Do you think Americans will be branded something like Nazi?
Do you think Americans will be branded something like Nazi?
I wonder if the Germans felt like we do when Hitler was coming to power. A disbelief that normal people could be so evil, and then horror when it was somehow legitimized.
When I was growing up, I always thought it was like 80% of Germany that believed in the whole white-super-man, but maybe it was 20%, or maybe less.
I just can’t believe that half of America approves of what’s going on. I can't believe that 20% is so mad that the immigrants that they want to put them in Auschwitz style cages.
I wonder if all Americans are going to be branded something like “Nazi” like the Germans were.
So... Magas?
Yes, but I think the point is that all Germans were tarred with that brush for years, for their tacit support of the regime. It’s the same in America at the moment. MAGA has corrupted politics and while many don’t agree, they don’t stop it. We’re all the builders of alligator aushwitz maga, or just workers that took money to make a concentration camp? That’s just a recent example.
48 year old German here. My grandparents were born in the 1920s. Here's what they told me about Hitler's regime.
In the 1920s, life in Germany was pleasant, so the Nazis didn't get all the support they needed because their fearmongering didn't work very well.
Then, the Black Friday crisis hit Germany hard. Harder than any other European nation. Huge unemployment, a lot of discontent and desperate people. The Nazis used that to their full advantage - many people fell for them, but still not the majority of Germans.
So my grandparents still didn't take them that seriously. Even those Germans who knew what the Nazis had planned couldn't believe they would really do it. Try imagining living in 1932. If someone told you about WWII and 6 million dead in concentration camps, would you really have been able to take that seriously?
Then, suddenly, Hitler came to power. Still, not the majority of people supported him - but it took mere weeks to take away all their civic rights, their right to protest, their right not to be detained without due process, their right not to be surveilled, their right to live in a home the police can't raid without reason. It all happened too quickly.
So they all became afraid - VERY afraid. And too many of them minded their own business, after all, if they were law abiding citizens, what did they have to fear, they thought.
The famous quote by Martin Niemöller illustrates it:
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for meThe bottom line is this - at no time during the entire Nazi regime were there enough people in Germany who could and would put up the resistance necessary to stop the Nazis. But there were always lots of people opposed to them, but intimidated into being silent.
How do you expect us to stop it?
I think this comment captures it best. Nazi's in the 1930s to 1950s were a very specific group of people and Hitler was essentially just their leader until he became somewhat of a fascist dictator. But let's not forget, for instance, Mosley, who was a British politician advocating for fascism.
But the term 'nazi' has a very clear definition and I think maga would be a good counterpart.
Nazi, NSB'er, fascist, these are all just terms. Maga's would now be the term for the supporter of undemocratic regime. Whether they are the same kind of fascists as nazi's, well...
I think it's more important not to compare the groups. It does not go beyond supporting a regime that actively oppresses by making promises based in populism. Can you really blame people for electing someone who yells they will make the world better for you, specifically? Whether they will make the world more horrible for others is irrelevant at that point.
So in short: depending on the outcome of all of this, I think the Americans that have supported this regime will be branded in their communities for life, but only if they're open about it. I think in Nazi Germany there must've been some people who, in 1933, agreed with a lot of stuff Hitler said (and to be fair to them, Germans lived horrible lives due to penance for WWI and Hitler vowed to do something about it, oh and also the Jews are at fault for your misery) but by 1939 perhaps they felt uneasy about what was going on.
There are quite a bit of Americans who already feel Leopards Ate Their Face with what's going on.
I prefer MAGAts, it's an insult they can wrap their puny brains around.
...What does it mean? I swear I'm not maga.