[KirinDave]

I understand in these tumultuous times, life comes at you fast. Let me give you a quick guide on how to recognize a real nazi. Is your subject:

- Waving a flag with symbols associated with nazi imagery?

- Deliberately using the "heil"?

- Chanting, "Jews will not replace us!" while making a salute?

- Wearing a conical white hood, open or closed, and white (and possibly scarlet) robes at torchlit rallies?

- Calling themselves neo-nazis?

Who is actually confused? Are you?

[shandor]

That's not the problem. The problem is that for many, the years and years of calling your run-of-the-mill Republicans and whatnot "nazis" has diluted the term, just like GP mentioned.

So, now, when people try to get others to understand that the Nazis we now have are almost exactly the same we had in Germany way back then, people don't really make that connection (even if they say they do) on emotional level. Instead, they associate the self-professed Neo-Nazis with the "nazi Republicans" and the not-really-a-nazi-alt-righters that have been cried at in the 2000's.

Source: many acquaintances who are clearly very, very confused on the matter.

[KirinDave]

One would think the literal swastikas would clear that up. These people aren't being terribly subliminal anymore.

[shandor]

One would think that, for the people calling Republicans "nazis" in the 2000's, the absence of swastikas and Nazi Hails should have cleared things up. But they did it anyway.

People are not simple creatures, and things like crying the wolf actually do confuse us pretty easily.

[matt4077]

So you're actually agreeing that someone waving a swastika and calling for the extermination of jews can be considered a Nazi, yet you choose not to do it, just to spite those lefties that annoyed you in the 2000s?

And, specifically, they annoyed you with their use of slightly-hyperbolic rhetoric, used to underline their contention that the Republican strategy of racial division and incitement of culture wars may create fertile ground for a resurgence of staples of the fascist ideologies? And that, if we continue down this path, America may some day start electing strongmen playing on feelings such as xenophobia?

[shandor]

I am not doing any of that. I'm just pointing out that this is a very real case of "crying the wolf" effect working it's voodoo, and that maybe, in the future, something could be learned from all this.

Personally, I'm not even from the US, and find many of the policies of the Republicans almost absurd. Where I'm from, your run-of-the-mill republican would be considered so deep into the right wing as to be completely niche. Almost alt-right, if you wish.

Look, I see where you're coming from. But is it so hard to see that waving the nazi stamp around willy-nilly really will dilute the meaning and connotations of the term, no matter how much you think it was justified. Nazi's are probably the Satan of modern times, literally the thing people use to mean "the worst there can ever be". However Republican policies seem baffling to me, I see no reasonable way to stamp them with that kind of stamp. They're 50% responsible for running your country, for God's sake :)

[matt4077]

I can see how that criticism isn't completely invalid. I just don't see how it connects to this case, considering the website in question chose to name itself after a well-known Nazi propaganda paper (as in the realest, 1930s Nazis in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Stürmer)

There's also some confusion about terms, obviously. The meaning of Nazi has morphed and includes more than actual, card-carrying party members. The dictionary lists "a person with extreme racist or authoritarian views" as one of the definitions. It is also meant, and generally understood, as an insult, and a reference to a certain mindset (cf "Grammar Nazi"). And while neither Trump nor most other Republicans would be considered Nazis, there are some obvious tendency at play in the party that invite the comparison, such as the attempts to disenfranchise groups of voters, or, more recently, the Presidents' encouragement of police officers to "rough up" arrestees.

[KirinDave]

Welp, I guess there is no use calling people who self-identify as Nazis or say Nazis were right about race and sexuality by any name at all anymore.

Shut it down, "alt-left." Shut it all down. Someone was not precise and we can't use words anymore.

[shandor]

Sure you can, no one even implied otherwise.

The only thing I said was that the term you are talking about most probably does not inspire the loathing it should (and once did) after all the crying-the-wolf. And considering that, I tried to hint that maybe in the future it might be sensible to take this effect into account before going down the same rabbit hole again.

[KirinDave]

> And considering that, I tried to hint that maybe in the future it might be usensible to take this effect into account before going down the same rabbit hole again.

To who? Is it implicit that I've misused the term? That I am misusing it here?

Who requires this admonition? If not me, then why are you burying this dire warning arm-deep in a comment thread on HN?

[peteretep]

    > - Chanting, "Jews will not replace
    > us!" while making a salute?

Sounds like an idiot anti-semite to me

    > - Wearing a conical white hood, open
    > or closed, and white (and possibly
    > scarlet) robes at torchlit rallies?

Sounds like a Klan member to me

They're all deplorable, and I'm sure there's a great deal of overlap between groups, but why sacrifice accuracy by calling them Nazis?

[matt4077]

They're calling themselves Nazis. They wave flags, with Swastikas.

I do understand that GWB wasn't a Nazi. And maybe there was a bit too much wolf-crying. But even if the boy has had this annoying habit at crying "wolf" every day–does that render you unable to recognise a wolf when he's staring you in the eyes?

[peteretep]

Who is "they" in this sentence? The original comment was giving a hypothetical subject.

Someone waving a flag with a Swastika, non-ironically, yes, they're a Nazi. Someone calling themself a Nazi? Yes, they're a Nazi.

Holocaust-denier and notable anti-semite and crazy person David Icke? A delusional idiot, but not a nazi. KKK members who believed National Socialism was still socialism and battled Nazis in WWII? Racist fuckheads, but not Nazis. Francoist Faciscts? Probably not Nazis, although I'd forgive you for making a strong case for it.

We have words and phrases like white supremacist, anti-semite, racists, and Nazi. They all mean things, and there's plenty of overlap. I'm not sure what we gain by mislabelling one group as another, other than opening ourselves up to accusations we're crying wolf.

[KirinDave]

Wellll... I mean I gave a list of things to watch for in a collective group. If a collective group is doing all these things, on camera, proudly... you're probably safe calling them Neo-Nazis and "Nazi" for short.

While the Klan has a long and inglorious tradition, it merges seamlessly with the pro-Nazi elements of the US in world war 2, for the most part. And Nazis are what folks had in mind when they say, "Anti-semite".

So I'm curios if YOU were ever confused. Or if this is for the rhetorical masses (who by and large don't seem too confused once they see a picture, that I can discern).

[peteretep]

    > If a collective group is doing
    > all these things

If a collective group is doing any of the other things you've mentioned, I'd say they're pretty definitely a Nazi.

    > [the Klan] merges seamlessly with
    > the pro-Nazi elements of the US in
    > world war 2

I don't think that's accurate. Overlap, yes. I'm not sure what muddying the water between different hate groups achieves.

    > Nazis are what folks had in mind
    > when they say, "Anti-semite"

I don't think that's even slightly accurate. Anti-semitism is a (terrible) feature of many many ideologies, from ISIS to mediaeval Iberian Catholicism, to people who believe that we're all controlled by shape-shifting masonic lizard aliens.

    > So I'm curios if YOU were ever confused

Yes. Is David Duke a Nazi? Milo Ywhatever-his-name-is? Gamergate people? The_Donald?

[KirinDave]

> Yes. Is David Duke a Nazi?

Duke acts in accordance with most of their principles, so yes.

> Milo Ywhatever-his-name-is?

He hangs out with some self-proclaimed Nazis, but we've yet to see him walking in a march waving the flag.

> Gamergate people?

I actually think most are sexist. I see plenty of post-gaters resisting Trump and decrying the violence we're discussing.

> The_Donald

The reddit? Or DJT himself? For the reddit, I don't even know what it is. It's like one of those lego advertisement cartoons that doesn't have to make sense so long as we all agree we should buy Legos.

As for DJT himself? I would have said no before last week, but that last press conference really left me wondering.

[fmueller]

The problem is that real Nazis will not do anything of the above. What you describe is just the behavior of the plebs and not of the leaders.