Nazi- The Slur for all Seasons

From my archived blog (March 2019) at donaldjeffries.wordpress.com

Note: This is another in a continuing series of previously published articles. Please subscribe to my primary Substack “I Protest” here: donaldjeffries.substack.com

The National Socialist Party died in 1945, at the same time its leader Adolph Hitler was escorted to Argentina. Following the show trials at Nuremberg, some of the last Nazi leaders were sentenced to death. Others were rewarded by being ushered into America under the CIA’s Operation Paperclip, where they helped establish NASA.

Although the Nazis themselves have been gone for more than half a century, the term “Nazi” itself has a universal appeal, and a staying power that appears to be immortal. When someone is called a “Nazi” now, those affixing the label don’t mean a literal member of the National Socialist Party. They mean, instead, whatever they want it to mean. It is the slur that fits all sizes; leftists routinely paint anyone who doesn’t believe in 57 genders with it, and conservatives use it almost as freely.

Alex Jones, de-platformed guru of the conspiracy world, talks about Adolph Hitler and the Nazis more than he talks about Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung and every “globalist” in the universe combined. Others on the right resort to it regularly. Donald Trump, Jr. and right-wing author Dinesh D’Souza both compare today’s liberals to actual Nazis. Conservative Jonah Goldberg’s 2008 book Liberal Fascism opined that Hitler and Mussolini merely held more extreme versions of the philosophy of Hillary Clinton and other modern liberal icons.

Since the election of Donald Trump, the disastrous two-party system has become emboldened, as those who irrationally hate or love him dig their heels into partisan Democrat or Republican rhetoric. Alex Jones, Dinesh D’Souza and others have taken to focusing on the old Democratic Party’s ties to slavery and segregation, and pointing out that Hitler and the Nazis were hardly Reaganites advocating small “gubmint.” Today’s Republicans do, however, share Hitler’s affinity for building up the military. Can’t cut that gargantuan defense budget.

The Nazi platform also called for universal health care, which is anathema to “conservatives” who cling to fond memories of doctors making house calls, and a simpler medical system that disappeared with Richard Nixon’s creation of the HMO profit-driven nightmare we enjoy today. Leftists argue that Donald Trump, despite being the most pro-Israel president of all our pro-Israel presidents, is somehow a “Nazi,” too. His campaign rhetoric against bankers, for instance, still holds more significance with them than the fact he has surrounded himself with former employees of Goldman Sachs.

There is a whole school of thought out there that holds that it’s perfectly fine to “punch a Nazi.” The web site canipunchnazis.com boasts, “It is always OK to punch a Nazi.” This violent mantra has become so popular that establishment newspaper The Boston Globe headlined an article, “Why you shouldn’t punch a Nazi.” One Ben Ferrari actually started a kickstarter campaign called “Always Punch Nazis,” to finance a comic book anthology “about our country’s battle against racism.”

The web site Neon asked if it was okay to punch a Nazi as well. One Noorhan Maamoon lustfully declared that not only was it okay, but also “White supremacists and members of the alt-right.” Well, in all fairness, you’d have to include them, as it is going to be very hard to find a real Nazi in 2019. Even Rudolph Hess is gone now. They will be running out of extremely elderly former Ukranians and Croatians to prosecute as supposed “Nazi war criminals” soon. Maybe the more vocal members of the “alt- right” can take their place. If it’s okay to punch them, it should be okay to try them in court. Not sure of the charges, but what does that matter? They are “Nazis” after all. As Lewis Carroll said, “sentence first, verdict afterwards.”

In fact, in September 2018, a Charlottesville jury essentially gave its stamp of approval to this “punching” craze, when it fined a defendant all of $1 for hitting a “White nationalist.” Jason Kessler had been attempting to hold a press conference in wake of the events at Charlottesville in August 2017, when he was sucker punched from behind by Jeffrey Winder. Emboldened by the jury’s upholding of vigilantism, Winder declared that Kessler “should never be allowed to show his face in town again.” Guess he was upset with that hefty fine.

Videos of “white supremacist” Richard Spencer being similarly sucker punched during a speech, set to riveting music, have been posted online. Proponents of Nazi- punching invoked super heroes like Captain America, especially noted for his Nazi- punching prowess, and Indiana Jones, another fictional foe of these immortal, deadly Nazis. In Hollywood, Nazis never died. Filmmakers continue to lavish negative attention upon them, resulting in horrific performances like Brad Pitt developing some unknown accent while hissing “Natsi” in Quenton Tarrantino’s violently obscene Inglorious Bastards. 

Lovably leftist Mother Jones magazine published an article titled “The Long History of Nazi Punching,” and ParentMap seriously considered the question, “My son wants to punch Nazis- should I let him?” In a Cato Institute survey, while 68% of Americans are apparently still sane enough to disagree that it’s okay to punch a “Nazi,” 51% of self-described liberals thought it was perfectly proper.

Recall that the primary components of the “racist” label firmly attached to Donald Trump are his statements condemning illegal immigrants who had killed Americans, and his refusal to “condemn White nationalism,” whatever that is. The left has been collectively perturbed over this, especially recently. Evidently, if Trump “condemns” this to their satisfaction (an impossibility), then this somehow would….well, not really sure what it would accomplish, but this is identity politics at its finest.

When Trump intimated a while back that there were “good people” among those protesting against Confederate statutes being torn down, it represented the trillionth or so example of modern White racism. Being against the tearing down of historical monuments is “racist,” you see, and almost certainly qualifies those who hold this view as “Nazis,” despite Hitler having nothing to do with the American secessionist movement. In this way, “Nazi” shows itself to be one of the most flexible slurs ever invented, able to circumvent centuries, to be associated with events that took place decades before “Nazis” first appeared on the world stage.

With the invention of “hate speech,” whatever that is, it was inevitable that some views would not be tolerated by our increasingly authoritarian rulers. Flinging “Nazi” at your opponents is fair game, and now apparently punching them is, too. If it’s considered acceptable to just walk up and punch someone because they “offend” you, then we are no longer a civil society. As long as they are “Nazis,” or “racists,” or “neo-Nazis” or “White supremacists,” or “White nationalists,” that is. But don’t shoot a robber- that’s against the law.

Adolph Hitler never had any idea what he created.