Seems appropos
Not an expert but it seems to me the most important thing is education. In the U.S. they’ve been chipping away at that since at least the eighties. I’m not “handing it to them” but the right has put in the long term work to get us where we are today, with only feeble liberal centrist pushback.
Lotta very well-educated MAGAs. Not sure if education cuts to the heart of the illness.
Also a lot of well-educated and intelligent people who are not happy and/or governed by their inner darkness. Education is important but I think there’s something far more fundamental at issue
There’s not one illness, strictly speaking.
Russia found a guy who appealed enough to the legacies of confederate know nothings who were about to become politically irrelevant if the GOP had died as expected in 2015.
The two illnesses are A) lawful evil, Roman republicans who are working to sell us out to Christian fascists. B) patriots of the Confederacy who think that if they lie to themselves long enough it will become truth. The stupidity of people in group B is profitable enough to turbocharge into political power for people in group A. The heart of the illness is the entire mass of B being held together by group A disinformation, you could call it propaganda but that would imply concern with truth. The hearts of the illness are the links holding them together.
I hope there’s larger effort towards collecting case studies in terms of former MAGAs and what it takes to bring them back to reality
I’m sure you’re correct. Just as a poor education along with lack of socio-economic opportunity and inavailability of mental healthcare might contribute to radicalization in the working poor, it stands to reason that a basic lack of empathy, whether taught or innate, likely coupled with greed must play a role for radicalization of the wealthy.
Like, the economic is huge, I’ve noticed strange impulses even in myself when I’m in a bad way financially…
That we should never have allowed the nazis to get painted as this existential, somehow outerworldly pure evil. They understandably got that reputation after the holocaust and losing the war, but it obscures why so many people were so attracted to them in the first place.
It has made it impossible for most people to see what is truly the resurrection of fascism: many people don’t see it as such because they’re not (yet) having people shot or books burned. They think ‘if I’m not pure evil, surely I can’t be nazi’. And there’s the real danger.
One important lesson of the Nazi rise to power and the Holocaust is that Nazis characterized their enemies as disgusting rather than scary.
Disgust is a different feeling than fear, and it leads to different responses. Hitler used imagery of infection and disease to describe not only problems in society but eventually groups as well. This talk of filth and infestation laid the emotional groundwork for the “purge” solution.
If we want to avoid another Holocaust, we need to be wary of analogies like rot, cancer, infection for describing people and points of view.
Erich Kästner wikipedia.org, a german writer and satirist of the time, had this to say:
The events from 1933 to 1945 should have been battled in 1928 at the latest. Later was already too late. One must not wait until liberty is called treason. One must not wait till the snowball has become an avalanche. One must squelch the rolling snowball. The avalanche can’t be stopped anymore…
"The avalanche had already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. "
Create a state that cared for and protected the majority, things like insured retirement, paid vacations, universal health insurance, In Europe we have all that, in the USA it was thought that they were rich enough not to need it and it may have been like that for decades, but it seems that not anymore.
If the system takes care of you, you are not going to sign up to destroy it, If the system doesn’t give you anything, you won’t care if it is destroyed or you will even sign up to do it.
In Europe we have all that
You had all of that but as it has trickled away your populations are also accelerating their move towards the Right Wing. I can’t believe how many people in here think that this is only a problem in the United States when it’s happening in nearly every country.
It’s true, I shouldn’t have said we have, I should have said we had. Since the 80s, everything has been dismantled, making everything worse, both right and left. Comparing ourselves to other parts of the world we are not so bad, but comparing my living conditions with those of my parents it is shameful.
Where u at?
In a small town in Spain, in the '80s only my father worked in a less qualified position than mine, at my age he already had an apartment, two children and a month’s vacation on a nearby beach. My wife and I work in more qualified positions, We live in rent with an only daughter and I am lucky when I can pay for a week somewhere quiet
The Nazis are only the yardstick of evil by convention. Their crimes exist in an enormous set of savage acts including genocides and invasions that suffuses history.
The lesson “of the Nazis” needs to be that the Nazis are not unique in history, nor are they the only sort of people who commit such acts.
Just replying to my own shit to add here:
I think the Nazis were the first instance of this kind of behavior that got caught on video. Just like the Vietnam war was the first war US citizenry saw on TV, I think the Third Reich and whatever the term is for the whole campaign of land grab invasions, and the Holocaust, is a pattern that’s been going on for thousands of years, and it’s the first time the whole world was witness to it.
For the majority of history a king or emperor or whoever could march out armies, destroy, use a ton of his own internal political enemies as slaves and work them to death, then just murder the rest of them … and cover it up almost effortlessly by telling the town criers to announce whatever horseshit they want the farmers to believe.
We know historically this happens. But the Holocaust is the first of the pogroms that everybody around the world saw, and in the greater set of genocides. It was the first time (I think?) that absolute mass atrocity on civilians was televised.
But it’s not a unique event is the key thing. It’s the most well-known example of the eruption of evil into the world, but it’s a recurring part of humanity to do this kind of thing.
Trying to appease fascists by avoiding confrontation or acting when they start chipping away at our insitutions willl just lead to more fascism. The nazis didn’t spring forth overnight, they consolidated their power through legal means and appealed to the population’s bigotry and hatred of ‘others’ without enough of a response to stop their ascension.
Basically the same thing that is happening in the west right now.
Democracy dies with half the country cheering
It’s already too late, America. Even if he loses the election, he’s already rigged the supreme Court.
I don’t know that authoritarian/fascist regimes can be stopped once they’re in motion. They seem to be more the default rather than stable democracies. Even countries that you’d think would have sufficient legal barriers and processes for citizens to keep political extremists out of office seem to be failing and moving to the right.
AI answer in the style of a riled up eighth grader:
Alright, so here’s the deal. The rise of Hitler and the Nazis taught us some super important lessons that we absolutely cannot forget. Like, seriously, it’s crucial.
First off, always question leaders who promise simple solutions to complex problems. Hitler fed on the economic chaos and social unrest, offering easy fixes and blaming specific groups. Don’t fall for that garbage. Critical thinking, people!
Second, don’t let hate speech and discrimination slide. The Nazis started with anti-Semitic rhetoric and it escalated into the Holocaust. If someone is spreading hate, call it out and stop it in its tracks. Silence equals acceptance.
Third, protect democratic institutions. Hitler got power partly because the Weimar Republic was weak. Strong checks and balances, a free press, and active civic engagement are vital. Don’t let anyone mess with that stuff.
Fourth, education matters. The Nazis indoctrinated youth with their ideology. We need to teach history accurately, promote critical thinking, and encourage empathy. An educated, aware population is harder to manipulate.
Lastly, stand up against injustice, no matter how small. If people had stood up to the Nazis early on, things might have been different. Don’t wait for someone else to act. Be brave, take a stand.
So, yeah, these lessons are super important. We can’t let history repeat itself. Stay woke!
I can see each of your points being actively exploited by my government. We’re fucked.
I’m sorry to hear that. Do you believe it’s possible to correct course, or are we all fucked?
I’d warn against the idea that Hitler was somehow indispensable to the movement.
I think MAGA is instructive here. Do you think Trump is an evil genus, or just a lucky blow-hard carried by the worst impulses of the right? Fascism is popular, and we need to stop acquitting the societies that nurture it.
To answer your question, I’d ignore the fascist leader and the rabid followers. I’d find a scheme to impose social and financial costs on those who don’t support fascism, but are wiling to tolerate it for their own interests.
Unchecked conservatism naturally develops into fascism. Genocidal oppression is the natural tendency of conservatives. It always has been.
Make the left worth voting for again. And no, social democracy does not make the cut in any way, shape or form.
