Yes, the word “Nazi” is now used, mostly by unhinged Leftists, to mean “someone whose views I don’t like.” I suppose if there were a word more pejorative than “Nazi”, language would ratchet up to that level (“racist” is below Nazi because Nazis are racist as well as other things).
Here mock-newsman Jonathan Pie explains what a Nazi really is:
Reblogged this on The Logical Place.
I would say that the word ‘fascist’ is probably more misused than ‘Nazi’.
Spoken like a Nazi. 🙂
So now today, we know that the Russian woman was in fact, a spy for Russia. She was at the meeting in the Trump Tower with Trump Jr. and Manafort. We now know that Manafort was passing polling information to the Russians from the campaign. Are you starting to see the dots?
No. I see lines with arrows on them showing the direction of the flow of information. Just don’t visualize dots very well. .
Try squinting.
Corrective lenses may be in order.
Sadly still won’t help the willfully ignorant and willfully blind.
Now, today, we also know that, in July 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sharing internal Trump campaign polling data with a Russian intelligence agent (and that Manafort blew his cooperation deal by lying about this to the Special Counsel’s office).
Dirtier and dirtier, it gets.
“polling information” is likely to be a euphemism for mailing lists, demographics info, etc.
Stuff the Russian hackers would need to target social media messaging in the elections
You appear to be incapable of understanding what I meant.
I was joking, man.
Love that Pie.
I have forwarded this to several free speechers in my orbit . . . Heather Hastie had posted it a few days ago. Excellent!
Bizarrely, it appears that the people who disrupted a TV interview with anti-Brexit Conservative MP Anna Soubry outside the British parliament yesterday by shouting “Nazi” at her (which is the incident behind Pye’s satirical piece, and is referenced in it) are themselves far-right supporters of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka “Tommy Robinson”.
Here’s The Guardian’s report: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/08/the-police-are-after-all-of-us-pro-brexit-protesters-ditch-yellow-vests
That is an anti-Islam message. The Guardian continues to play useful idiot to Islamicists who strive to conflate criticism of the ideology with attacks on individuals.
Setting Goddard aside for the moment, it seems in the Guardian’s worldview, criticism of Islam is sufficient to place one among the ‘far right’.
Here’s the loon James Goddard in loud mode lambasting a British copper for not being white enough to be a real Brit & threatening to go to war on the cops so long as it’s a Saturday. I suppose he works in the week & travels to London for weekends. 🙂
He is also a conspiracy nut – Parliament & the House of Lords full of paedophiles etc.
Him & his loose following get their faces up close & shouty to people who they know can’t react in kind. Cowardly losers who will inevitably act as a catalyst for other less controlled losers & it will inevitably get costly in a Jo Cox way.
https://twitter.com/MikeStuchbery_/status/1082304571580534786
What, precisely are the positions that makes one “far right”? Does support of TR suffice?
Oops, that should be “Pie”, of course.
So, why aye, as my born and bred Geordie wife would say
The biggest news story right now in Britain is a bunch of utter arseholes from the far-right, not the far-left, yelling ‘Nazi’, ‘scum’ and ‘traitor’ at various pro-Remain politicians as they tried to make their way to parliament.
And I’d also venture to say that while it’s revolting coming from either side(I believe left-wingers harassed Farage and Rees-Mogg in 2014 too) it’s significantly more threatening when coming from a far-right that a few years ago murdered a Labour politician in the street and has been steadily increasing the number of deadly terrorist attacks in the last few years.
If I was shouted at by a gaggle of obnoxious students I’d think they were idiots, and I might even try to talk them around or argue with them. If I was shouted at by a bunch of six foot blokes from the far-right, who crowded around me and laughed as they called me scum and ‘traitor'(the same word that her murderer shouted when killing Jo Cox), and sneered jokingly about ‘cultural appropriation’, I’d be a lot less inclined to stand my ground. The video of the harassment is completely disgusting, and it scares the living shit out of me that it seems to be the new normal in my country. People need to start getting a grip of just how dangerous the far-right are right now, and any mealy mouthed vacillating about both sides being as bad as each other isn’t good enough, in fact it’s bordering on negligence.
“…a far-right that a few years ago murdered a Labour politician in the street …”
Funny, I thought that was one guy who was formerly institutionalized. Did you have a similar reaction when a Democrat shot up a softball game full of Republican politicians? Or was that just one person, unrelated to any political movement or the things they say? It couldn’t have been related to anything like the widespread sentiment on the far Left that it’s OK to commit violence against “Nazis,” and anyone who doesn’t support certain positions is a Nazi? (For the record, I don’t actually know whether any of that had an effect on him. But I’m willing to admit that, and not engage in whatabouttery when people bring up the dangerous language of the far Right)
This is like the time you claimed that the guy who mailed pipe bombs in the US was the Right “trying to outlaw free speech.”
And if you think it’s only groups of students on the far Left calling anyone Nazi, well, I don’t know what to say to that.
The level of dialogue on both extremes is reprehensible and dangerous, but you always seem to have a “but what about” for only one of them.
“…one guy who was formerly institutionalized..”. Yup, Thomas Mair had been, but even his defence team didn’t argue that his mental health issues were a factor in the crime and there was no evidence of his being so impaired that he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. His links to far-right groups including in the US were undisputed, however.
“After his arrest, [Mair] was examined by a psychiatrist who could find no evidence that his mental health was so poor that he was not responsible for his actions. He was essentially a sane man.”
The Guardian
/@
One can be legally compos mentis and still clinically mentally ill.
“Mentally ill” is a medical concept. “Sane” is a legal concept. There is an uncomfortable overlap, of course, but they aren’t equivalents
I have a ‘what about’ reaction because one side of the story rarely comes up here. And you seem to have a pathologically defensive reaction to any mention of that other side. Almost without exception you and a cluster of others have complained every time I’ve injected some balance into the discussion.
I’d also point out that, since the current story in my country is specifically about the far-right abusing politicians and journalists on camera and calling them Nazis, that it’s you who’s engaging in whataboutery. That _is_ the story right now. America is not the only place in the world.
And yes, I said exactly the same thing about the killing that occurred at the softball game. I even mentioned in my post far-left harassment of right-wing British politicians from 2014. To have left it out would’ve been lacking in balance, and balance is a good thing…right?
We’ve had this discussion before, and you seem utterly set on staying in a safe space where the illiberal-left are the only genuine problem. I have spent years at WEIT criticising the illiberal left but when the political circumstances change I don’t hunker down in my little basement moaning about the same things. I recognise that priorities shift and change, and that one threat is bigger than another, a fact which you decided to sidestep for the obvious reason that it’s irrefutable.
And I leave it ’til last, but your pseudo-apologetics on behalf of Thomas Nair are beneath you.
A few years ago, when the likes of Dan Arel, Ryan J Bell, and Humanisticus (the latter two present themselves as “humanists” [lol.]) started to endorse violence and began calling everyone to the right of Lenin a “Nazi”, or “white supremacist”, genuine humanists and progressives pointed out what a bad idea it would be, and that their own toxicity would enable the Far Right.
This is exactly what has happened in the UK, as the Far Right now increasingly use the mobbing abuse tactics the like of Arel endorsed.
Plus, of course, we have the ongoing problem of antisemitism and other racism towards liberal Muslims, ex-Muslims, and moderate PoC from these creeps. And the enabling of Islamists, of course. They try to hide their hate under the cover of “social justice”. Hence why I call them “New Racists”. Many can be identified by a hateful obsession with Sam Harris, and bizarrely, twerp Dave Rubin.
A partial list of New Racists active online who some here might have come across:
Dan Arel
Ryan J Bell
Peter Ferguson (Humanisticus)
‘Eiynah’ (NiceMangos)
** ********
Steve Shives
Matthew Sears
Kristi Winters
‘Sacha Saeen’
‘Johnny “Israel Lobby” Spooner’
‘Chrisiousity’
‘Blunty King’
‘Infowartz’
Sam Seder
Thomas ‘SeriousPod’ Smith
‘Zei_nabq’
…and many more.
I actually watched a few of Sam Seder’s online shows. I could see pretty much straight away that the guy was a zealot and a far-leftist, but the thing about his show that made it unwatchable to me – even though it was fun hearing racists get humiliated over the phone and Seder occasionally made some good points – was Seder’s horrible little douche sidekick, a sneer in human form. They also seemed to have a fixation on Sam Harris and a habit of smearing him in the most fatuous ways.
I’d also add the ghastly Nathan Lean to that list, he of ‘Maajid Nawaz is Sam Harris’s lapdog’ infamy.
Gotta admit, Infowartz is pretty funny. The name, nit the person. I’ve never heard the person
Nice! I read about attack on Soubry a few hours ago, and I too reacted to the description of far right supporters ironically doing so. Glad to see Pie splitting the hairs on that one, and very effectively and funnily so.
The irony being that they are against EU, which was constituted due to the activities during the Nazi party reign and is – among other things – aiming at preventing such fascism …
And apparently isn’t doing this job very well.
Did he say “a pretty cunty thing to do” ?
Unleash the feminazis! Ooops, sorry….
cr
I’d prefer that commenters here not use the word “Feminazis,” even when referring to extreme authoritarian feminists. Let’s be a bit more dignified, please.
Oops, sorry. I thought it just went with the ‘calling people nazis’ trope…
cr
As always, the extremes meet.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” – end of Animal Farm.
Real 1930s German Nazism can be summed up as a combination of nationalism, a mystical obsession with racial purity, a return to idealized traditional values, and scapegoating ethnic groups.
While “nazi” is an overused slander these days, it’s not all that out of line to refer to the Trump’s hardcore nationalist xenophobic fans as “nazis” – there are a lot of similarities.
I live under trump, and I’ve known people who lived under Hitler. You know nothing, Mike Anderson.
You should understand nazis didn’t start out with a platform of “let’s round up the Jews and kill them”, it started out characterizing Jews as others that were degrading the country. It took a number of years to arrive at the final solution.
Any scholar of the Holocaust can point out the similarities between nazism and Trumpism.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/
Where in my comment did I refer to the Final Solution? A month after the Nazis came to power, they invoked Artikel 48, establishing a dictatorship. trump’s been in office two years now, and our democracy is still functioning. The sort of criticisms you freely make today would’ve earned you a stay at Dachau back in 1935.
I actually see many personality similarities between hitler and trump. But the inchoate ideals behind MAGA are tepid compared to the fully articulated & unmistakable ones of national socialism. You ascribe to “Trump’s hardcore nationalist xenophobic fans” the “obsession with racial purity”, etc. of the original nazis. Of course all neo-nazis support trump. But it does not follow that all trump supporters are neo-nazis. Sixty-three million Americans voted for trump — was portion do you believe are obsessed with racial purity? (That’s a serious question; please answer.)
Further, your reification of ‘trumpism’, and placing it on par with a mature movement with roots stretching back decades, is without basis. Such chicken little hysteria and flippant misuse of the term ‘nazi’, in conjunction with a gross misunderstanding of the motives of trump supporters, serves only to hinder serious efforts to right the course of US politics & society.
NB: Christopher Browning is not just “any scholar of the Holocaust”. He holds unorthodox views, and is a doomsayer who for ages has been warning we’re about to slide down the slippery slope. The article you cite is heavy on hysteria, light on concrete corollary.
Relax. I never said that.
In the fifties and sixties the word nazi was pretty loaded with strong emotion. It was not used lightly. Pain of the Nazis in WWII has apparently dissapatwd. The word is thrown around lightly now.
Dissipated
Don’t think it’s dissipated, I think it’s still there, when there are real Nazis or their victims involved. But just demographically, when someone calls someone a Nazi, it’s nowadays unlikely that the person is. The Office of Special Investigation (Dept. of Justice) has moved on.
Throwing around terms like “nazi” or “fascist” to describe those one does not like is counterproductive since those who utter barely know what they mean. In addition, exactly how to define who or what is a fascist is debated by scholars. Christopher Browning, a noted scholar of Nazi Germany, wrote an extremely important article for the New York Review of Books that I would urge all to read. He does find some similarities between anti-democratic tendencies in some nations that parallel what happened in Nazi Germany, but he finds many differences as well. Many of the bully boy techniques that Hitler used to achieve and retain power are no longer necessary for the current crop of authoritarians. He notes:
“The fascist movements of that time prided themselves on being overtly antidemocratic, and those that came to power in Italy and Germany boasted that their regimes were totalitarian. The most original revelation of the current wave of authoritarians is that the construction of overtly antidemocratic dictatorships aspiring to totalitarianism is unnecessary for holding power. Perhaps the most apt designation of this new authoritarianism is the insidious term “illiberal democracy.” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Putin in Russia, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary have all discovered that opposition parties can be left in existence and elections can be held in order to provide a fig leaf of democratic legitimacy, while in reality elections pose scant challenge to their power. Truly dangerous opposition leaders are neutralized or eliminated one way or another.”
So, whether the nature of these regimes should be labelled fascist is not really important. To call Trump a fascist probably serves no useful purpose, although he does not seem uncomfortable with some of its elements. What’s important to recognize is that real democracy is in retreat in much of the world. How things will end up is currently unknowable. However, one thing is clear: those who oppose these current trends cannot remain complacent. The U.S. elections of 2018 was a good start.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/
Thank you for pointing me to that article. I agree it is important and has some fascinating if troubling insights. If Trump were three decades younger I would be highly concerned that he would attempt and perhaps manage to hold power beyond his term(s). He has form for trying to cast doubt on the validity of election results. As it is, a younger, cleverer, successor might manage to change the two term thing (didn’t Putin manage this in Russia?) or declare a state of ‘temporary’ emergency powers or something. I think the Republicans in the last 10 years have highlighted and exploited many of the deficiencies in American democracy and show no sign of shame over it.
Putin seems to have used the law correctly – one is allowed to be president of Russia more than (twice?) by simply doing it with another guy to break it up in the middle. No such provision exists in the US constitution.
Reading Jean-Francois Revel’s The Flight From Truth (1992 in English), a very relevant book despite having been written thirty years ago. Among other things it looks at the use of the labels racist and fascist by the left to smear their opponents, both on the right and the left. He describes it, aptly I feel, as an attempt at moral extermination of opponents.
Nazi.(n): A useful word meaning “Anyone on the internet I disagree with”.
Etymology: Unknown. Perhaps a derivation of “nasty”? It certainly has no known connection to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) despite superficial similarities.
LOL!
Pejoratives need to be accurate? I suppose I’ll stop having calling people *ssholes who aren’t literally one big orifice.