The title’s a bit disingenuous, I know: this didn’t come out of nowhere. White supremacism is as American as Manifest Destiny and has been heavily intertwined with Nazism from its inception. That overlap with the Republican party, and their gradual slip into the extreme far-right, is evident.
But Seig Heils? Even the most dense among them must know that blatant Nazism hurts their legitimacy in the eyes of the public, even among MAGATs (as is evident right now if you peek at their echo chamber on Reddit). Surely they would have a much easier time pushing their rhetoric and establishing their agenda by keeping a purposeful distance from that sort of indefensible imagery and symbolism. How do they expect to keep cohesion in the military when you imply to the soldiers that they are Nazis now, seig heils and all.
Why Nazis?
Any theories as to where this is coming from? Follow the ketamine-fueled leader? A directive for operative Krasnov, from Putin himself, to implode the country? True Nazi beliefs among the Heritage Foundation, Proud Boys, etc? I just don’t understand how they thought this would fly. I don’t understand anything anymore lol.
Nazis didn’t come around all of a sudden, either. People have always, on the whole, been horrible. What changes is what is culturally acceptable to talk about.
If people had always been horrible on the whole, the human race would have died out hundreds of thousands of years ago.
I knew this was coming after 9/11/2001. That was my first brush with how absolutely vile, ignorant, and racist most US citizens could be.
I used to always say eventually they would bring the tools of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars home and use against their own citizens and god damn it, it sucks to be right.