ah yes. The old tradition of calling you political opponents nazis or communists, or liberals. Wasn’t this the worst part of nazism (ideologically speaking)? Instead of looking at the context, they defaulted to calling all jews spies. Or instead of looking at the struggles that come with integrating different societies and the benefits that come along with that, they just assumed that different races are fundementally incapable of cooperating? Or they saw everyone that didn’t agree with them as fundimentally evil, instead of understanding that there is at least a hint of truth in most phylosphies/political beliefs that they can learn from even if the belief is one that could be considered evil. A great example is abortion: on one hand, you’re litterally erasing the heart beat of another living being before their first breaths. On the other hand, I remember hearing of a 14 year old girl in my area who got pregnant, and you know that baby is done for… especially with the mismnaged mess that is american welfare. I absolutely disagree with many republican beliefs and idioligies, I hate the culture war BS that they petal. I hate watching them wine about cancel culture, and then they cancel a beer company because they gave a single free beer can to a trans woman. I get it, but messages like this only make them think you’re crazy because the idiologies of modern republicans do differ from nazism, maybe for some republicans more than others. But this isn’t helping; because if there is one thing nazism and white supremism feeds off the most… Its the “evil others”.
tldr; there are some differences between nazis and modern republicans (many of these characteristics are better in republicans), and trying to paint them otherwise is just asking for trouble. Acuse others only of what they are guilty.
I made on edit for clarity. I made a second edit because the quote “evil “others”” could technically be construed that I think that the others are in fact evil. I used that language to note how Nazis and white supremism will often assume that others are evil for the mere fact that they are the “others” and I wanted to better get my idea across that this is bad. I made a third edit: I add the (ideologically speaking) line after Wasn’t this the worst part of nazism?. I did this because others were thinking that I thought that was the most awful thing about nazism. The most awful part about nazism was the murdering and mistreatment of innocents. I meant to bring it up as this is the biggest flaw in their ideology. Most Nazis will just devolve into incoherent screaming when you bring up their error of generalizing groups of people.
“Wasn’t this the worst part of nazism?”
No, and this is disgusting. The worst part was disenfranchising jews, LGBTQI*-People, communists, disabled people, sinti&roma and others, locking them up under terible conditions and killing millions of them. Deliberatly killing millions of people to get rid of them.
It’s the root of why they did that. This one single flaw, is what caused them to commit those acts. There is a difference between proximal and root causes. Say my boat is sinking. The proximal issue is that the boat is sinking (the problem I want to fix), the root cause is that there is a hole in my boat (what is causing my problem). The proximal issue with Nazis is that they murder millions and committed horrible acts. The root cause why they did these things, was because they generalized these groups to the point that genocide seemed reasonable to themselves. Instead of looking at the contexts or considering that there are other morals at play.
The Nazis over-generalising Jews was secondary as a simple means to an end of removing a faction that disagrees with Nazis. The correct way to say it was that, to gain and maintain power, the conservatives scapegoated Jews, socialists, and dissidents, to help generate hatred and genocidal tendencies to ultimately overthrow democracy and remove threats to capitalist power. Jews, socialists, and dissidents in general were framed using any random words that sounded good and then killed off. Conservative values are based on using power in any way to achieve their goal; If you think that their contradictory, scapegoating, culture wars make no sense, its because you aren’t looking at it simply enough. they lie and get what they want each step of the way.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you trust the conservative lies about what a communism and socialism is.
Calling the NAZIs conservatives doesn’t quite fit the history of Germany. Conservative is an ideology that depends on time and place. For example conservatives in Russia are pro-communism.
In the case of the NAZIs they were progressive nationalist socialists advocating for a “third way" that was not liberalism or communism, which is why they campaigned hard as anti-marxists and anti-capitalists. Anti-semitistm was of course a major part of this as well and part of the reason Jewish conspiracy theories seem to simultaneously be associated with both marxism and capitalism.
The key overlap between Fascism, Nazism , and conservatism is that they are all exactly the correct definition on recent conservatism which is best described by the following quote from Frank Wilhoit:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Conservative values in the modern sense is
taking power, while saying whatever the hell helps you take power. It applies perfectly to Nazis and Fascists historically.If you zoom in on Nazi actions, you see clearly they have the same style as modern conservatives. I hope you don’t misunderstand, I’m not calling Nazis conservatives, I’m calling conservatives NAZIS; And by that I mean the way they use power. ANYTHING to gain and maintain power, the rest is an illusion.
In the case of the NAZIs they were progressive nationalist socialists advocating for a “third way" that was not liberalism or communism, which is why they campaigned hard as anti-marxists and anti-capitalists. Anti-semitistm was of course a major part of this as well and part of the reason Jewish conspiracy theories seem to simultaneously be associated with both marxism and capitalism.
Nazis acted as standard capitalists. They busted unions, they worked alongside corporations without really controlling them in a bad way for them etc. We have tons of jokes about old Nazi companies like Hugo boss that just mysteriously got overlooked and thrived for some time after WW2. They never lost their identity or profits, they gained a lot. It’s the people that lost, as always. Fascist(as we call it today) actions are really just capitalist democracies, that throw away the illusion of democracy, more specifically, they can no longer maintain the illusion - see conservatism.
As for Russians, I’ve been saying this a lot but… I don’t speak Russian, I don’t speak Mandarin, Haven’t visited them, I haven’t done the levels of research needed for me to have an opinion on this matter. There is also a wall of massive propaganda making it 10x harder to validate information. When people talk about modern Russia or China they are talking out their asses and the conversation devolves into shit-flinging. So I shut it down in my very first response. It’s a start of a bad-faith conversation at least 90% of the time. I’m not saying you would be in the 90%, just that I’m opting out of that part of the convo.
I don’t really know how to respond to this other than to say your worldview is firmly grounded in ideology.
I’m talking about it from a ideology point of view. The truth is that the hatred did most likely lead them into their opinions and may be the real reason they adopted these viewpoints. However, from the standpoint of “Why are Nazi’s wrong?” it is this biggest issue with their ideology. As to “Conservative values are based on using power in any way to achieve their goal; If you think that their contradictory, scapegoating, culture wars make no sense, its because you aren’t looking at it simply enough. they lie and get what they want each step of the way.”. Again we are talking about them from an ideology standpoint, the reason they claim to do what they do. To argue them on a different basis, I believe, is a bad faith argument. The only thing I believe I can do is, debate them at what they say and hold them to what they say. Because there may be republicans that hold there beliefs honestly and it would be unjust for me to label them as Nazis. As to “conservative lies” about communism and socialism, I do not know what you are specifically talking about (The only conservative speaker I have listened to was Ben Shapiro. I didn’t listen to much of him as it seems he is only interested in parroting the opinions of his constituents in a way that sounds smart rather than thinking for himself). I know that both capitalism and socialism have both failed under certain circumstances (biggest examples are modern america and the USSR), and both had pros and cons. I see from an ethics viewpoint that socialism has a better grounding. I believe in unions and workers standing up for themselves. However government involvement has had a history of failures and a socialist system is something that would need to be implemented very careful or may be impossible. I will note that I have not been able to find many sources that honestly cover the topic in good faith (IE anything other than CAPITALISM SUCKS or SOCIALISM SUCKS!) that I have a very weak ground to stand on when talking about the topic. Because of this, I still see my opinions as developing in this area.
I think i misunderstood you. I assumed you were acting in bad faith. Your grammar is making this a bit more difficult(mine eyes doth protest).
I’m trying to argue in good faith but will admit i assumed you weren’t from previous experiences and half-assed things.
The Nazi ideology to me, is the same as the conservative ideology, and both are simply reduced to tribalism/totalitarianism. Nazi/conservative values are just the truth of ANYTHING for the sake of gaining and maintaining power for the self first, then the tribe(as a means for more self power). The rest is a cover.
If you would like to single out anything we can swap to discussing that so i can show you what i mean. Originally i was talking about you going into minutia about generalising Jews, but the dislike for them was always just fabricated. Generalising or not makes no real difference, same with labeling your enemies as some simple thing you don like to delegitimise them. It’s standard conservative practice to use words in reduced good/bad form. For example, when a conservative talks, they can use socialist, communist, liberal, fascist to describe the same person in the same conversation. The conservative means “I don’t like you” but calls you a name, not realising they have no idea what it means, and you may know it properly and be annoyed with its misuse.
My final point was based around the standard opinions being the conservative lies. How you mentioned soviets as an example of socialism is a standard misunderstanding. They got co-opted the same way Nazis originally did. Both had some socialists attracted and in both cases they seemed to have been purged in favour of the totalitarians.
I’m going out for an hour and wanted to reply, but felt this reply should be deleted as it’s pretty meh. I sent the reply either way thinking you’d prefer one, sorry for the mess.
Thank you for the reply.
As for my grammar: Sometimes I have trouble putting my thoughts on paper. I half blame it on being “noschooled” where I was given a lot less writing assignments (I will note that it wasn’t all bad, as I channeled all that time into programming and computers. Thus making me better in my field than my peers. I think it has pros and cons, I plan to better explain my thoughts in a later comment). I also heavily use autocomplete. However I’m normally a better writer if I give myself time to review my work (I have gone through and made multiple edits on my comments). The other half I blame on me rushing to explain my ideas. I’m not used to the forum format and I was rushing myself before the post became irrelevant. I plan to take more time in the future when commenting on forums regardless of whether my comment becomes irrelevant. As I now see that harm it causes, and how I appear to others.
As to Nazis using their ideology as a cover. It is fully plausible and I do not have any retorts to that statement.
I have a habit of avoiding good/bad words such as Nazi/Woke/Socalist/Etc unless I can prove your arguments line up. I find that most people will shutdown around these words. Most republicans I speak with will ignore everything you have to say, if they hear a phrase like “Republicans are Nazis”. It’s also why it is so hard to talk with them.
A lot of the reason why they see opposing viewpoints automatically in a negative light, I believe is due to them only ever hearing the “Republicans are Nazis” part. I have never heard the reasoning why, people thought this (outside of REPUBLICAN BAD!). I (and I assume many republicans, as I never hear them talking about this point. Family or on the internet) will ever hear anything like what you have explained to me on the matter.
I still think it is wise to not address republicans as Nazis, as this often rings as a generalization that causes the conversation to be unproductive. I still think it is best to address their beliefs on their own merit; as I believe the best way to expose an idiot, is to explain how they are an idiot in a calm manner. Only describing the nature of Nazism and how it effects their voter base, emphasizing that not all republicans are necessarily Nazis. However, I have both learned from your comment and realized how I was not following my own beliefs in fear of being ignored. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.
Quick note: I’m tired right now (12:30am atm) and I just wanted to update the conversation as to not leave it at that. I will go over this post and fix any issues and expand on it tomorrow when I am properly rested.
As for my grammar: Sometimes I have trouble putting my thoughts on paper. I half blame it on being “noschooled” where I was given a lot less writing assignments (I will note that it wasn’t all bad, as I channeled all that time into programming and computers. Thus making me better in my field than my peers. I think it has pros and cons, I plan to better explain my thoughts in a later comment). I also heavily use autocomplete. However I’m normally a better writer if I give myself time to review my work (I have gone through and made multiple edits on my comments). The other half I blame on me rushing to explain my ideas. I’m not used to the forum format and I was rushing myself before the post became irrelevant. I plan to take more time in the future when commenting on forums regardless of whether my comment becomes irrelevant. As I now see that harm it causes, and how I appear to others.
Thanks for the effort, It’s hard to put text down how we want, which is why I wanted to delete my last comment and rewrite it later haha. I was a bit the same and am learning as I go too. :) As long as you have paragraphs and the ideas come out how you want them then I’m happy.
As to Nazis using their ideology as a cover. It is fully plausible and I do not have any retorts to that statement.
I used to hear people from your POV before, and thought they were exaggerating, but the more I thought about it, the more I will noticed it’s not hyperbolic.
I have a habit of avoiding good/bad words such as Nazi/Woke/Socalist/Etc unless I can prove your arguments line up. I find that most people will shutdown around these words. Most republicans I speak with will ignore everything you have to say, if they hear a phrase like “Republicans are Nazis”. It’s also why it is so hard to talk with them.
I completely agree. I’ve had some scary experiences, easily breaking through conservatives defences, if I just use neutral language. The downside is that skilled people can make fast progress if they explain and agree on terminology, which on the internet is probably best avoided most of the time.
I still think it is wise to not address republicans as Nazis, as this often rings as a generalization that causes the conversation to be unproductive. I still think it is best to address their beliefs on their own merit; as I believe the best way to expose an idiot, is to explain how they are an idiot in a calm manner. Only describing the nature of Nazism and how it effects their voter base, emphasizing that not all republicans are necessarily Nazis. However, I have both learned from your comment and realized how I was not following my own beliefs in fear of being ignored. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me.
You are wiser than I am lol. I know it leads to nothing of value, but feel it needs to be associated as hard as we can, as most of their actions are based on conformity and Pavlovian conditioning(they do the inverse to an enemy I guess. I should stop).
The problem with the latter half of your paragraph, is that most conservatives don’t really believe what they say. They conform to their tribal values. It’s partly due to them having a bad foundation, leading to any thoughts ending in cognitive dissonance, then frustration, then anger, then either changing subjects or abuse.
Underneath the average conservative is an insecure, submissive, desperate for attention person that needs a better tribe to defect to, and the best way to win one, is to invite them to a friendly group of anti-conservatives. Some stealth might be required.
Conservatives tend to learn through direct actions, not rational discussion, so talking with them is only beneficial when dealing with an audience unless you know specific tactics.
Nighty night, thanks for the chat.
note: Most of what I say, such as “conservatives” is meant to be a generalisation and not an absolute thing for all. Sometimes I will clear it up and sometimes not. Sometimes I don’t even know I did it. I try to use “-ism” terminology to talk about the actual ideology.
After reading more of the comments, I think we may be at a mis-understanding. I believe that many people mean to say that the republican party appears to be voting in a similar manner to that of Nazi’s and as such should receive zero support. Not that everyone who votes republican is necessarily a Nazi. The argument however is the the republican voter base may be mis-guided, or down right dum, but are not necessarily Nazis.
ah yes. The old tradition of calling you political opponents nazis or communists, or liberals. Wasn’t this the worst part of nazism?
I suspect the worst part of nazism was something different.
see https://pawb.social/comment/921213 where I answer a similar comment
your meds, take them
Nah I’d rather buy a gun and fight the war.
The Republican party was in power when they beat the Confederate States though…? Dumb meme
Did you completely forget the part where the parties switched ideologies? Or did you have to forget that part?
Walt Disney would be proud
Removed by mod
I thought this is a “A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts” and this is the first shit I see as a new user?
United Fruit Company —> Chiquita
I like those. Thanks!
Oh great, we’re doing political feel-good posting on this site too? Such low hanging fruit.
There’s definitely a discussion to be had for how the very far right (people whose core political ideology is based in racial prejudice and literal palingenetic ultranationalism) latch onto the sole major conservative political party in the United States and how they, as a component voting block, are catered to, if not explicitly represented by, portions of that party, and even dog whistled to by the party as a whole. This post, though, comes across as straight liberal smugposting and is somewhere between completely useless and actively harmful.
Agree with almost everything except the useless or harmful part. It’s just a meme meant for a quick laugh, it’s not that serious.
If we want to be serious though, the Republican party has been going further and further right in the past couple of years. The meme is kind of expressing this in a way.
The past couple? 2016 was 7 years ago
Yeah, but like… That’s a couple years ago for my old ass. 😂
the Republican party has been going further and further right in the past couple of years.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’ve never heard of Strom Thurmond?
Also, I would argue that memes like this are more designed for reddit style, low-effort upvote farming, than anything genuinely productive. This makes Lemmy worse and oversimplifies any conversation about American politics, with all of its complex and disparate, if nominally similar, but still competing ideologies, and how they shape its material composition and practical functioning. This all a fancy way of saying that the underlying sentiment of “Republicans are all Nazis and we don’t need to understand them further than that” attempts to trivialize a complex problem and a complex set of ideological beliefs and leverages that oversimplification as banal clickbait. And it makes those that consume it dumber for having done so, potentially.
It’s no different in function from any other form of demonising the outgroup. It’s slightly less bad than some because your political views can change, but it’s still a sign of politics gone wrong.
the Republican party has been going further and further right in the past couple of years
Tell me you only recently started paying attention to politics without telling me you only recently started paying attention to politics
Well then take the first shot and start the war… Otherwise it’ll just be drama memes for LIFE.
The war is inevitable… The sooner it starts the sooner it’s over. Neighbors, family, cops, thugs, there’s no knowing who the enemy is. It’s everyone vs everyone…
I see no point in furthing my personal life and goals until something real is done.
I’ve said this many times. Republicans are bad…and democrats are just as bad, the only difference is what they pretend to care about. You might’ve seen a democrat promise good things, but not a single one of them has ever even tried to get any of those things done
“BUT WE DON’T HAVE THE VOTES YET!”
FDR didn’t have the votes either. He used his popularity to twist arms for the votes he needed. LBJ did the same thing. AOC and the squad could just as easily do that too, but they’ve wasted every opportunity they’ve had to pressure Pelosi and Schumer to do something.
Oh by the way, remember why we couldn’t have a vote on medicare for all or raising wages because the current speaker Kevin McCarthy would become speaker? And then when the democrats did nothing at all McCarthy became speaker and the people got nothing?
Did you know that a majority of republican voters want medicare for all once they understand what it is? “We need to go to the center and be against medicare for all to get votes from the other side”
I’ve said this many times. Republicans are bad…and democrats are just as bad
Fail right out the gate.
Name one thing the democrats did that was good for regular people. Something they actually tried to get done instead of just complaining that they don’t have the votes. Something that they actually fought for instead of caving in to the republicans after 2 seconds.
History would have been better if Huey Long hadn’t been JFK’d and overthrown FDR
Meh. Only one party wants to take away my rights or stop my friends from getting married because they’re both women, make birth control illegal, kill people for performing in drag and let 12 year olds get married. . Your idea of “just as bad” is a little strange.
Classic “both sidesism” that neglects reality.
Republicans don’t actually care. Y’know why? Because many of the oligarchs are gay too.
Well this is about as far off as it gets.
This is seriously funny! Too bad so many commenters are apologists.
@NewEnglandRedshirt @danialbehzadi
Republicans and Democrats are the same. If Republicans are the Nazis at home, Democrats are funding the Nazis abroad.Which Nazis abroad do you mean exactly?
The confederates were (southern) democrats
Who cares. How are they voting now. Are they bad now or good now. Both parties have changed drastically from the inception.
true but the party switch was a thing
It wasn’t really a switch, more like both parties having an ideological shift. A switch implies they didn’t change core beliefs at all and just flipped, when many of the beliefs of both parties changed.
The parties never switched. The Democrats just started pandering to the minorities they’ve been fighting against the entire time because they were losing a lot of votes.
Republicans freed the slaves. Republicans ended segregation.
Democrats just keep promising change that never comes.
Look, I’m pretty centrist and do my best to split my vote for both parties if policies align, but you can’t ignore or handwave away the southern strategy. Republicans have been pandering to conservatives for decades.
Besides, many of their policies have been implemented. The change you say hasn’t occured definitely has, just mostly at state levels. Obamacare is still pretty successful.
The federal government has barely done shit in ages.
Do you not know what actually happened and want people to tell you? Or are you just being willfully ignorant?
tHe CoNfEdErAtEs WeRe DeMoCrAtS
More important than the name of their party is their ideology. Conservative.
Conservative is not always bad, but take it too far and you end up with fascists and stalinists.
When have conservatives ever been on the right side of history?
The situation was mostly middle-ground, but the US in Cold war? In the USSR, the far left policies gave way for the Far right stalinists to take charge when Lennon died.
The problems with the USSR were a case of leftists making mistakes that allowed reactionaries to take over, not a case of conservatives being on the right side of history.
It was supposed to be a commentary on calling it a rebrand. It’s like if Coca-Cola rebranded to Pepsi.
… that became Republicans in the 60s?
But that’s not the history I want to remember!!!
They’ll say this is a lie and a conspiracy. I’ve had this argument many times.
Yet which modern party flies the confederate flag?
This is too political for me
Why are people down voting this?
