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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;
Nazi means you want to register with a German party that no longer exists.
Nazi means you support the ideology of the party that no longer exists but not the actions.
Nazi means you support the actions of the party that no linger exists but not the ideology.
Nazi means you support elements of the ideology of the party but not the party or the actions or the whole ideology.
Nazi means you are not actively part of a party that continues to exist in Germany.
Nazi means you are actively part of a party that doesn’t exist in Germany.
all competing and all claiming they are talking about the same thing when I think it’s not the case. It doesn’t matter what I think a Nazi is if my debate opponent doesn’t share that definition with me but thinks she does because then conversation gets quickly confusing. It DOES matter what I think a Nazi is if my debate opponent doesn’t share that definition with me, both of us acknowledge it and then she wants to debate about that.
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.
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