I think he's implying that because the Nazi party had the word socialist in it, Republicans would disapprove of them. While this statement, by itself, raises alarm bells I didn't even know I had, the second-half might actually clear it up: I think that the line about redefining words is actually intended to raise a point about we use and abuse language in political discourse, using the "Nationalist Socialist" thing as an example.
Or he's being completely literal and saying that calling Republicans Nazis is just wrong, because Republicans can't be Nazis, because they hate socialists. Which... I leave to someone with more sleep and fewer pending deadlines them myself to deal with.
So you think the National Socialist party wasn't actually socialist by our understanding of the term? How so?
Oh, ok. Have fun you guys. I'll merely add in while I'm not a fan - to put it mildly - of comparing Trump or Republicans to Nazis (My grandfather would actually return from the grave to slap me), you're kind of going too far with this line here:
And I wasn't aware that hiring a paramilitary for security is synonymous with "gas the jews".
I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing that (and anyone unreasonable who is not currently the President of the United States can be safely ignored). Nazism was a lot of things to a lot of people during the existance of the original NSDAP. It was genocide, it was racial purity laws, it was militarism, it was a lot of different things. What I mean here is that setting the standard as high as literally quoting Mein Kampf is already a bit of a problem, I think; not specifically with Nazism, but with any "ism" that people don't like. People say "Well if I'm not actually gassing jews I'm not a Nazi" or "Well if I am not going around flinging racial slurs at people in the street or lynching negroes, so I'm not a racist." It reminds me of something from Catch-22 (Censored because I don't remember forum policy on these things, and I'd like to not be warned today.):
Racial prejudice is a terrible thing, Yossarian. It really is. It's a terrible thing to treat a decent, loyal Indian like a n****r, k**e, w*p, or s**c.
You're right that people have an amazing ability to make negative words mean "people I don't like", but you should also remember the "and not me" part. You're going on about the context of the NSDAP party, and that's fine; but when you consider that someone may well just be referring to Neo-Nazis, your analysis loses a bit of punch. These things are real, and it should be possible to call something out as being a part of that without all the "But HOW DARE YOU" that comes up. Yes, it's possible to be a racist or a nazi without personally murdering six million Jews, and the fact is that standards tend to inflate towards that, for ourselves, and away for others. Both angles need to be rememebered.
(Also fuck you I NEED TO WRITE AN ACTUAL ESSAY DAMN IT)
Jeez, way to construe. All I'm saying is there's a lot more to nazism than plain militarism and racism. You need a particular kind of political environment to end up with the genocide, dictatorship and racial hegemony (no, you don't actually need to "literally quote Mein Kampf" to qualify). Without the state being controlling of its citizens and industry enough (i.e. socialist), I don't find it particularly likely to happen. America is too individualistic and capitalistic to end up in the same state as Nazi Germany. You could see it coming a mile away if Republicans suddenly started trying to implement actual nazi policies, cause that'd be going against their usual talk of leaving people less regulated by the state.
Now, if you want to claim it's becoming more militaristic, racist, homophobic or whatever, there's many less hysteria-inducing examples throughout history than NAZIS. I'm glad you bring up American history, though, cause that's actually a much more appropriate example, and is something Republicans openly try to strive towards (or at least parts of it). Or would you like to call all your ancestors nazis now because parts of their views happened to coincide? Was world war II just nazis fighting nazis? Or would you like to present some checklist of what qualifies someone as a nazi so that we can carefully try and verify it compared to societies of the 1930s who were on the Allies' side?
And the paramilitary thing was just hyperbole to point out how one has nothing to do with the other. Hiring paramilitaries for security is not a thing that inherently leads to nazism, nor is it particularly related. It's a huge stretch to see one as a sign of the other.
So let me ask, where do you see these prominent "nazis" on the American political scene prescribing the ideas of genocide you've just described? Actual quotes if you may. Cause the term's been getting thrown around more and more lately, and any time I see anyone using the term, it's not directed towards someone actually suggesting "gassing the gays, jews and liberals" nor replacing democracy with a dictatorship. At best it's just directed towards someone who made a mildly racist, homophobic or nationalistic remark, because apparently you're not allowed to have typical irrational human tribalist biases (or even joke about having them) without being an evil nazi beyond all hope of redemption.
Richard Spencer himself should be suitable for this, since its his infamous on-camera punching that kicked off the whole public debate on this subject, right? Well, here's your 2-minute google.
The ideal I advocate is the creation of a White Ethno-State on the North American continent.
America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity. It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.
And when White men talks about “restoring the Constitution”—or, more so, “Taking Our Country Back”— leftists and non-Whites are right to view this as threatening and racialist: it implies a return to origins and that the White man once owned America.
Yeah, not everyone who supports Trump is racist. Plenty of people are caught up in the whole antifa frenzy that shouldn't be. But if you're saying stuff like this, or publicly supporting someone who does? Nothing mild about it.
I was gonna say he doesn't unambiguously sound like a nazi in those quotes (more like a plain racist wanting a return to 1960s America), but a look at his wikipedia page suggests he's got some neo-nazi views indeed. I would note that he belongs to no political party, though, so he doesn't seem very relevant.
Putting aside the whole nazi thing for a moment, to my knowledge, he hasn't actually physically harmed anyone, nor has he asked anyone to do so, so he's not the one who went from words to deeds. If that's what justifies getting punched, then will I get applauded for punching an orthodox muslim? They'd actually want to stone me to death or drop me off a building, so I'd be more justified by your logic, I think. How about if I call them a nazi before I do it? Would that be fine?
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