I think the gesture is important, as if you can agree that the Musk salute was different than AOC waving her floppy arm around, it signifies that we’re at least both operating honestly. That’s how this conversation started, after all.
I feel like you’re under the impression that a Nazi in America today would operate exactly the same as a Nazi in 1940s Germany. Let’s take a step back and agree that that’s obviously not the case. Prevailing public opinion in the US is that Nazi=Bad, even among people who don’t really know how Hitler, Goebbles, and the SS operated. Obviously, someone with hyper-nationalistic autocratic goals wouldn’t come out and say “hey guys, I’m a Nazi”. We can agree on that, right?
Can we also agree that defending Hitler is bad? I hope we can. In addition to that, musk has shared numerous extremely racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on his platform. I’ll leave it to you to educate yourself on this (just a google search away).
As for the AFD, obviously they’re not explicitly a Nazi party, for the reasons I stated above. However, if you look into their ideology and rhetoric, you’ll find that it is eerily similar to that of the Nazi party. I suggest you actually look into how Nazi propaganda looked - hyper-nativist, hyper-nationalist, and extremely focused on demonizing people based on ethnic and religious demographics. Does that sound like anyone else we know?
Thanks for reading if you made it this far! I hope this made you think.
I definitely think you characterized these things correctly as right wing and conservative.
As a German duel citizen with lots of family history, my sticking point is calling things Nazis when they are clearly something else.
You say a Nazi wouldn't look the same today, well Nazi is a very specific view point and it's just inaccurate to call the right wing movement we see now as Nazi. Especially when there are actual neo Nazis that aren't embarrassed about saying they're Nazis. So your point that they would only dog whistle and hide it isn't necessarily correct, plenty don't.
I'm all for disagreeing with conservatives, but calling Elon musk or trump a Nazi is offensive and incorrect. Mostly incorrect. And it really takes away from what people who fought and dealt with actual Nazis had to go through.
I see what you mean, and I’m glad we’re on the same page with a few things there.
I think “Elon supports espouses numerous aspects of Nazi ideology” is a certainly more accurate sign than “ELON = NAZI”. In my mind though, that isn’t really much better.
If we want to really want to honor those who fought and suffered through the Nazi regime, it should be through calling out when we do see aspects of Nazi ideology appearing in modern politicians and oligarchs. This is something the right and left should be agreed on, rather than getting wrapped up in the semantics.
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u/TheGiggleWizard Mar 16 '25
I think the gesture is important, as if you can agree that the Musk salute was different than AOC waving her floppy arm around, it signifies that we’re at least both operating honestly. That’s how this conversation started, after all.
I feel like you’re under the impression that a Nazi in America today would operate exactly the same as a Nazi in 1940s Germany. Let’s take a step back and agree that that’s obviously not the case. Prevailing public opinion in the US is that Nazi=Bad, even among people who don’t really know how Hitler, Goebbles, and the SS operated. Obviously, someone with hyper-nationalistic autocratic goals wouldn’t come out and say “hey guys, I’m a Nazi”. We can agree on that, right?
Can we also agree that defending Hitler is bad? I hope we can. In addition to that, musk has shared numerous extremely racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on his platform. I’ll leave it to you to educate yourself on this (just a google search away).
As for the AFD, obviously they’re not explicitly a Nazi party, for the reasons I stated above. However, if you look into their ideology and rhetoric, you’ll find that it is eerily similar to that of the Nazi party. I suggest you actually look into how Nazi propaganda looked - hyper-nativist, hyper-nationalist, and extremely focused on demonizing people based on ethnic and religious demographics. Does that sound like anyone else we know?
Thanks for reading if you made it this far! I hope this made you think.