefs"
B: "That would be Hitler"
Seems like an admission that the beliefs are Hitler Lite, not a great sign.
But ok, sure let's take that as just a joke and not read into anything. What about the other comments like the one about the Kansas delegation possibly liking someone more if they painted them as Nazis? It seems over and over again the joke here is "boy we sure are a lot like literal Nazis".
Republicans like Gov Scott, Stefanik, Roger Stone, etc all seem to be appalled by it, so it's not some just Bad Faith Left Wing thing either unless anyone who breaks tribal loyalty is inherently considered an outsider enemy.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
After the lefty reaction to the Kirk assassination I absolutely don't care about this, and will never care about anything like this from my own side ever again. OP wildly overestimates the number of fucks the right has left to give.
Do you believe that all of politics can only be summed up as "left" and "right" and that it is impossible to be both against killing people like Kirk and against racism/neonazism/etc?
If you do believe this, then why do Republicans like Gov Scott, Elise Stefanik, Roger Stone, etc seem to be able to denounce the chat without saying positive things about killing Kirk? Are they fake right wingers or something?
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
absolutely correct that the leak of this groupchat is lame pointscoring at its worst and in fact reinforces the notion that leftists are hypocritical scolds (we can celebrate charlie kirk getting capped but nono words are proof of the Bad Nazi!)
"I love Hitler" seems about as literal Nazi as possible. If that is not "proof of Bad Nazi" to you, what is?
And it's not just "leftists", the Republican governor of Vermont has also joined in condemning the group chat. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5556112-vermont-gov-scott-calls-state-senator-resign-gop-group-chat/
Or maybe the group chat's commentary about the pressure they feel to never publicly disagree with the leader or else they get labeled RINOs is true, and "leftists" just includes Governor Scott and Elise Stefanik as exiles who spoke up against the tribe.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
I join the chorus of condemnations for Hanania and anyone else lowly and contemptible enough to invite him to a private group chat.
Well since you're a fan of throwing out condemnations, I notice there is one thing you didn't condemn. The support of Hitler mentioned in the article.
Why is Hanania deserving of condemning but not neonazism? I don't want to assume you're a neonazi then, but "Hanania bad and needs condemning, neonazism ok don't condemn it" suggests that.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
Has the definition of woke gone so far as to cover "Being against the love of Hitler"? If that's the case, the pendulum is going to start swinging back into "woke" pretty quickly given how most of the US do not support the Nazis.
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
To be clear, is support of Hitler acceptable from politicians and staffers or is it not? If supporting Hitler is acceptable when done in private conversations, then what behavior if any is unacceptable to you?
Like I can hardly imagine something more awful than that. Jay Jones comments were nasty, but even that is about just a few kids instead of millions and millions of people.
- But try something for me ... go nurse some beers at a bar. Try and find a lonely guy to talk with. One hour into the conversation start making it clear that you are something absolutely reprehensible. A nazi, a closet racist, a former criminal, etc. As long as it is not something directly antagonistic to the guy you are speaking with (can't be a racist to a black guy, that is hard mode and you can try it next time) they will mostly shrug it off and proceed to tell you something equally reprehensible about themselves. It can sometimes accidentally turn into a one-upmanship of "im the worst human ever". I was drunk enough to type up an example of what me and one of my friends do in the "worst human ever" one-upmanship game. But that violates my other rule of treating this like a public space.
Should the standards we have of politicians and their staffers be "random lonely guy getting drunk at the bar"? Sounds like we're selecting for losers if our baseline is losers.
Idk, maybe you've talked about your love of Hitler in a bar before. But I've never said that I love Hitler, and I'm sure tons of other people never have so clearly it's not required to have a friendship or a private chat. Considering some of the Republican response here like Gov Scott, it seems many of them don't consider loving Hitler as normal chat topics either.
What is the difference between a person who says they love Hitler and a person like me who doesn't say it?
magicalkittycat
1mo ago
I probably should write something more elaborate, in the spirit of cjet's post, but I'm sorry I cant be arsed to take any of this seriously anymore. I believe all this is, in fact, pearl clutching, that there is no actual moral outrage expressed by people trying to make a mountain of this particular molehill, and it's just a cynical attempt to make the outgroup jump through the ingroup hoops.
To be clear, is support of Hitler acceptable from politicians and staffers or is it not? If supporting Hitler is acceptable when done in private conversations, then what behavior if any is unacceptable to you?
You really think their team in charge of social media is picking random song lyrics completely at random and editing them into footage without a single listen? It's possible, but that would be a sign of extreme incompetence.
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