I wonder if the Germans felt like we do when Hitler was coming to power. A disbelief that normal people could be so evil, and then horror when it was somehow legitimized.
When I was growing up, I always thought it was like 80% of Germany that believed in the whole white-super-man, but maybe it was 20%, or maybe less.
I just can’t believe that half of America approves of what’s going on. I can’t believe that 20% is so mad that the immigrants that they want to put them in Auschwitz style cages.
I wonder if all Americans are going to be branded something like “Nazi” like the Germans were.
Well, they branded themselves. Trump is following Hitlers playbook, sometimes to the letter. Do you now understand why Republicans want only a sanitized version of history taught at schools?
Anyone who got taught about Nazi Germany and how it came to pass noticed the signs long ago. They are blaringly obvious it you know what to look out for.
They branded themselves as maga. That name will stay forever.
So… Magas?
Yes, but I think the point is that all Germans were tarred with that brush for years, for their tacit support of the regime. It’s the same in America at the moment. MAGA has corrupted politics and while many don’t agree, they don’t stop it. We’re all the builders of alligator aushwitz maga, or just workers that took money to make a concentration camp? That’s just a recent example.
48 year old German here. My grandparents were born in the 1920s. Here’s what they told me about Hitler’s regime.
In the 1920s, life in Germany was pleasant, so the Nazis didn’t get all the support they needed because their fearmongering didn’t work very well.
Then, the Black Friday crisis hit Germany hard. Harder than any other European nation. Huge unemployment, a lot of discontent and desperate people. The Nazis used that to their full advantage - many people fell for them, but still not the majority of Germans.
So my grandparents still didn’t take them that seriously. Even those Germans who knew what the Nazis had planned couldn’t believe they would really do it. Try imagining living in 1932. If someone told you about WWII and 6 million dead in concentration camps, would you really have been able to take that seriously?
Then, suddenly, Hitler came to power. Still, not the majority of people supported him - but it took mere weeks to take away all their civic rights, their right to protest, their right not to be detained without due process, their right not to be surveilled, their right to live in a home the police can’t raid without reason. It all happened too quickly.
So they all became afraid - VERY afraid. And too many of them minded their own business, after all, if they were law abiding citizens, what did they have to fear, they thought.
The famous quote by Martin Niemöller illustrates it:
First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for meThe bottom line is this - at no time during the entire Nazi regime were there enough people in Germany who could and would put up the resistance necessary to stop the Nazis. But there were always lots of people opposed to them, but intimidated into being silent.
We’re at the point where people who are white and wealthy are not being intimidated. They are not resisting. There will come a time where resistance is dangerous. Then it’s too late.
The white Democrat is how we got here… It was always a snake
They’re not resisting because they profit from the regime. Same happened in Germany back then - industrialists were in favor of Hitler all the time because it meant no trade unions and a shitload of business from the state.
How do you expect us to stop it?
By not voting in Nazis. The people here are politically motivated and likely already voted for not-trunp, but did they volunteer, door knock, fund drive etc. We’ve all seen this coming for years. It’s exhausting to constantly fight it. We need to, globally.
Unfortunately, many are disengaged and are not prioritising politics. People are avoiding difficult conversations with racist family members. People are not forcing their non Nazi representatives to close the loopholes that caused this.
Would I do different? I don’t know. I hope so, but I can see how it’s hard. I have a family member who is quite liberal and started expressing some racist views. I was quite taken aback and have only pushed a little. It was enough that they don’t express then any more. But, could it be they just don’t express then to me?
I think this comment captures it best. Nazi’s in the 1930s to 1950s were a very specific group of people and Hitler was essentially just their leader until he became somewhat of a fascist dictator. But let’s not forget, for instance, Mosley, who was a British politician advocating for fascism.
But the term ‘nazi’ has a very clear definition and I think maga would be a good counterpart.
Nazi, NSB’er, fascist, these are all just terms. Maga’s would now be the term for the supporter of undemocratic regime. Whether they are the same kind of fascists as nazi’s, well…
I think it’s more important not to compare the groups. It does not go beyond supporting a regime that actively oppresses by making promises based in populism. Can you really blame people for electing someone who yells they will make the world better for you, specifically? Whether they will make the world more horrible for others is irrelevant at that point.
So in short: depending on the outcome of all of this, I think the Americans that have supported this regime will be branded in their communities for life, but only if they’re open about it. I think in Nazi Germany there must’ve been some people who, in 1933, agreed with a lot of stuff Hitler said (and to be fair to them, Germans lived horrible lives due to penance for WWI and Hitler vowed to do something about it, oh and also the Jews are at fault for your misery) but by 1939 perhaps they felt uneasy about what was going on.
There are quite a bit of Americans who already feel Leopards Ate Their Face with what’s going on.
I prefer MAGAts, it’s an insult they can wrap their puny brains around.
…What does it mean? I swear I’m not maga.
It just sounds like maggot, which is an apt descriptor imo
Ever notice how people will use any word but Republican when talking about Republicans? It is not an accident.
At the very least, the white trash version of the nazis.
All the nasty but dressed in plastic
Yes.
Most people are busy surviving - in the USA and in other places as well. I am one of them, sitting in a relatively safe Europe that is not entirely overrun by nazis (just yet). 90 years ago it were my family members in Germany - while things gradually got worse for some citizens they still had to go to work, feed their kids, pay the rent. They were branded as nazis after they lost the war. Before the war they were just citizens of a country gradually sliding into authoritarianism, just like the USA is now.
When I read headlines about Israel and USA I feel some angry disbelief that this horror reaches me as a normal sounding news headline - like something I should just listen to and get vaguely annoyed about, not something that makes my heart feel rotten and my brain boil, not something that makes me want to take up arms and fight for what makes us humans instead of monsters. But then I have to think about rent and food again, and everybody around me does the same. So here we are - letting things happen because we are busy surviving, and because the media makes what’s happening sound like just another headline.
“fortunately” it’s not half of Americans, it’s half the voting population considering “did not vote” would win almost EVERY SINGLE ELECTION if it were a candidate.
I like to think more people actually care about this stuff, but are too fucking lazy or can’t be bothered to miss one episode of “The Real Life Of Some Fake Jackass” to go vote… Hopefully one day… But I doubt it.
There’s also those who did everything in their power to vote but had their suffrage effectively revoked by the efforts of the Republican party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_United_States
Give them a reason to vote and they will.
Republicans gave 77 million people a reason to vote for Trump… the 2nd time around… after a global pandemic.
The reason to vote is a civic duty and making your life better/society better.
Fuck people waiting for some saint to come.
Never designed something have you? Moral arguments only work on some people, and they probably voted. Everyone else needs incentive.
Yup. Do it because I said so will work on some people. But not enough people to get a Democrat in office.
People are tired. They don’t see an incentive or a reason. That’s not a voter problem. It’s a problem for whoever wants them to vote for a specific person.
There’s also those that follow the religion of anti-electoralism/accelerationism that knowingly choose a course of action that will move the government to the Right far enough that it forces a violent revolution. All of the people who are oppressed and murdered along the way don’t matter, as long as they can keep trying to make something, which has no supporting evidence of occurring in history, occur.
People have been getting oppressed and murdered all along…
This shit didn’t start with trump, he is just an opportunist who ceased the day. People trying to pretend this is fluke are in denial how the regime was structured and who the current crop of rolling oligarchs are.
Time to stop this was 40, 30, 20 years ago when the seeds were planted but people who were voting back then aka Boomers are bootlickers and they went along with it. Ruined the country for future generations.
But sure if only non voters voted for kamala… America would be saved🤡
And there we have the exact reason these kinds of brain rot shows exist. Entertainment is meant to keep the stupid populous from forming an opinion on current affairs. This way, the only actual voters are well-informed and politicians can represent those who actually know things.
Except somehow populism circumvents this and is a lot more effective, unfortunately.
possibly, my history class never went in depth about topics like this but the history telling of it def made me think ALL germans were nazis so it might depend on how the story is told to the individual
America has two types of citizens. Naive and the Nazis.
I disagree. I’m educated, prepared, and ready to get me my Nazi scalps.
And I want my scalps.
They already are. Americans are the stupid Nazis and Israelis are the actual Nazis.
The world hates both; the only reason you don’t see many coming forward is because Israel is paying off the world to ignore their crimes, while the world is just trying to wait out the Trump presidency in hopes that there will actually be a next election.
I think that hope is far fetched. I doubt we will see fair midterms. I genuinely think the USA is done. Balkanization is expected to occur shortly after the realization hits that the elections are all a sham. About 2-4 years from now.
The Americans flying swastikas ?
The American doing hiel hitlers ?
The Americans treating other sovereign nations as personal resources ?
The Americans building concentration camps ?
The American subverting elections with violence ?
I guess only time will tell.
Only on lemmy
Why would that be? I’m seeing this discourse all over the web. Unless you only browse Lemmy?
Thankfully I have a good habit of blocking people advocating for slavery. Fuck off.
Who the fuck is doing that 😂 Unhinged.
