I’m severely baffled. I don’t understand how this is where they draw the line. The most mundane innocent everyday word.
Fascist? Sure. Nazis? No problem. Inhumane? Why not. Horrible? Absolutely. Deplorable? Proudly! Racist pieces of shit? Oh yes. Weird? How fucking dare you??!
Random ass.
I think it’s because instead of being a “taboo” category, which is inherently a powerful word that a certain kind of person just thrives on, it’s just really dismissive which completely takes the wind out of their sails lmao.
Like, if it’s taboo, they can at least convince themselves that there’s a silent majority out there who agree with them but are too afraid to say it, and they’re “strong and couragous” for fighting against these “oppressive social cages” or whatever, but nah man they’re just fuckin weird and nobidy likes them.
The Conservative movement in America has, for well over half a century, defined itself in the language of the “Silent Majority” because their goal is to be hegemonic. You can understand a lot of their politics if you see it through that lens.
Calling them out for being weird freaks (often, even by their own standards) dismisses the core of their belief system, undermining the base argument of their rhetoric.
Makes perfect sense. It’s so simple I can’t believe I didn’t understand until now. How do you scare a fascist? Not by calling them a Nazi piece of shit
Question their status in the “in” group.
I’ve always thought, if you call a fascist a fascist, that doesn’t make them back down. It makes them feel proud instead (achieving their goals) and makes them stronger.
I think if you call a Nazi a fascist, they’d laugh, but if you call a random MAGA fascist a fascist, they take it as being overly dramatic
Fascism to them is the comically evil natural conclusion that was Nazi Germany - It’s like how they’re not criminals even though they commit crimes, because they’re good people and the criminals are bad (and they’re criminals even if they’ve never broken the law). Fascists are the bad guys, like terrorists - they don’t know or care what it means to be a terrorist
But make no mistake - they understand and believe in the core of fascism. They think everything would be better if “the good people” were in charge, because “the bad people” are the cause of all evil. They want to be the “in group” and either hate or don’t care about “the others”. Which is cruel, but I can understand it - if you could fix the country by getting rid of a few million people, that’s just the price for a better world. Even then, in many of their minds, those people have the option to just shut up and conform and they’ll become a “good person”
That’s what’s so obvious to me now - they think they’ll never be in the out group. Up till now, I’ve been thinking you have to make them understand that fascism must always have an enemy, and when the obvious targets are gone fascism will pick a new enemy to perpetuate itself, forever. One day you’ll end up on the wrong side of that line.
But they don’t want to understand that, and so they never will.
But what would rattle them? What would make them rethink all this? Question their status as one of the “good guys”. They know what they’d let happen, if not join in on. The others aren’t treated as people, and that’s them. Tell them they failed to conform. They didn’t make the cut.
They’re just weird, they’re different and couldn’t even notice because they’re too intrinsically weird. They’re not part of the “in group”, and it’s just a matter of time until someone notices.
I’m really surprised as well. But if you think about where American culture was in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, there was a huge emphasis placed on being “normal.” You can be sure that most boomers were told by their parents or peers at some point to “just be normal” or criticized someone by saying they’re not normal, and there’s still plenty of conservative families raising their kids like that today.
I can only imagine that’s the nerve being touched by the “weird” criticism.
It probably brings back some junior/senior high school trauma they most likely all have.
It probably brings back some junior/senior high school trauma they most likely all
havecaused.
I’m pretty sure that’s a lot of this issue. They were bullies and assholes in school and always picked on the “weird kid(s)” and now that they’re being referred to that way they’re freaking out because they’re scared they’re going to become a target.
