[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?