Hacker News Reader

Comment by aisenik | Hacker News Reader

> Worse, on the other side, outraged people abused the term nazi to call out anybody that had a bad behavior. But there is a huge difference between being an asshole and being ready to commit genocide.

> Eventually it means the word nazi lost all of its meaning. And all of its usefulness to defend ourselves.

Do I understand that while the United States is undergoing a radical neonazi revolution lead by the tech industry your take away is that the people who called out the right-wing and tech industry were wrong to do so and bear responsibility for the horrific state of the world?

View on HN

Well, I think so. Because many didn't understand they were fascists too.

The fascism was always in the vast majority of us, if we wanted to look at it. Just look at the structure of our workplaces, which accounts for half our waking lives. There's no free speech in them. With few exceptions, they're intensely hierarchical, people passing orders downward. Those "unlucky" enough to make it inside one of them, often sleep in the nearby alley.

The bizarreness of this form of organization isn't lost on those on top of the hierarchy. They're used to battalions of people doing what they want, and they seek out philosophers who apply this vision to other aspects of life. It wasn't hard; for example, the US had a 4 year king anyway. Usually a warmonger callous to the vast majority of his population.

One problem is "calling out." Name-calling. The current administration is showing direct action, which impresses many who find their lives increasingly intolerable. Many didn't like him, but rather rationally rolled the dice with the change candidate, even if it was probably going to end up as bad change. Like hitting the computer.

Excuse me, I forgot a 'not': Those "unlucky" enough NOT to make it inside one of them

So radical anti-capitalism caused the gambling public to spin the slot machine?

No I'm noting that to fight better we must realize what we did inefficiently and correct course so that we can mobilize more people.

Right now If I discuss the events around me, many are apathetic, because they think I'm exaggerating. Because that's what they have been used to.

And your comment is directing your anger at someone that very likely share a lot of your value system while he was trying to make a self-reflecting point. This is a waste, and it divides us.

When everything is an outrage, the outrage is worth nothing.

And while you are fighting on semantics with potential allies, for virtue signaling no less, the real threat is showing a united front, no doubt, no debate.

No, what you should takeaway is that misoverusing the term Nazi as an insult patently no longer works precisely because noone cares about being called a Nazi anymore due to its misoveruse.

In a different timeline, Trump being called a Nazi or any of the vicinity terms should have been an immediate termination of his campaign chances.

What actually happened is Trump ignored it (as he should) and the American people shrugged "OK" and went to vote for him with complete disregard.

Then Musk got called a Nazi at the inauguration, and the American people shrugged "OK" and went back to facepalming at just how much sheer waste the government has with complete disregard.

The moral you should take away is you should not invoke Godwin's Law. It's probably too late for "Nazi", "racism", "sexism", and a host of other insults the Left have thrown around to see what sticks (none have), but that doesn't mean future originally-valuable-terminology have to face the same fate.

Another moral is that insulting Americans probably doesn't actually work in general. "Deplorables", "Garbage", and others were turned around into rallying cries during the 2016 and 2024 campaigns, not unlike the original meaning behind the term "Yankee" which was originally an insult not unlike "Kraut" or "Jap" but is now one of the fondest nicknames of Americans.

Trump is a neonazi, openly aligned with American white supremacist militias, attempted a violent coup in 2021, and "the American people" who shrugged "OK" are neonazis. It is the inescapable reality of our present moment, and it has been visible for a very long time.

Godwin himself openly endorsed calling Trump a Nazi.

My takeaway is exactly the opposite, that not only were people right to call out radical fascist elements and influences in our society, they (we) were wrong to be cowed.

I sincerely thank you for perfectly demonstrating my point.

The reason why terms like nazi, racist, sexist etc did not affect Trump's chances is because his voting base _does not care_ that he is those things. The right wing in America, magnitudes more than the left, does not care about the personal qualities of their chosen candidate, only about whether he advances their agenda. Why do so many nominal Christians vote for Trump despite him being a cheater, hoarder, and a person who otherwise embodies so many of the qualities the Bible cautions against? It is, again, because they will cook up any number of excuses and denials to justify their support as long as he hurts those they consider the enemy. The only way to make the application of those terms hurt Trump would have been to make the population care about them in the first place (beyond the thinnest veneer of superficial handwringing) which would have required a much stronger education system than America has.

Indeed. The allegation of "racist" has lost its power because people feel free to be openly in favor of racism again.

> Another moral is that insulting Americans probably doesn't actually work in general. "Deplorables", "Garbage", and others were turned around into rallying cries during the 2016 and 2024 campaigns...

It depends on the insult; sometimes that doesn't work. One of the purest expressions of joy I've seen in politics was Scott Adams (Dilbert guy) back in 2019 analysing [0] a group of anti-Trumpers trying to rally around being called "human scum". He had a lot of interesting things to say back then about the art and science of persuasion.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_3HGjAVv0M 1:30 to 7:30

Direct link to segment: <https://www.youtube.com/embed/1_3HGjAVv0M?start=90&end=450>

So, Americans were insulted by being called Nazis and in true progressive fashion decided to reclaim the term and, well, embrace it?

Cool - it’s nice that you say this is an American trait. I was almost about to say that this entire setup was manufactured to pit Americans against each other, weaponising victimhood and identity, with the complicity of legacy media and big tech. And out of the three players in this game - the ‘left’/‘libs’, ‘right’/‘conservatives’ and the billionaire fascists up top pulling the strings, only the billionaires stand to win.

If this had been true, Musk and other far right people wouldn’t have tried to defend Musk’s nazi salute. But they did.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com