this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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Calling the NAZIs conservatives doesn’t quite fit the history of Germany. Conservative is an ideology that depends on time and place. For example conservatives in Russia are pro-communism.
In the case of the NAZIs they were progressive nationalist socialists advocating for a “third way" that was not liberalism or communism, which is why they campaigned hard as anti-marxists and anti-capitalists. Anti-semitistm was of course a major part of this as well and part of the reason Jewish conspiracy theories seem to simultaneously be associated with both marxism and capitalism.
The key overlap between Fascism, Nazism , and conservatism is that they are all exactly the correct definition on recent conservatism which is best described by the following quote from Frank Wilhoit:
Conservative values in the modern sense is
taking power, while saying whatever the hell helps you take power
. It applies perfectly to Nazis and Fascists historically.If you zoom in on Nazi actions, you see clearly they have the same style as modern conservatives. I hope you don't misunderstand, I'm not calling Nazis conservatives, I'm calling conservatives NAZIS; And by that I mean the way they use power. ANYTHING to gain and maintain power, the rest is an illusion.
Nazis acted as standard capitalists. They busted unions, they worked alongside corporations without really controlling them in a bad way for them etc. We have tons of jokes about old Nazi companies like Hugo boss that just mysteriously got overlooked and thrived for some time after WW2. They never lost their identity or profits, they gained a lot. It's the people that lost, as always. Fascist(as we call it today) actions are really just capitalist democracies, that throw away the illusion of democracy, more specifically, they can no longer maintain the illusion - see conservatism.
As for Russians, I've been saying this a lot but.. I don't speak Russian, I don't speak Mandarin, Haven't visited them, I haven't done the levels of research needed for me to have an opinion on this matter. There is also a wall of massive propaganda making it 10x harder to validate information. When people talk about modern Russia or China they are talking out their asses and the conversation devolves into shit-flinging. So I shut it down in my very first response. It's a start of a bad-faith conversation at least 90% of the time. I'm not saying you would be in the 90%, just that I'm opting out of that part of the convo.
I don’t really know how to respond to this other than to say your worldview is firmly grounded in ideology.