Start Date: April 23, 2025
NO. Not that. Credit to Greg Gutfeld (don’t sue me I don’t get income from this blog) for stating that the 21st century N word is “NAZI”
It is now used by the political left as casually and with the same venom as the original word was used by Jim Crow Klansmen a century ago.
It also makes no sense. In fact it is a compelling indictment against the educational system.
My own perspective comes, in part, from a brief time working at a research company in Michigan. A senior physicist on staff grew up in Nazi Germany. He was not Jewish and survived the bombings. I believe he was 17 at the end of the war. He headed west, as did all who could. However undesirable Germans may have been in the other Allied countries, they would be welcomed much less fondly in Russia, where 10 million soldiers died maintaining the front until the western allies liberated France and attacked Germany. The people of Germany lived under a dictator and knew that Russia (then the Soviet Union) did as well.
He said his family was not fond of Hitler and the Nazis. So what did they do? They flew a Nazi party flag, but a small one. To not show loyalty would be risking disappearance and death. He was sent to Hitler youth rallies where he feigned modest enthusiasm, enough to get by.
There were no protests in the streets. No funny T-shirts. No bumper stickers. No signs. No songs or chants.
The only vandalism and looting was of the Jewish neighborhoods and businesses, as is now being promoted by alleged “progressives” on the left and in the Ivy League schools.
There was no mockery a la Saturday Night Live. No award show rants. No entertainers publicly complained that Hitler was just like Stalin. That would have been fatal.
No one challenged Hitler. No letter to the editor. No radio program or paper would carry that complaint.
There were no debates. There were no elections to question, as there were no real elections.
There was no opposition party. There was no opposition media.
THERE WAS NO OPPOSITION. PERIOD.
The thing about calling people Hitler, Nazi, or fascist is that it is self-refuting. If it were true you could not say it.
Before the 2024 election in the United States commentators and comedians said they would be eliminated. Yet they are mostly still here, in their mansions in the Hamptons, Manhattan, and in Hollywood. Still on stage and the internet. The only ones off air were fired for lack of audience. They are now free to say what they wish on podcasts.
One former entertainer moved to Ireland where she claims all are well treated. She still hurls the Hitler claims. Perhaps she should be made aware that Ireland supported Hitler in WWII. Like Switzerland they didn’t fight. But I would suggest they had less good reason and made it harder for the British who saved them from a terrible fate. They gave condolences to the German people on the death of Hitler. An article from The Free Press described a long history of Irish antisemitism including the Limerick pogrom in the early 20th century [1]. So much for a kindler gentler country.
They all seem to miss the point. In a dictatorship survival is pretty much about not being noticed. Go along. Get along. No whining. Stay silent. Never draw attention. Play dead.
We all engage in hyperbole. Sometimes we are painfully, or embarrassingly, confronted with the inaccuracy. But to conflate one of the greatest horrors of history with your petty grievances does no service to anyone’s cause. It both profoundly diminishes those who were the true victims of Hitler’s Nazis and leaves you nowhere to go when you encounter something really bad.
I sometimes wonder if God may have a touch of whimsy. Who knows? But it would be interesting if those whose outrage is only exceeded by their ignorance were to spend some of the afterlife in Auschwitz or Buchenwald.
I suggest we cast aside the new N-word, along with the original, and atone while we are on this side of eternity.
REFERENCES
[1] “The Deep Roots of Irish Antisemitism”, Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Free Press, December 17, 2024, https://www.thefp.com/p/the-deep-roots-of-irish-antisemitism?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email