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Can someone explain who the nazis are? I know what they are but I don't live in Europe or NA and I don't understand if it's just referring to right wing fascists or just nazis.
My intention is not to deny anything or defend anyone. It's simply a question. I also see some comments calling for violence in a very direct way, doesn't it violate rules?
I am a layman so go easy on me.
Nazis are a subcategory of fascists. Not everyone knows what it means to be a fascist, but most people know what it means to be a Nazi. Often times people will use Nazi when they mean fascists in general. It can be hard to tell when this is happening though.
There are Neo-Nazi groups in the US. They can go all out with the look and vibes too. There isn't much difference politically between Neo-Nazis and Nazis. There are way less Neo-Nazis then fascists in the US.
Disregarding people who use Nazi as just a slur for people they don't like, Nazi are people who support Nazism, also known as National Socialism (it has nothing to do with Socialism, BTW), which is deeply associated with Adolf Hitler. It's a form of fascism with a sprinkle of anti-democracy and pro-dictatorship on top. Think antisemitism + racism + white supremacy + anti-communism + social Darwinism. It's attributed to far-right, but using a more modern political compass far-up would be more appropriate since it's more about control than economics.
For full background on why it's so universally hated (if the aforementioned wasn't enough), Hitler was a dictator who ruled over Nazi Germany back in the first middle of 20th century. Under his rule, millions were inhumanely slaughtered for not fitting Nazi's standard of a human being. Then, under Hitler, they went on to create a war that involved nearly all of the continents (from the top of my head, at least Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa), hence the name World War 2 (the first one was in 1914-1918, this one went on from 1939 to 1945). They killed combatants, they killed civilians, they killed children, they worked people to their deaths, they humiliated them, and they tortured them.
All in all, the Second World War took away around 80 million people. The vast majority were people from the Soviet Union (~23-24%) and China (~19-20%). The third place took Germany with less than 8%. About 62% of all deaths were civilians.
That's what they did. They practically wiped out one huge country because they didn't see them as humans.
Every 5th-6th person was dead in Poland. Every 7th-8th in Soviet Union, every 9th in Germany.
That's why they're not just hated, but despised with burning passion.
On a side-note, what's insane to me is how little attention is given to the atrocities Japan caused in China. Soviet Union is at least getting talked about, but Japanese people have no idea their ancestors did this. As a Russian, I knew that China had it rough, to say the least. But I didn't know it was to that extent! And 80% of those were civilians.
Edit: Re-reading the question, I may have taken it too literally, thinking "what's a Nazi?" instead of "what exactly do they mean by "Nazi"?". Whoops, but I guess it doesn't hurt anyway.
Depends on who you ask. It varies anywhere from literal Swatztika toters to "anybody I don't agree with."
This what liberals say because they can't define fascism themselves, sure.
And it is a fairly broad accusation, by literal design. Mussolini himself said fascism can be anything convenient for the state in the moment, that's why when it comes down to a hard definition they're either descriptions of the actions of fascist states, vague listings of terms like xenophobia and authoritarianism, or pointing to things like Umberto Eco's description.
Mussolini himself said fascism can be anything convenient for the state in the moment, that’s why when it comes down to a hard definition they’re either descriptions of the actions of fascist states, vague listings of terms like xenophobia and authoritarianism, or pointing to things like Umberto Eco’s description.
That is a good enough description paradoxically. It's what's convenient for the center of violent power, ideologically untied from any moral principle and consistency, and connected to strength and self-sacrifice and, of course, interests of that center.
To be honest, I'm sometimes thinking that for a political ideology he had a point, and mixing in morality there is just misguided. Like mixing in LGBTQ rights into military strategy as a criterion of its own (and not to have more manpower).