Musk and Trump both went to Penn—now hacked by someone sympathetic to their cause

Social engineering strikes again.

See full article...

 

[YetAnotherPoster]

He's obviously not a Nazi, he's a sparkling fascist from New York.

 

[ARSBodger]

Well, Trump 'says' he attended Penn State and graduated with highest honors. Personally, I'll believe it when I see a certified copy of his full transcript...

 

[luddite1967]

He's obviously not a Nazi, he's a sparkling fascist from New York.

He doesn't really have an ideology. He's in it 100% for himself.

 

[marsilies]

I didn’t write a lot of things I think about Trump. I didn’t call him an autocrat either...

I know, which is another example of the problem, where people are using way too soft terms to describe Trump. If your point about causing him a Nazi is semantic "accuracy", then surely you should use the next-best most critical term of him that you think is accurate, yes?

I think they should call him a fascist if they’re writing about his actions and are willing to bring receipts...

If you still think this is necessary at this point, you're part of the problem.

Your call for more “oomph” is asking journalists to be sensational.

To be clear, I was talking more about why people in general use the term, since your post was written in general, not specifically referring to journalists. If you're fine with people in general calling him a Nazi, but don't think it's "accurate" for journalists, that's another thing.

But the general sentiment, in my view, wasn't specifically about the term "Nazi," but that the article incredibly downplayed what Trump is with the term "polarizing," just as other new articles may use "controversial." Those are seriously weak-sauce terms when referring to someone who is, in your view, a fascist autocrat,

But my criticism [of NYT] is aimed at their direct coverage of his own words and actions. Not what label they attach to him if he’s mentioned in a related but not about him story.

It’s in my mind an important distinction.

What is that distinction? Why should Trump get treated with kid gloves if he's only mentioned in a "related" story? Like, if the story mentioned Hitler, would you think it uncouth to include the word "Nazi" in that story, since the story "isn't about him"? Should Putin not be called an autocrat "in passing"? You need to call them "polarizing" unless the articles are directly about them?

 

[marsilies]

He doesn't really have an ideology. He's in it 100% for himself.

Which is why he's a fascist. "100% in it for himself" describes fascist leaders to a tee.

 

[CatBus]

The primary motivation and driving force behind everything the Nazi's did was antisemitism. That's not really something you can say about Trump. The primary motivation behind Trump is "The enrichment and glorification of Donald Trump".

Fascist is a much better description of him.

I disagree. The motivation of the leadership of fascist movements in general is the pursuit of absolute power (fits Trump). The motivation for their followers is the hatred of a targeted out-group, identified by their leadership (fits MAGA). Scapegoating is a means to rally support, seize power, and maintain it. Although there were many subtle differences, what most distinguished Nazism from other fascist movements in the popular imagination today is the industrial-scale effort put into abducting and detaining scapegoats indefinitely in terror raids, shipping the victims off to inhumane and frequently deadly detention centers outside the view of any outside observers, under the guise of enforcing the law, while in reality offering no semblance of due process to the victims. IMO that will be the lasting historical impression of MAGA as well.

 

[GaryGnu]

The Salesforce database is probably just for fundraising. That's probably all that got hacked.

My firm was contracted there in the late 90's. They had a few of our email addresses like my personal work account and few of the mailing groups for support and accounting and the like. They all received these messages. The last time I had any contact with Penn was 1999. That makes me think that maybe their Salesforce data is for something like sales. It also makes me think they never clear out their data.

 

[zebm]

we hire and admit morons

In response, Penn has called in the FBI and the private company CrowdStrike

It seems the hacker may be right given past coverage of CrowdStrike

 

[GreyAreaUK]

If you still think this is necessary at this point, you're part of the problem.

My thought earlier was that if you've got a government sending masked goons to disappear people, a government deliberately about to cause a horrifying number of people to literally starve, a government that's flat-out murdering people in the ocean based on 'trust me, bro'...if you're arguing about what to call them then, seriously, take a good look at yourself in the mirror.

 

[marsilies]

No, Hitler's antisemitism predated his other goals...

And Trump's racism predates his runs for president. The fact that the leader may legitimately hate the marginalized group they're scapegoating doesn't mean the specific group is a signature feature of fascism/Nazism, and anyone scapegoating a different marginalized group thus can't be considered a Nazi.

Additionally, Trump is pretty antisemitic too, but he's just not calling for their eradication.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_and_antisemitism

 

[Spunjji]

Thank you for replying; it's illuminating in a way that downvotes aren't.

I imagine debates about moral relativity have been going on as long as we've had morals and relatives. I grant that Trump/Musk are objectively fascists because that word's definition spells out the sorts of actions a fascist undertakes. And I grant that Trump/Musk are subjectively heroic, from the perspective of their fanbase.

Here's where the problem comes in. Definition 2 of hero.
"a person who, in the opinion of others, has special achievements, abilities, or personal qualities and is regarded as a role model or ideal."

I can't help but think those two horrible people fit that definition not just technically, but actually because - again - their fanbase is not small and discountable. It's loathsome but I think it's literally true. That definition of hero makes no distinction for what the qualities of that person are.

So, I've defended my linguistic position and (hopefully) reiterated my moral viewpoint that these two guys are revolting. I once again than you for explaining why you disagree with me, and volunteer that I'm done trying to explain my unpopular-and-therefore-probably-incorrect position.

You're correct to say that it's objectively true that a huge number of people consider these jackwads to be heroes, and also correct that the term's inherent subjectivity means that it can be used to describe people who are generally pretty reprehensible. There was an opening in the market for Patron Saint of Internet Shitlords.

I think that because of that subjectivity, it aids clarity to say something like "is a hero to x", wherein we can then insert useful qualifiers such as "obstreperous cretins, virulent racists, and con-artists the world over".

 

[msawzall]

On October 31, Penn was hacked after what the school describes as a “sophisticated identity impersonation commonly known as social engineering.”

The sophisticated identity impersonation:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-LtddOgUCE

 

[Sadre]

An acquaintance was senior faculty in the relevant department at UPenn and Kariko did her stuff there:

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on messenger RNA (mRNA), specifically for their discovery of nucleoside base modifications. This breakthrough was crucial for developing effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19, fundamentally changing how we understand mRNA's interaction with the immune system.

Trump can't be smart enough to have registered this, or is he? Is this exactly the thing he registers? The mRNA Nobel deal delivered a massive anger bolt to trump's ego. He didn't get credit for it. These people did.

Pathology is funky shit, and some researcher is going to try to fully analyze forensically, wtf exactly did "COVID" mean to trump psychologically?

He's not rational, he's impulsive. That makes him a specimen for science, not philosophy.

He sure has hit UPenn hard.

 

[bri2000]

He doesn't wear Nazi symbols but he definitely uses them, and associates with and hires people who wear them openly.

Here's an article about Trump's use of Nazi imagery. It even mentions how his propaganda video from when he was released from Walter Reid was modeled right off one of Hitler's.

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/...e-of-nazi-imagery-indicate-about-his-campaign

His podium has been decorated with modified Nazi imagery, and there was even a swastika-shaped stage at at least one event.

I doubt he is the one choosing the imagery, but he seems perfectly happy to continuously use it and certainly doesn't object to it.

The thing is though, to call him a Nazi, as oppposed to a fascist (which in my view is the more accurate descriptor), you need to be able to point to something he’s doing that was exclusive to the Nazi version of fascism. The type of macho militaristic symbolism you refer to is common to most fascist movements so I don’t believe is in any way dispositive.

The cesspit of actual NSDAP ideology, as those of us who have been required to research it for academic reasons or out of a general desire to be informed will tell you, does not map particularly well to MAGA, or at least not as well as general fascist ideology. The novel elements of the Nazi, as opposed to ‘standard’ fascist, worldview were either specific to the particular situation Germany found itself in post WW1 - e.g. the obsession with the ‘Stab in the Back’ myth and the supposed betrayal of the military by social democrats (and, of course, the Jews; not that Hitler drew much of a distinction between the two groups) more concerned with feeding the general population than fighting to the last man, which has no real parallel in MAGA thought (while many MAGA supporters point to the, at best, pyrrhic victory in Iraq and the Afghanistan debacle as massive wastes of blood and treasure I’ve not heard many say they want a do over) - or derived from Hitler’s personal psychosis e.g. his firm belief that the Jews controlled the entire world and that everything bad that had ever happened anywhere could be laid at the feet of this imagined Jewish conspiracy.

A huge difference between MAGA and the NSDAP is their respective attitudes towards Christianity. This is not just a minor difference in emphasis. Christian nationalism is one of the two main pillars of MAGA ideology. The other being pro white racism.

The Nazis hated Christianity which they viewed as a Jewish conspiracy (Jesus was, after all, ethnically Jewish according to Nazi race laws) to sap the Aryan peoples’ martial spirit by imposing an ‘unnatural’ dogma of mercy and forgiveness (e.g. “The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew.” - Hitler as quoted in the Table Talk). However, the leadership did learn that they had to be careful about expressing these views too stridently in public after the push back generated by the attempts of the Nazis to bring the churches under party control in their first few years in power (the kirchenkampf) with Hitler even making some positive public statements about Christianity for political reasons while indicating in his private remarks that he had simply decided to defer eradication of the churches until the war was over. His own religious views, to the extent he had any, seem to have been the early 20th century equivalent of new age woo as evidenced by his numerous claims to have been chosen by Providence (weird capitalisation as per the official transcripts - I’ve always wondered why fascists feel the need to make everything a proper noun) to lead the German people to its ‘glorious’ destiny.

On the second main pillar of MAGA ‘thought’; while the Nazis took it as a given that non-whites were racial inferiors they were by no means as obsessed with skin colour based racism as the modern US far right. Arguably this was mainly due to the fact that there simply weren’t many non-Jewish ethnic minorities present in interwar Germany and they weren’t clogging up Hitler’s lebensraum in the east. Also Hitler had the idea - although it never really went anywhere outside of some parts of the Middle East and North Africa - that he could weaken the French and British by encouraging idependence movements in India and those parts of Africa and Asia under French or British imperial rule so didn’t want to alienate those ethnic groups. Slavs, who are considered white by most people, were second only to Jews in the Nazi list of racial enemies whereas MAGA seems to feel a disturbingly close affinity with Putin’s fascist pan-Slavic brotherhood (with the Russians in charge) conception of Russia and its neighbours.

 

[sporkinum]

Is the the pedo penn school that covered up abuse by Sandusky?

 

[CatBus]

On the subject of Nazism/fascism and what to call the current political environment:

It should be noted that while much of the world clearly opposed Nazism, most didn't really see it for what it was until it had reached a very, very late stage. The Allies couldn't rally popular support against them until they invaded Poland. Hell, America couldn't rally support against them until their allies attacked Pearl Harbor. Even during the war, they were seen merely as dictatorial madmen with no respect for national borders.

It wasn't until the Allies started liberating the camps that people saw: oh, that's what the Nazis were. I think that points to some of what needs to happen in the future, and is also an indicator of why it may not happen. In the event America is liberated, we need to liberate the camps too, so people can see inside, show it to the world, and know what MAGA was.

But it's not clear (to me) that "the camps" will be in the United States at this time. They'll be in El Salvador, Uganda, etc. We can claim human rights abuses as we do today, but if we can't show our neighbors, friends, co-workers, and schoolmates being led out of those camps, telling tales of the horrors inside with little more than the look in their eyes and the damage to their bodies, then that lesson will not be learned.

So it may take some doing, but whoever succeeds this regime will have a difficult job. They may have to invent some bureaucratic rationale for an international incident to make it work. "It appears that these twenty thousand American residents were deported without a hearing. We will work with the governments of those countries to ensure the return of every one of those residents, so that they can get their hearing. Of course, they may be deported again if we find cause for that during the hearing, that's just how these things work. But we may also grant asylum if we find that they were persecuted or abused." Middle-of-the-road "we're not sure how this is going to turn out or pre-judging anything" stuff. And then they come back and tell their tales...

 

[Pierre B.]

Even while in full denial of being politically motivated the hacker clearly has political-adjacent right-wing, racist opinions aligning with MAGA. You don't need to consciously claim to be MAGA to be MAGA.

 

[azazel1024]

It's the "No True Nazman" defense. It's based on the idea that only people who exactly resemble the Nazi Party in the state they were in in 1944 are the real deal. There was no period in which the Nazi Party was just another street gang without political power, or a period where they had to share political power in a semi-functional democracy, and they were unable to achieve all of their aims. Nope, all that is forgotten. No, nobody is a Nazi until they've literally Blitzed London. Until then, they're merely "controversial."

I would have explained it as Nazism is only from the Nazis region of Germany. Everything else is just sparkling fascism.

(it is also nazism)

 

[Little Sheppy]

He's not a Nazi. He's a terrible human being, a terrible President, definitely has Nazi supporters inside and outside of his administration (Stephen Miller for one)

This feels like a no true Naziman argument.

Is there anything Trump could do that would get you to think calling him a Nazi is correct?

 

[Reaperman2]

Republicans love to pretend they're against "elite" universities. Yet the vast majority of them attended elite universities, and 100% of them send their kids to elite universities. The lie couldn't be more obvious.

Republicans voters are the most easily fooled, deeply stupid rubes on earth.

 

[Aurich]

This feels like a no true Naziman argument.

Is there anything Trump could do that would get you to think calling him a Nazi is correct?

I'm very comfortable with my position that the word Nazi means something, and the way people have been abusing and overusing it is actually deeply problematic.

When Elon Musk made his definitely-a-Nazi-salute on stage he got a tremendous amount of cover from that. He was able to (accurately) say 'oh the left call people Nazis all the time' and hide in the general noise level. That's bad.

If we're doing cute names I'd go with Boy Who Cried Nazi. We over abused it and now nobody is listening when it matters.

I really and truly do not care what people call Trump. I'm not rising to anyone who's baiting me into defending him somehow. Call him a Nazi, fine. But I do care about how we interact with journalism. Expecting journalists to use that word for him is not something I can agree with.

 

[Sajuuk]

I'm very comfortable with my position that the word Nazi means something, and the way people have been abusing and overusing it is actually deeply problematic.

When Elon Musk made his definitely-a-Nazi-salute on stage he got a tremendous amount of cover from that. He was able to (accurately) say 'oh the left call people Nazis all the time' and hide in the general noise level. That's bad.

If we're doing cute names I'd go with Boy Who Cried Nazi. We over abused it and now nobody is listening when it matters.

I really and truly do not care what people call Trump. I'm not rising to anyone who's baiting me into defending him somehow. Call him a Nazi, fine. But I do care about how we interact with journalism. Expecting journalists to use that word for him is not something I can agree with.

He was able to (accurately) say 'oh the left call people Nazis all the time' and hide in the general noise level. That's bad.

Yeah, it is pretty bad that western media is utterly incapable of calling a spade a spade after watching a person swing three obvious spades around on live TV for the inauguration of a US President.

 

[Little Sheppy]

Expecting journalists to use that word for him is not something I can agree with.

So back to my original question, can you describe something that Trump could do where you think it would be appropriate for journalists to label him a Nazi?

 

[Frodo Douchebaggins]

Of course, that’s what brings the money. Cybersecurity is not attractive to students and alumni. There are no homecoming parties or fun tailgating activities in cybersecurity.

Sports are usually money losers for schools, and we all know executives are overpaid.

 

[CatBus]

A huge difference between MAGA and the NSDAP is their respective attitudes towards Christianity. This is not just a minor difference in emphasis. Christian nationalism is one of the two main pillars of MAGA ideology. The other being pro white racism.

The Nazis hated Christianity which they viewed as a Jewish conspiracy (Jesus was, after all, ethnically Jewish according to Nazi race laws) to sap the Aryan peoples’ martial spirit by imposing an ‘unnatural’ dogma of mercy and forgiveness...

I feel like that's more of a difference in labels than a difference in fact. MAGA Christianity also rails against the "unnatural" Christian dogma of mercy and forgiveness. One major MAGA "Christian" leader said "I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy … does a lot of damage."

So it would appear from my POV that MAGA merely decided to keep the trappings and symbolism of Christianity, while rejecting its core principles exactly as the Nazis did. Instead of Christian principles being a Jewish conspiracy, they're now a woke conspiracy (funded by George Soros, no less, if the dog-whistle needs pointing out). Barely a hair's difference between Nazism and MAGA on that point IMO.

On the second main pillar of MAGA ‘thought’; while the Nazis took it as a given that non-whites were racial inferiors they were by no means as obsessed with skin colour based racism as the modern US far right.

Fascist movements go with the scapegoats they can easily find at hand. For Nazis, it was Jews, Slavs, etc. For MAGA, it's Latinos. Either way, it's "Group X is poisoning our blood". And for MAGA, there's still a vast Jewish conspiracy coordinating it all, so the apple didn't exactly fall far from the tree.

I'd say it's not a significant difference in kind, it's more of a natural (and minor) evolution of Nazi thought over a hundred years and the circumstances of operating in a different country.

 

[EnPeaSea]

I really don't think that is fair at all.

The table is presumably a perfectly good table; it can't help who sits at it.

You are allowed to leave the table and never return to the establishment that accepted their custom.

With the Nazis the "racial cleansing" was the end goal.

See Project 2025...

 

[Aurich]

He was able to (accurately) say 'oh the left call people Nazis all the time' and hide in the general noise level. That's bad.

Yeah, it is pretty bad that western media is utterly incapable of calling a spade a spade after watching a person swing three obvious spades around on live TV for the inauguration of a US President.

Plenty of western media did just that actually. It didn't really matter.

I don't think we can blame the media for everything. The narratives these days are not soley driven by media coverage, and tbh probably not even mostly.

Which isn't to say the media is blameless, they're not. Trump has been extremely effective for the last decade in exploiting the weaknesses of journalism. I definitely see your point, and understand where you're coming from.

But I don't think the answer is to simply throw red meat to people craving coverage that agrees with their viewpoint. To add that "oomph".

You're ducking the issue I'm bringing up though, which is that the conversations we have come with some level of responsibility. The Overton Window isn't driven by the New York times. We, as a society, have to own our roles.

 

[HMSTechnica]

I really and truly do not care what people call Trump. I'm not rising to anyone who's baiting me into defending him somehow. Call him a Nazi, fine. But I do care about how we interact with journalism. Expecting journalists to use that word for him is not something I can agree with.

I just want something more accurate than and not meaningless like polarizing. Great Thurnberg is also Polarizing. Abortion is Polarizing. Pineapple on pizza is Polarizing. Polarizing is itself useless as a word to accurately describe who someone is. Rather, ppolarizing is how people react to a person, not how that person acts. So you can keep claiming you don't want him to be called a Nazi (fine). Let him be called a fascist. Let him be called an authoritiaran. Accurately describe who he is and not be toothless and semantically meaningless and cowardly.

Nazi has lost all meaning to you? So has polarizing to me. Please see that and give Nate a better, more accurate word than polarizing. Otherwise you don't get it.

 

[marsilies]

You're ducking the issue I'm bringing up though, which is that the conversations we have come with some level of responsibility. The Overton Window isn't driven by the New York times. We, as a society, have to own our roles.

The Overton Window isn't being driven to the left, it's being driven to the right into fascism and Nazism, so obviously "everyone to the right is a Nazi" isn't prevalent enough to distort the window to the left.

If you're talking in general terms again, and not just about journalists staying technically correct, then saying "Trump's not a Nazi, he's a fascist autocrat who associates with Nazis" is largely a distinction without a difference to most people, but at least you get to scratch your pedantic itch.

 

[42Kodiak42]

Calling Donald Trump a Nazi isn't really an accurate or helpful use of language either though.

He's not a Nazi. He's a terrible human being, a terrible President, definitely has Nazi supporters inside and outside of his administration (Stephen Miller for one), and whenever the day comes that I no longer have to think about him I will pop champagne.

But describing him as a Nazi damages the discourse too. The ugly power of that word has been repeatedly watered down by throwing it around at anyone who's awful. It's becoming generic, like calling someone an asshole.

And that lets people dismiss it. When everyone on the other side of the aisle is a Nazi then the real Nazis get cover for their actions.

Nate is far too good of a journalist to fall into that trap of course.

We're not calling him a Nazi just because he's bad, but because he's a fascist who rose to power by demonizing and dehumanizing minorities, rejecting human rights, suppressing opposition speech, shipping our citizens off to foreign prisons, murdering the civilians of foreign nations with illegal military actions, installing loyalists in our government, I could go on. The fucker even tried to use Charlie Kirk's death as his Reichstag fire, which is especially damning when he didn't give a shit about actual politicians being assassinated or about a school shooting on the same day.

I see where you're coming from, and I agree with the assertion that the label of Nazi shouldn't be thrown around lightly; but I disagree with your observation that people are using it lightly. People are seeing Trump furthering Neo-Nazi goals while installing Neo-Nazis in our government, using events that are near direct analogues to Hitler's rise; so people are calling him a Nazi as a genuine assessment of his actions and see fit to assign him the full gravity of that label. I have no problem calling him a Nazi because he has worked so closely with Nazis and deliberately courted their support and because he appears to be emulating the historic Nazis to the best of his abilities.

And as long as it's being said as an earnest assessment, aware of the gravity of the label, I don't think it's watering it down. The meaning of the term is anchored both by it's historic infamy and by legal thresholds established in countries that needed to create explicit safeguards against their evils. We can also look to another word to see what level of flippant usage is actually necessary for people to stop taking it seriously: "Communist" which took years of Red Scare politics and the deliberate weaponization of the term against work unions and social welfare policies before people began to take it less seriously. I'm not calling some staunch conservative a Nazi, I'm using it on someone who violated our constitution to kidnap and deport my countrymen to foreign prisons run by self-described dictators.

I don't think people need to call him a Nazi; as far as I'm aware he's not a card carrying member of any explicit Nazi groups. And I certainly understand why journalists draw hard, technical lines around such labels. Even though phrases like "most polarizing" don't feel like they carry the appropriate weight on their own, the authors at Ars have a good track record of establishing the magnitude of those sentiments in the body of their articles.

 

[de.in.sf]

Reminder: Nazi = fascist with a sense of style and grandeur.

Clearly America has no Nazis.

 

[Hmnhntr]

Calling Donald Trump a Nazi isn't really an accurate or helpful use of language either though.

He's not a Nazi. He's a terrible human being, a terrible President, definitely has Nazi supporters inside and outside of his administration (Stephen Miller for one), and whenever the day comes that I no longer have to think about him I will pop champagne.

But describing him as a Nazi damages the discourse too. The ugly power of that word has been repeatedly watered down by throwing it around at anyone who's awful. It's becoming generic, like calling someone an asshole.

And that lets people dismiss it. When everyone on the other side of the aisle is a Nazi then the real Nazis get cover for their actions.

Nate is far too good of a journalist to fall into that trap of course.

He has urged his generals to be more like Hiter's generals, and it's reported that Mein Kampf is his favorite book (which he keeps in his nightstand). He has appointed people like Stephen Miller who are definitely Nazis. He uses Nazi rhetoric constantly. I think Nazi may be an appropriate label. He's at least Nazi adjacent.

I don't think it's helpful to be unwilling to call a spade a spade. If people refuse to entertain the label, that sounds like they're the ones not taking it seriously, not me.

 

[Hmnhntr]

Nazis have far transcended being an actual group of people and have just become a mythical group to parody and use for entertainment. It wouldn't surprise me if most Americans think of zombies or movie villains than the actual group. I think Trump/MAGA could be classified as Nazis but that word probably damages the cause because the US completely failed in teaching history, probably because we tried to sweep under the rug that Americans were sympathetic to Nazis for a long time before we entered the war.

Exactly this. No one knows what a Nazi is outside of the uniform and killing Jews. They don't know what their rhetoric looked like, what their rise to power looked like, what their other goals and methods were. So someone can spout Nazi rhetoric, and as long as they don't say something about killing Jews or Hitler, they'll dismiss any comparison.

The Nazis didn't start at the Holocaust. It took years of work to get to that point. And the average person in Germany (heck, even abroad) didn't think it was really happening, or at least that it was being exaggerated, until we found the camps.

EDIT: vershner's comment is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. He says that being a Nazi is only defined by antisemitism, which ignores so much context.

 

[EnPeaSea]

He has urged his generals to be more like Hiter's generals, and it's reported that Mein Kampf is his favorite book (which he keeps in his nightstand). He has appointed people like Stephen Miller who are definitely Nazis. He uses Nazi rhetoric constantly. I think Nazi may be an appropriate label. He's at least Nazi adjacent.

I don't think it's helpful to be unwilling to call a spade a spade. If people refuse to entertain the label, that sounds like they're the ones not taking it seriously, not me.

Hey! I believe Trump when he said he never read Mein Kampf...

he listens to the audio-book version to fall asleep, like his nanny read to him when he was a child.

 

[Hmnhntr]

View attachment 121656

We have a word for fascists.

It’s … fascist.

Is Trump one? I mean, definitely in my eyes, but also in the opinion of people who are much better experts in the topic than me.

I still don’t think expecting journalists to call Trump a Nazi is anything actually helpful.

They’re not the same thing. It seems counterproductive to have a conversation about words mattering and then throw it all out.

That’s what started this particular side thread, that Nate was somehow avoiding calling Trump a Nazi. I don’t agree that it would make us a better publication to do that.

Asking for more "oomph" is asking for people to bend the truth to be sensationalist. That's not how we roll, and it's honestly not the kind of journalism I personally want to read either.

Reportedly, he loves Mein Kampf, urges his generals to be more like Nazi generals, and appoints straight-up Nazis like Stephen Miller. That sure sounds like a Nazi to me.

 

[Sajuuk]

Plenty of western media did just that actually. It didn't really matter.

I don't think we can blame the media for everything. The narratives these days are not soley driven by media coverage, and tbh probably not even mostly.

Which isn't to say the media is blameless, they're not. Trump has been extremely effective for the last decade in exploiting the weaknesses of journalism. I definitely see your point, and understand where you're coming from.

But I don't think the answer is to simply throw red meat to people craving coverage that agrees with their viewpoint. To add that "oomph".

You're ducking the issue I'm bringing up though, which is that the conversations we have come with some level of responsibility. The Overton Window isn't driven by the New York times. We, as a society, have to own our roles.

Oh, tiny outlets sure did, but all the big ones with any cultural clout and readership stopped at awkward.

Anyway, I'm hardly blaming the media for everything here, just, you know, the way they report things. I'm not asking the media to "agree with my viewpoint," I just want them to admit it's raining when there is, in fact, rain. You're right that the Overton window isn't exclusively driven by the NYT, but I imagine you would have to agree that mass media is hugely influential in normalizing and reproducing culture. Like, we didn't have communist black lists because media is ineffective at swaying culture, right?

Ultimately journalism is downstream of society, though, yes. Which is why it's taboo to call Trump a Nazi in the media, but not taboo at all for the exact same institutions to throw around words like Communist, Socialist, and Marxist.

 

[Hmnhntr]

The primary motivation and driving force behind everything the Nazi's did was antisemitism. That's not really something you can say about Trump. The primary motivation behind Trump is "The enrichment and glorification of Donald Trump".

Fascist is a much better description of him.

You know that they didn't only target Jewish people, right? They were one of many targets among others like....gay people, autistic people, trans people, and immigrants. Do any of those sound familiar? Do you even know that they almost wiped out the Armenians? Jews get top billing, but they were far from the only target.

And their primary goal wasn't eradication of the Jews; it was the formation of a purely white "Aryan" nation, in which the eradication of the Jews was but one step. Enriching and glorifying Hitler and other Nazi leaders and supporters was a major part of that regime as well.

Plus. even if it isn't the primary motivation....there's plenty of antisemitism in MAGA. Look no further than the rise in Jewish hate crimes. MTG's rhetoric about "Jewish space lasers". The Right's endless use of George Soros as a scapegoat for everything. The use of the Odval rune, representing racial purity. The references to the (((elites))) in Hollywood, or the money controlling the (((Deepstate))). It's all over the place. They just know they can't shout it from the rooftops in clear terms. Yet.

 

[Hmnhntr]

Oh, tiny outlets sure did, but all the big ones with any cultural clout and readership stopped at awkward.

Anyway, I'm hardly blaming the media for everything here, just, you know, the way they report things. I'm not asking the media to "agree with my viewpoint," I just want them to admit it's raining when there is, in fact, rain. You're right that the Overton window isn't exclusively driven by the NYT, but I imagine you would have to agree that mass media is hugely influential in normalizing and reproducing culture. Like, we didn't have communist black lists because media is ineffective at swaying culture, right?

Ultimately journalism is downstream of society, though, yes. Which is why it's taboo to call Trump a Nazi in the media, but not taboo at all for the exact same institutions to throw around words like Communist, Socialist, and Marxist.

Good point; it's a scandal and "totally inappropriate" to call someone a Nazi, but news on the Right uses the word "Communist" every day to describe basically every politician on the Left. Ever notice that people hold conservatives and liberals/progressives to very different standards? It doesn't hurt the Right to be sensationalist, insulting, or stubborn, but it's a disaster for the Left if they break any level of decorum. Crazy.

 

[Distraction]

MAGA is the Nazi/white Supremacist/White Nationalist party. No matter how they rebrand it, they share the same ideology. The only difference is that the Nazis took things the furthest, so far.

Was anyone surprised that Twitter became the Nazi hangout after Musk took over? Are you still?

Strange how often MAGA followers scream that, “Hitler did nothing wrong!” And that “Trump is God!” In multiplayer games. It’s all over social media, too. They’re not hiding it anymore.

 

[Aurich]

Oh, tiny outlets sure did, but all the big ones with any cultural clout and readership stopped at awkward.

Anyway, I'm hardly blaming the media for everything here, just, you know, the way they report things. I'm not asking the media to "agree with my viewpoint," I just want them to admit it's raining when there is, in fact, rain. You're right that the Overton window isn't exclusively driven by the NYT, but I imagine you would have to agree that mass media is hugely influential in normalizing and reproducing culture. Like, we didn't have communist black lists because media is ineffective at swaying culture, right?

Ultimately journalism is downstream of society, though, yes. Which is why it's taboo to call Trump a Nazi in the media, but not taboo at all for the exact same institutions to throw around words like Communist, Socialist, and Marxist.

Media in the era of communist blacklists was incredibly more powerful and influential than it is now. And, the common person's influence on the discourse was inversely weaker.

I don't think it's really that useful to compare honestly. We live in such a fractured landscape now.

Regardless, I feel like I'm trying to make a very specific point and ending up with people trying to argue with me on things I don't even disagree with. So maybe I'm not stating it well, or maybe it's just not something people really want to hear or talk about given all that's going on. Fair enough.

Stephen Miller is 100% a Jewish Nazi (not a contradiction sadly), and as far as I can tell is the real architect behind the ICE thuggery. Whether or not Trump actually has dementia or not it seems clear to me that the underlings have way more power and sway this time around. Ask me what I think about ICE.

The Heritage Foundation is currently dealing with an internal rift over their president defending a noted white supremacist.

Elon Musk 100% gave a Nazi salute on stage. Was he being an edgelord, secretly signaling people, whatever? I don't care. It was horrific. What's "in his heart" means nothing to me, his actions spoke loudly.

I'm not trying to deny this stuff is real and happening. I don't think Nate made a mistake in his language, people can disagree.