Millions of people died from COVID yet look how many denied its effects (and still do) and didn’t/don’t get vaccinated. Because it wasn’t happening to them right there in their faces (and in some cases it was and they still denied it on their death beds). If people can’t even learn from that as it happened in real time all around them, what hope do we have for people to care about and learn from things that happened 80-90 years ago?
Its been a long slow boil. And Nazis were only part of the problem. In the early 1930s many businessmen and Republicans in the US plotted a Hitler style coup against FDR. They did worse than Hitler, but escaped most consequences. And over the last century quietly plotted and built. Here and abroad. Fostering the “right kind” of fascism. Theirs.
It probably would have gone on a little longer. Because I don’t think they were quite ready to actually try to coup again. But they’ve been socially engineering a new class of supremely manipulable Voters who lack any critical thinking skills. However a childish malignant narcissist managed to get the attention of that tool. And stole it from the Republican fascist. Basically largely spoiling the plot. And causing them to have to move before they were ready.
Also the ability for instance Global and often still largely Anonymous communication made propaganda easier and cheaper than ever before. The old style leaflet drops over territories were never very effective. And even radio broadcasts or easy to thwart. Now enemy Nations only need to pay a few people for online shitposting in hot beds lacking critical thinking. And they can turn their enemies people into their own tools.
Definitely. In a lot of developing countries with basic internet access these people can actually make good livings doing that. As long as they’re skill in the foreign language is adequate enough. Though today a lot of that is being taken over by basic low-end generative machine learning models. Something else false information faster than it takes to debunk it.
Not unless you live in a country with a low standard and cost of living. And not likely even then. Because even at a Payday they generally work ed for larger businesses and weren’t a freelance Craigslist sort of thing. That and here in the United States there’s too much free competition to really be effective for them to pay anyone over here as well.
Short version: the Nazis lost but the fascists won.
WWII basically ended in fascists vs fascists - Nazi Germany pulled a lot of their ideas from the US and before Pearl Harbor the US stance was ambivalent. They thought Hitler had some good points, but it would be OK if he lost.
White supremacy and the nazi ideology are ass to ass. The only thing they didn’t share was their hatred for Jews but guess who domesticated that ideology? Neo-Nazis.
Anyone now seeing how some people are slowly converting their house into like a campaign collage with these Trump banners printed on corrugated plastic.
Was at the musuem in Gettysburg recently and the amount of Confederate flag hats/shirts I saw was wild. I’m sure the contents of the museum would’ve upset them if they could read
They have kinda always been a thing. Nazi’s were just one flavor of nationalist, after all.
Charles de Gaulle defined nationalism best: “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
For most people, it’s extremely easy to blame others for problems of their own creation. By the same token, people who can’t see their own shortcomings will also usually latch on to leaders who are able to amplify that bias. For the Nazis, it was mostly against the jews.
Also, what you are seeing in the news is partially amplified by the news itself but also, politicians are getting more brazen in mustering the support of those groups. This has lead to people being a little more open about something that needs to stay taboo, IMHO.
Whatever is wrong in your life is not your fault, nor is it even the fault of random chance/fate/god/what have you. It not no one’s fault either. There is a clear, definable enemy called X. X is the problem, and if we just deal with X, then you will have the life you dream of. I will make sure X never hurts you again.
Another interesting property of fascists is how their “enemy” is described in lurid but contradicting ways that don’t make any sense when you think about it for more than half a second.
One minute, the “enemy” is described as weak, pathetic, disgusting, sub-human, sickly, cowardly, stupid little losers who can’t punch out of a wet paper bag. The next minute, the “enemy” is described as threatening, all-seeing, clever, oppressive, bold and brazen, powerful, influential, dominating the government, ruining people’s lives, etc.
It’s maddening. And some people are absolute suckers for it.
Economic despair, political instability, and rampant nationalism are key conditions that facilitated the rise of Nazis in post-World War I Germany and are similarly contributing to the resurgence of such ideologies today. Modern times have seen these conditions fostering the rise of leaders like Donald Trump, where both he and historical figures like Hitler capitalized on themes of national decline, utilized nationalist rhetoric, exploited fears about outsiders and minorities, and exhibited authoritarian tendencies. This recurrence of historical patterns underscores how past ideologies can be revived, shaping contemporary political climates and contributing to the emergence of movements that mirror the early 20th-century Nazi regime.