Based on my previous article on German Lives Matter, I think some clarifications are in order. Some people took as the main message the following:
“It’s just scapegoating.”
The Nazis scapegoated the Jews. The Left scapegoats whites. So therefore, the essential similarity is scapegoating, right?
No, no no. Scapegoating is nothing new, and there is zero persuasion power in simply saying “scapegoating.” Not a single leftist will be moved by that. The fundamental similarity between the GLM and the progressive left is that they both claim that a certain group/race is systemically racist, and benefit from a system of white/Jewish supremacy and privilege.
Think about it: all your life you have heard the silly story that the Nazis were racist and scapegoated the Jews. What you have never heard is that the Nazis specifically thought that the Jews were racist against Germans. The Nazis were not merely German Supremacists, they also believed that the Jews were an enemy within who believed in their own supremaccy and used a system of capitalism to exploit and oppress the German people.
You have never ever heard this description of the Nazis before because that is the way they described themselves, and you have always only heard the charicature description of the left. The term “Nazi” wasn’t even their own, but a derogative term used by others to describe them.
Thus, if you think that the similarity between the GLM and the radical left is that they both scapegoat others, then that misses the whole point. The similarity is that both were anti-racist.
Throughout history you have always found demonization of the Other. Tutsi vs Hutu etc. This is just normal human history. Humans are tribal, and that involves viewing your own group as supreme and other tribes as enemies who can be demonized. Nothing new there.
The difference between Nazism and just your ordinary tribalism is the notion of the enemy within. That is, the Other tribe wasn’t living in another country. It wasn’t England vs Spain, or France vs Germany, but rather one group of citizens in Germany vs another group of citizens. That is a narrative that is much closed to Marxism than to mere tribalism. The Nazis were cultural/racial Marxists.
“It’s just about labeling”
Labeling is important, but the narrative I am proposing here is not merely to call the other side “Nazis.” Conservatives are idiots and they don’t understand that this type of labeling mostly only work on them, because they are good people. It doesn’t work on leftists, for the same reason that a critique of Nazism by a Jew doesn’t work on the Nazis. You are the wrong race, and therefore no amount of labeling will work.
The people who are persuaded by the left are trapped inside a movie — a narrative created by the radical left. This is a form of hypnotic state, which makes them deranged. It is a very powerful psychological technique and impossible to reason them out of. There is only one way to break people out a deranged narrative: an equally strong counter-narrative.
That is, it is not sufficient to say that the left are essentially Nazis. One needs to tell the story of the GLM and show how they were fundamentally anti-racist, seeking racial justice against an oppressing group of supremacists who had privilege through systemic racism. If you don’t describe GLM in exactly those terms, the narrative doesn’t work.
Don’t talk about the radical left being racist like the Nazis. Talk about the GLM being anti-racist like the radical left.
Don’t talk about the radical left scapegoating like the Nazis. Talk about GLM fighting for racial justice against white/jewish supremacists and a system of white/jewish privilege like the radical left.
In other words, do not compare the left to the Nazis. Compare the Nazis to the left. Don’t describe the left as Nazi, describe Nazism in terms of leftist ideology.