Failed History: Nazis and Hitler are a go to for many people. If they see a leader they don’t like, they compare them to Hitler. There are always some sort of comparison to how things are going and the how the Nazis formed. More often than not, the comparison is simply historically bankrupt. I’ll use a meme to showcase this.
I just want to first point out though that the meme could be pointing the finger at either party. The statement of God may swing it more to the right, but if we get rid of it, both sides could post it with little problem.
To begin, I’m just going to say that I agree with the first sentence. Odd it is. The accusations here are quite odd for a variety of reasons. They are so vague, or some so historically inaccurate, that the point they make makes no sense. We can break them all down.
Nazis are Nazis
The first point that is made is correct. Nazis (there should be no comma after the word Nazi) were National Socialists. That is 100% true. But it is also redundant. National Socialism was the ideology of the Nazis. While the terminology was used prior to the Nazi party, National Socialism came to be synonymous with Nazis. Literally, the first point is that Nazis were Nazis.
The point they are trying to make is quite different, and it has to do with socialism. And it may be worthwhile to ask the question that is posed at the end of the meme; what political party promotes or has adopted socialism? The answer is both.
The United States is, in part, a
socialist country. Socialism isn’t a dirty word, but it is an
ideology that is often misunderstood. In the United States, socialism
takes the form of our public education system, or the police force.
Our fire department is a socialistic institution, as are most public
works. We can thank socialism for our public road ways. Socialism is
the most effective way for these institutions to exist.
For instance, we can look at the history of fire departments. At one time, fire fighting was a private industry. In order to have your home protected, you had to buy fire insurance from a specific fire fighting organization. Most places would have multiple such organizations. That means that if your house would start on fire, and the wrong fire fighting organization was in the area, they wouldn’t put out the fire unless you then bought their fire insurance.
This was worsened as for a fire fighting organization to make real money, you need to have fires and you needed them to be common enough, and disastrous enough for your services to be sought after. And through all this you had to fight other organizations who were also offering the same service. Companies accomplished this by setting fires, by committing arson and then often extorting the money. It simply was a terrible system that didn’t work.
Tearing Down Statues
So to point two. The tearing down of statues. Often when this is talked about, we currently think about Confederate statues being torn down. The Nazis did tear down statues that depicted ideologies that were at odds with them. When they conquered a new area, statues would come down, and others would go up. So that is true.
In context though, the point is odd. After Nazi Germany was defeated, Nazi statues and monuments were torn down, in part, by the US. Germany has since done a thorough job of dismantling Nazi monuments. We have to also realize that the Germany that replaced the Nazis was an entirely new government. This is exceptionally common.
When Saddam’s regime was toppled in Iraq, there is the famous images of a statue of Saddam being toppled. US Marines helped with this, and the general reaction was praise. We can look at another example that happened on July 9, 1776, in New York. After reading the Declaration of Independence in a public square, a group of patriots destroyed a statue of King George III.
The tearing down of statues is so common that making the point that two parties did it is really a moot point. But we can once again ask the question being posed, which political party is doing that?
The answer is meant to be Democrats. And it’s true that many Democrats are calling for Confederate statues to be removed. But it’s not just Democrats. Republicans in Kentucky have also called for Confederate statues to be removed. There has been Republican governors calling for a statue of Jefferson Davis to be removed. Both sides are calling for such statues to be removed.
Banning Free Speech
Banning free speech is the next point. Again, there is some truth that in Nazi Germany practiced censorship. Free speech as a whole wasn’t banned, but it was regulated. The United States has also regulated it to a point. We aren’t free to say whatever we want. The consequences of speech are often weighed, and at times, certain speech isn’t allowed or is punishable. Libel is a form of speech that you can be sued for. But to be certain, Nazi Germany went further.
But what current political party is banning free speech? I have no idea, because it’s not happening. That is why this point simply doesn’t work. However, I have been debating this with others, and the argument appears that speech is being banned on school campuses.
One thing that is often reported or talked about are speakers being “banned” from giving speeches or talks at certain college campuses. This has often been argued as an attack on the freedom of speech. But it is also often blown out of proportion. Since 2016, there are around 50 instances of speakers being denied. The story has been blown out of proportion, but it does happen.
Some of the biggest instances have been with Conservative speakers who have had their talks canceled or have been denied giving speeches. However, Liberal speakers aren’t immune to this at all. When broken down, we see that both sorts of speakers are being denied giving talks, and having their talks canceled. This is generally happening at schools in the upper north east, and Chicago. The vast majority of schools don’t have this problem, and no one group is being singled out. And I think we are very fortunate that most colleges don’t have this problem because opposing views can be beneficial.
Let’s Blame Others
The next point I find to be very odd. It is true that the Nazis blamed Jews and other minorities for a whole host of hardships. The Nazis didn’t invent this, as most of Europe for centuries were saying the same things. Nazis adopted this, and escalated it even further. That is a very important point as Nazi Germany was not alone in the level of anti-Semitism they had. They weren’t some unique government who sought to solve the Jewish Question. We have to see them in context to understand the situation that Jews found themselves.
Back to the question though, which political party blames economic hardships on one group of people? Sadly, this is a common occurrence in the United States, and both parties have been guilty of it throughout their histories. In the US, groups such as the Chinese, Japanese, Irish, Germans, Polish etc have been blamed for the economic hardships of the US. What we are seeing today really isn’t anything new, it’s just a different group/s being blamed.
Today, we have both parties pointing their fingers. We have both the Republicans and Democrats pointing their fingers at each other for all the woes. Republicans are also pointing their finger at Mexicans, while many Democrats point their fingers at rich white guys. So again, both parties are guilty of this.
Gun Control
One of the biggest points is the idea of gun control. This one simply is wrong, and illogical. After Germany lost WWI, part of the agreement in the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 is that Germany would disarm their country, and their people. Basically a full ban was put on gun ownership. This changed a bit in 1928 when a registration program was created. It was still rather strict, but allowed for a way to own guns legally.
The Nazis would take power in the mid 30s and by 1938, they got rid of the registration program for everything but handguns. What the Nazis did was basically deregulate gun ownership. They got rid of a lot of the gun control in the country. This didn’t extend to everyone, such as those the Nazis saw as enemies, including Jews.
Nazis opened up gun ownership and made it a whole lot easier. But it didn’t matter, and if we think of this logically, we can understand why. Jews made up about 1% of the population of Germany. Every single Jew could have been given a gun, and they still would have been a smaller army than what Germany had. If they would have rebelled against Germany (and assuming that every Jew participated, regardless of age, and somehow they were all able to join together, instead of being dispersed, and all were in good health, etc.) their army would still have been smaller than the Nazi army. And the Nazi’s had tanks, and planes. And bombs.
We can put this into perspective in two ways. In 1943, there was a rebellion in the Warsaw Ghetto. 13,000 Jews were killed, and the remaining were moved to concentration camps. The Nazis, who were surprised by the attack, had 110 causalities, 17 of which died. The Jews had guns, molotov cocktails and grenades. The Jews were helped by Polish resistance groups. The resistance only lasted about a month, and in the ghetto’s place, a new concentration camp emerged.
Here’s a second way to look at this. When Germany attacked Russia, 7 million Russians would die in the fight. And they had tanks and planes on their side. They were trained soldiers, and it still took 7 million Russians to hold off the Germans.
The fact of the matter is that even if every Jew was armed and ready for a fight, the outcome wouldn’t have been much different, besides possibly that the extermination of the Jews would have been much quicker. And we can see this in genocide after genocide.
Nazis and God
Probably the oddest claim though is the one that states Nazis put the state before God. The problem is that the Nazis weren’t running a theocracy. They weren’t a religious organization, or a country founded on a religion. Many Nazis were religious. But the government wasn’t religious.
The same is true for the United States. We aren’t a theocracy. But we have some Democrats and Republicans that are religious while others are non-religious.
Health Care and Regulations
Then we get to a historical inaccuracy. The claim is that Nazis nationalized health care. This is simply impossible as Bismarck had nationalized the health care system when Germany unified around a century earlier. It is true that both parties in the US are looking at health care reform, and some Democrats prefer a system based on socialized medicine, but Nazi didn’t do this. Germany had done that prior to the Nazis.
The final claim is that they placed strict government regulations on industry. The claim is so vague though. All governments put regulations on industry, because we can’t expect private industries to regulate themselves. It would be a massive conflict on interests. And in the United States, both parties support some regulations.
If we look at all of this, both political parties fit the mold but mainly because the claims are so vague or so general that they fit everyone. What’s worse though is that some points simply are made up in order to force a supposed connection, because connecting an idea to Nazism is a go to thing to do.
Luckily, such memes simply are wrong. We aren’t at risk of a new Nazi regime or a similar situation. History doesn’t repeat itself. There are similarities, but they often don’t mean anything because they are so general. It’s something we can all be grateful for.
