Political Ideology

The Nazi Narratives Helping Conservatives Sleep At Night

/ MeltdownMessiah / 1 Comment

Conservatives sure do have a knack for claiming (accurate) accusations of Nazi parallels in their policies are hyperbolic while distorting historical facts to make (flimsy) accusations of Nazi comparisons with their opponents. What’s truly impressive is that they also do an excellent job of turning an aggressively blind eye to blatant Nazi corollaries.

The Weimar Republic, before 1933, was exceptionally progressive in many ways, even by today’s standards. Germany had been a global example of what we would consider LGBTQ+ inclusion. It was where, in the 1920s, the first Transgender magazine was published, and where some of the world’s first medical transitions were performed. These, and other factors, led to Berlin becoming a beacon for the global LGBTQ+ community.

All of that changed as Nazi control spread and ultimately dominated the political realm in Germany. Suddenly, Transgender women’s gender identities were denied, and they were treated as men acting out some perverse impulse or displaying some manner of mental illness. Additionally, homosexuality was treated as a crime, and the punishments were frequently more severe for those who engaged in what was categorized (at the time) as transvestitism.

While there were distinct differences in how Gay and Transgender people of persecuted ethnic/cultural groups were treated when compared to Gay and Transgender Aryans, there remained an overarching atmosphere of suppression and repression throughout the regions where the Nazis assumed control. Gay men and Transgender women were met with bigotry, intolerance, and hostility (regardless of Aryan status). But those who fit the narrow, White Nationalist aesthetic were often afforded certain leeway, as long as they kept their indiscretions quiet and hidden.

This, of course, did not mean that they were safe. There was ample State-Sanctioned hostility and violence directed toward those marginalized groups, and in particular, those who remained open about who they were by engaging in relationships or gathering in public. And, while Aryan Gays and Transgender people weren’t immediately sent to Concentration Camps, the imprisonment they experienced was far from humane, and the legal rights they were afforded often seemed more performative and conditional than legitimate.

The Nazi State’s assessment of Transgender individuals was neatly summed up in 1938 with the following sentiment: “Their asocial mindset, which is often paired with criminal activity, justifies draconian measures by the state.”

This was a massive departure from the previous German Government, which had allowed Transgender people to legally change their names, form their own organizations, and even receive gender-affirming medical treatments. Those changes came quickly. In 1933, Officials in Hamburg passed along the following dictate: “Police officials are requested to observe the transvestites, in particular, and as required to send them to concentration camps.”

Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science was quickly dismantled, and Hirschfeld himself was sent into hiding. And that was emblematic of those times for anyone who was part of what we recognize as being LGBTQ+ today. They were forced to hide who they were or face State-Sanctioned persecution.

Naturally, now that an ostensibly Transgender person perpetrated a school shooting, there’s talk at the highest levels of American Government of restricting access to firearms for individuals who don’t identify as the gender they were assigned at birth. Never mind that the vast majority of these crimes are committed by straight, white, cisgender males.

Of course, any time Democrats seriously propose firearm legislation (which never involves disarming gun owners), disingenuous Conservatives start claiming any efforts tangentially related to gun control are evidence that “The Left” is behaving like Nazis, who they insist had disarmed the German population before taking over. But as is true every time we hear Conservatives talking about the past, their arguments are ahistorical at best.

They’re right in saying that the Nazi Party implemented rigid gun control measures, but where they’re entirely incorrect is that the gun control was selective and that there were established regulations already in place.

Following WWI, the Weimar Republic had originally attempted to ban firearms altogether, in large part to comply with the Treaty of Versailles. But that legislation had been both massively unpopular and poorly enforced, and those restrictions had been relaxed by 1928, when permitting and registration took the place of the attempted ban.

But by 1935, the Nazis had largely succeeded in using those registration records in an effort to remove from (and restrict firearms for) Jewish people and members of opposing political parties. Of course, this only included the guns that had been registered, and there were many (purchased both before and since WWI) that had never been. Regardless of this, even if every citizen in Germany had been a proud gun owner, there would have been no chance of standing up against the might of the State by the time the Nazis seized control.

By 1938, the Nazi Party relaxed or outright removed firearms restrictions for Party Members, Government Workers, and those with Hunting Permits. Of course, all of those people had one thing in common, in that they were not the kinds of people the Nazis were targeting. In fact, they went so far as to outlaw the ownership of any weapons by Jewish people (and not just firearms). They were already systematically raiding the homes and businesses of Jews and Political Opponents, confiscating weapons from those people.

The Nazis utilized existing firearm registration records in Hungary, Poland, and France as a means of strategically confiscating guns from undesirables as they advanced into those nations as well.

It should perhaps come as no surprise that the Nazi Party wasn’t particularly fond of homeless people. Like Gay and Transgender individuals, homeless people were branded as “asocial,” and were afforded the same lack of liberty as others branded as such. The Nazi solution to homelessness went into effect almost immediately, and in 1933, the mass arrests started. This process was accelerated as the 1936 Berlin Olympics approached, because the Nazis wanted to present a clean facade for the visitors from other nations.

Soon enough, it wasn’t just homeless people, but anyone unemployed or begging, prostitutes, as well as drug addicts. Anyone deemed to be unsavory in the public eye was summarily rounded up. Persecution, sterilization, and one-way trips to Concentration Camps awaited anyone unfortunate enough to fall outside of the strict social norms imposed by the Nazi Party.

To maintain that social order, armed and uniformed political and military forces patrolled the streets wherever the Nazis were in control, not only in the territory taken through conflict, but in the cities of Germany as well. These police actions served to intimidate the population, suppress political opposition, and all but eradicate civil unrest of any kind. I suspect it’s unsurprising that Party Leadership was thrilled to proclaim the low crime rates they’d achieved.

It took until 1935 for the Nuremberg Laws to go into effect, at which point all Jewish and Roma people were stripped of their German citizenship. Before Kristallnacht, the Nazis focused on the forced deportation of Jewish people, but by 1941, those avenues of escape were officially blocked. The Roma people were classified as enemies of the State and treated as criminals as soon as the Nuremberg Laws went into effect.

If this doesn’t sound familiar to you, then you haven’t been paying attention. And if it sounds familiar, and you agree with any of it, maybe you should just accept that you might have been a Nazi as well. My recommendation is that you own it. Wear that title proudly, because they certainly did. Plus, as a bonus, it will make it easier to round you up when the next iteration of the Nuremberg Trials comes about.

You may notice that, aside from some pretty awful policies the Liberals have employed regarding homeless people, and the abhorrent treatment of Indigenous people, none of these things run parallel to any Liberal Administration within our lifetimes. I suppose it makes sense that members of the KKK and NeoNazi groups have been showing up at rallies for Conservative Candidates, because they’re not thrown out of those gatherings.

Adding Some Identity To Identity Politics

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I would like people to dedicate some time and energy to self-reflection and evaluation of what they sincerely believe, as opposed to what they’ve been conditioned to accept. It would be unfair of me to ask that without sharing some things I’ve managed to discover in my own extensive intervals of self-assessment, if only because I suspect more people see things similarly to how I see them than I’ve typically assumed to be the case. I’ve spent a fair amount of time discussing diverse aspects of Politics and the shortcomings of various Political Figures as well. In doing all of that, I’ve still provided little regarding my own Political Ideology. Some elements of it, of course, are clear through inference, but to engage in any kind of authentic and intellectually honest discourse, I need to provide something more than I have already.

When I turned 18 and registered to vote, I did so as a Communist. I thought it was amusing, considering the lingering stigma still prevalent in America during the late 1990s. I registered as a Communist despite not being a Communist. I’d read the works of Marx and Engels; I was even familiar with the philosophies of Antonio Gramsci and Vladimir Lenin. I had read the work of Noam Chomsky and thoroughly agreed with much of it. But still, I was not a Communist when I turned 18 and registered to vote as one. I agreed with the underlying philosophy, but I considered it to be hopelessly naive. I was raised Catholic, and was familiar with many of the major writers from Church history, and Communism, to me, resembled Sir Thomas More’s Utopia in many respects. Much like More’s Utopia, a Communist Society struck me as being a fanciful thing that could exist only in fiction. Capitalism, after all, is not going anywhere.

Years later, I changed my voter registration to Independent.

Yet again, years after that, I switched my registration to Democrat, which is where it remains. Much like when I was registered as a Communist, I’m not really a Democrat either. Of the two major parties in American Politics, I feel that the Democratic Party more closely aligns with my personal politics, but it also ranges far afield in several ways.

I’ve cast my ballots for Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Green Party Candidates, and Independents over the years. I rarely based my decisions on Party Affiliation, but on the individual and what I could discern of their platform and previous voting record (if available). This is to say that I’ve never been one to assume that one’s Political Party is the best metric by which to judge them.

Personally, I think that (as a whole) we need to stop thinking of everything in terms of Left or Right, Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal. Breaking away from the illusory binary system of partisan politics would benefit us all. We could focus on the issues that matter to us individually. and the individuals who align with us on those issues, as opposed to the Party that we believe will align with and uphold our personal political ideals. Partisan Politics forces people to adhere to monolithic thinking as opposed to independent thinking. Partisan Politics encourages groupthink and “in vs. out group” mentalities that are ultimately more harmful than they ever could be beneficial. That way of thinking erases Cognitive Processing from the voting process. It nurtures the laziness required to simply look for a candidate conveniently marked with a D or an R, and to put no further thought into the consequences that might be tied up in blindly endorsing someone based on Party Affiliation.

In my ideal version of the American political system, individuals seeking office would need to provide a detailed checklist: indicating where they stand on the most salient issues, how they intend to act on behalf of the interests of those who support them, and what their priorities are. They would have to actively think about the issues, arrive at solutions, and propose those solutions as a platform. You see, it’s not simply the voters who have checked their brains at the door when it comes to American Politics; the people we’re voting for are guilty of doing the same thing. Politicians assume (often rightly so) that their Party Affiliation will guarantee the votes of a particular cross-section of the voting demographic.

This, I must admit, is one of the reasons I’ve remained registered as a Democrat for the last few years. The Democratic Party, more so than the Republican Party, is a large tent. There’s none of the blind obedience to Party Affiliation that we see on the Republican side of the American Political Spectrum. That’s why “Vote Blue, No Matter Who” became a rallying call from the establishment Democrats, because they knew it wouldn’t happen. The problem with having a large tent is that there’s more diversity in not only cultural and ethnic backgrounds, but also in political ideologies. There are Democrats who are barely distinguishable from Republicans, and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, there are Social Democrats (or Justice Dems). This leads to a dichotomy within the one party that is actually greater than the dichotomy between the two major parties. Republicans, of course, should be thrilled by this. It gives them an advantage that they otherwise don’t have. As far as voter registrations are concerned, there are roughly ten million more registered Democrats than Republicans. If Democratic voters and politicians were as willing to conform to the will of party leadership, there would quite possibly never be any Republicans in the White House. The same would be true if the Electoral College didn’t exist, which gives voters in Wyoming more individual weight in their votes than those in California. If we’re being honest, it’s the equivalent of DEI Policies (as Republicans have misunderstood them) applied to rural voters.

I don’t believe either Major Party in America is anywhere near upholding the basic standards I expect from a Democratic Government, and the smaller parties are ultimately non-entities (with ineffectual leadership) that have no chance of overcoming the chokehold the Republicans and Democrats have in place. So, while I am most assuredly not a Democrat, it just so happens that Democrats more closely align with my principles and acknowledgement of our shared reality. The importance of a shared reality is something you’ll see again.

In an ideal America, it wouldn’t just be the Political Parties that disappear. There would be no more campaigns and no advertisements. We could host public debates wherein the contenders could challenge their opponents, and they would be forced to defend their premises. They would be moderated and fact-checked, and intellectual dishonesty (as well as the more traditional dishonesty) would not be tolerated.

When it came time for the election, the voting public would be provided with a list of candidates and their platforms, and they would use ranked choice ballots to cast their votes. There would be no Electoral College to manipulate the outcome in favor of land over people. The people who express concerns over the Tyranny of the Majority never seem to have those concerns if/when they are in the majority, so what’s good for the goose is what’s good for the gander, as they say.

The Elected Officials would then be expected to act according to the platform they proclaimed, or they could be removed by a vote of no confidence. No more towing a party line and no more threats of being primaried, and less impact from gerrymandering bullshit. I’m sure it would be harder on all of us. We might have to become informed voters, and politicians might have to work for the votes they receive and display a little bit of integrity. But we would be a better and more functional society for it. For purely personal reasons, I would take delight in the fact that much of the perceived and actual bias in the Media would disappear because there would be no explicit party lines to adhere to, and we could expect the Fourth Estate to fulfill its purpose of holding those in power accountable.

My perspective on politics may seem complicated (even convoluted), but that’s a byproduct of navigating the needlessly problematic nature of our modern political environment and the dialogue surrounding it. Were we not forced to maneuver our way through a quagmire of obfuscation, double-think, manipulation, and outright fabrications, I suspect many of us would have substantially pared-down stances on most matters.

What I mean to say is that, in all reality, my politics are simple and straightforward.

My ideology boils down to one single principle: that the role (and purpose) of the Government in any Democratic Society is to provide for the Common Good and Common Defense of the People. I’m essentially a believer in Utilitarianism, in that I believe the Guiding Moral Principle of any Democratic Government should be, “The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number.” Hand-in-hand with that, I believe in minimizing harm at the societal level, with a focus on justice and human rights.

That’s it.

That is the basis of my underlying political identity.

How it manifests is just as simple. The Rights and Liberties of each Individual should be respected and protected, and it is the responsibility of the Government to guarantee that they are. And where Conflict arises between one or more individuals, it’s the purpose of the Government to ensure that the negative impact on the individuals and on society as a whole is minimized.

I recall a conversation with my oldest two children around the time Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. I told them that if they encounter a scenario in which one group is forcing others (not part of their group) to live as if they are part of that group, then there is a clear indication that they are wrong. Whether certain people want to accept it, that’s the most common method by which one group inflicts harm on others. I’ll return to the topic of inflicting harm again shortly.

If I do not believe what you believe, you do not have the right to tell me that I must behave as if I accept your beliefs in place of my own. I also do not have the right to impose my beliefs upon you. That seems simple enough, and one would think we could all agree with that as a solid substrate upon which to build a social structure. Unfortunately, there are large groups of people who believe they should have the right to dictate to others what they are entitled to think and how they’re allowed to behave, based on their beliefs.

This applies to many things in our current political climate, in which everything from science to math has been transformed into a political football. Belief in scientific and professional consensus is not a political stance, but a practical one based on centuries of methodology and increased understanding of the world around us.

When Law Enforcement Statistics, collected and collated from all parts of the Nation, indicate that Immigrant Communities (including those with large numbers of Undocumented Immigrants) are less likely to be plagued with violent crime, it’s not subject to interpretation. This is especially true when one considers just how entrenched White Supremacy happens to be. Systemic Racism is a thing, and decades of data back that up. So, even with an implicit bias against Ethnic Minorities, the numbers supplied by Law Enforcement Agencies across the board show that crime and criminality are not correlated with Immigration or the presence of Immigrants. You don’t get to say otherwise without supplying equally valid and unassailable facts to reinforce your statements.

How you feel about a topic doesn’t impact the reality of a thing. If you claim that reality is other than what has been well-documented and proven, you are either misinformed or lying. What you are not entitled to is a difference of opinion, because we’re not talking about opinions.

When the overwhelming consensus of well-educated and established biologists, doctors, and psychologists explains that biological sex is not binary and that it is not the same thing as gender identity, you don’t get to come back with what you learned in Elementary School as an equally valid viewpoint. You should know by adulthood that the deeper you look into a thing, and the more research and study you perform, the more detailed and complicated the picture of that thing becomes. That is true for every field of science and life in general. Whether it upsets your rudimentary comprehension of something is irrelevant.

Now, I suppose I am operating under the assumption that people have learned something throughout their lives, whether that was a foreign language or something relating to their career fields, but in everything, we begin with the simplest, surface-level knowledge, and then we drill down and expand on those things. People dedicate years of their lives to studying these topics for a reason, because the better we understand them, the better equipped we are to navigate the universe in which we live.

We inhabit a shared reality, and whether you like it or not, we are subject to all of the same natural laws and principles. The sooner everyone chooses to get back on board, the sooner we can begin moving forward instead of standing still and wasting time attempting to negotiate on things where there’s no negotiation to be done. It’s not elitist for an expert to state that they know more about a subject than you do. They’re an expert for a reason.

One’s inability to understand something doesn’t make it fictional.

It’s well past time for us to stop entertaining lies, willful ignorance, and outright stupidity as a valid point of view. All perspectives are not equal, and do not share equal footing.

A trained pilot is going to do a better job of flying a plane than someone who played Microsoft Flight Simulator a couple of times.

A trained surgeon is safer to have in the operating theater than someone who played Operation a lot when they were growing up.

A chemist is better suited to break down what a substance is made of than someone who spent a few years cooking meth in their kitchen.

A physicist can tell you more about the universe than a self-help guru who overheard some people talking about quantum mechanics one afternoon in a restaurant.

Teams of scientists from diverse fields studying the data are better suited to tell us whether climate change is happening, if it is accelerating, how much impact human beings have on it, and whether it is dangerous and potentially deadly than someone who watches The Weather Channel a lot.

The consensus of medical doctors and researchers, psychologists, and pediatric specialists is better suited to determine what’s in the best interests of your child’s health and well-being than you are. This is true, no matter how much you love your child. And that absolutely includes vaccinations.

I know a fair amount about a good many things. I’ve been an avid reader since early childhood, and that included college textbooks while my mother was studying to become an English teacher, with a minor in psychology. I read a lot, and I frequently go down research rabbit holes in the process. My career as a Journalist (and Author) requires that I dedicate time to researching even topics that aren’t of any particular interest to me. And yet, even with all I know, I’m inclined to defer to the experts on matters for which they happen to have expertise. I’m going to briefly dismiss some of my false humility and the tendency to second-guess and doubt myself for long enough to say that I’m probably smarter than several of the people who might read this. I’m not being arrogant or self-aggrandizing, and it makes me feel a little bit dirty saying what I just did, but it needed to be said, that (as smart as I might be) I still choose to trust the consensus opinions of experts unless what they’re saying literally makes no sense (and that is seldom the case).

It may hurt your feelings to hear that you aren’t some brilliant and special savant who knows more about everything than the actual experts, but there’s only room for one Donald J. Trump in this world. And he’s already certain that he knows more about every subject under the sun than anyone else ever has. And, unfortunately, like Mr. Trump, you aren’t Will Hunting, because he was a fictional character. Neither you nor Mr. Trump will be impressing the MacArthur Foundation.

And while your feelings and ego might be hurt by that, it’s nothing compared to the actual harm you cause when you refuse to accept reality and grow the fuck up. This is where the second part of my political philosophy comes into play. We must ask who is being harmed by opposing sides of any discourse that’s taking place.

Who is harmed by the respectful acceptance and freedom for LGBTQ+ people to be who they are or to love who they love?

I can’t think of anyone being harmed by those things, and especially not when compared to the harm that is done by ostracizing and taking rights away from them. Does it, in some way, hurt non-LGBTQ+ people that those people exist? Is their very existence somehow threatening to people who are not part of the LGBTQ+ Community?

Is it hurting children to allow books into our schools and libraries that provide representation that reflects lived experiences that are familiar to them? As a child, would you not want to see reflections of yourself or those you love in the media made available to you?

Does it harm our children to expose them to the reality that a world of experiences, both cultural and individual, exists outside of their limited–but expanding–worlds? I would argue that it’s far more harmful to insulate them and raise them in a way that they’re subjected to discomfort or cognitive dissonance when they are later exposed to people and cultures unlike their own. That primes them to cause conflict, intentional or not. And I have to ask, who does that conflict benefit?

Does permitting abortions hurt the people who oppose the medical practice?

I fail to see any way in which it’s harmful to anti-abortion proponents when a woman and her doctor (and sometimes her partner) make the decision to go through with the procedure. I do see a great deal of harm inflicted upon the women (and girls) who are forced to go through with pregnancies that are either unwanted or unviable. In this case, it seems like a clear-cut answer, that only one side is actively choosing to harm other people and infringe upon their rights. Using bumper sticker simplicity, if you oppose abortion, don’t fucking have one.

This same thinking can be applied to virtually every topic we think of as being Political, and the reality is that only one end of the albeit limited spectrum of American Politics is invested in harming other people. Mostly, that harm is focused on marginalized groups: women, the LGBTQ+ community, ethnic minorities, cultural minorities, religious minorities, and so on. So, while I don’t believe that either Major Party has our best interests at heart, I will say that only one of them is actively opposing our Freedom and the Rights we’re presumably granted by the Constitution, which is intended to enshrine them.