There are Nazis walking the streets of America wearing the hat and slogan of the President of the United States. Make America Great Again.
The President and various pundits are trying to diffuse or distract from this by saying, “Well, there are strong opinions on both sides. ALL violence is wrong. I thought liberals were open minded and inclusive.”
I believe in keeping an open mind and listening. I try my best (and often fail) to do that, but I try.
But, to me, the point of listening to someone else’s perspective is to truly understand what they believe and what they want.
We’ve heard what White Supremacists and Nazis want. They want to believe they are superior.
They want to believe they have a right to subjugate people who are different. They mistakenly perceive that equality for all will somehow hurt them and rob them of their identity.
I listened, I understood, and now I disagree and say no. There’s nothing in the Nazi viewpoint that I can meet halfway.
I believe in free speech. Nazis can say what they want. And then we get to respond. Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequence.
It feels very odd to me to post things like this because saying NAZIS ARE BAD AND I DISAGREE WITH THEM seems like saying “the sky is blue” or “A lot of people like Star Wars.” It should just be a given.
But we’re at a point in our history, that it’s not. There are plenty of people who quietly hold these beliefs. So I think it’s important to loudly, repeatedly condemn the beliefs of Nazis and White Supremacists.
I think it’s important to not give them any rhetorical wiggle room. If you march down a public street holding a Nazi flag or NEXT to someone who is holding a Nazi flag, you are unambiguously declaring your ideology. If you defend that ideology as just another perspective or even “economic anxiety,” you are siding with White Supremacy.
And I believe Nazi ideology has not, does not, and will never “make America great.”
Anyway, tl; dr: NAZIS ARE BAD. PRESIDENTS WHO WON’T SAY NAZIS ARE BAD ARE BAD. WE NEED TO KEEP SAYING IT.
