The Republican Party Has a Nazi Problem | How did the GOP become a haven for slogans and ideas straight out of the Third Reich?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/republican-party-nazi-problem/686055/?gift=FdnxozU-Nd3kPGRzMR1oQPS7CoLv46FswejusZrZA4s
414 points · 81 comments · view on lemmy.world
81 Comments
bearboiblake@pawb.social · 109 pts · 173d
Holy shit, the Atlantic are finally acknowledging there's a problem, rather than just sanity-washing fascists and claiming that nazis have no traction.
It became a problem partially because of the media being controlled by fascists. The atlantic is one of the worst.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 173d
The Atlantic only sees a problem when a guy they don't like is in charge. Their editorial staff will forget all about the GOP's Nazi Problem the minute Jeb Bush is running the RNC again.
stoly@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 173d
Hot take: it's always been a problem, but people had enough fear of social reprisal to keep that stuff to themselves.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 173d
The media was a huge part of it, especially the Atlantic. They went off my list pretty early on for headlines and stories that covered for this administration. One article doesn't absolve them, they're POS.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 173d
Worth remembering that the Republican Party isn't the root cause. Our oligarchs corrupting our democracy is what's broken it. And a huge part of that is our media - not only propaganda outlets like Fox, but the control by the oligarchs of almost all media is the reason Republicans always get a pass and Democrats get minimized.
Whostosay@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 173d
"how did the gop become this" they're barely admitting shit, it's always been.
straddle@fedinsfw.app · 3 pts · 173d
Author interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zq9Zh8DjZo
Fredselfish@lemmy.world · 70 pts · 173d
Because they are nazis.
silence7@slrpnk.net · 9 pts · 173d
Republicans were not always Nazis. The article tries to look at how the change happened
bearboiblake@pawb.social · 41 pts · 173d
They kinda always have been. Did everyone just forget about the Ku Klux Klan? What about the 1920s Eugenics movement? Operation Paperclip? First NATO Secretary was an ex-Nazi.
Western society is fucking teeming with fascists and nazis pretending to be polite waiting for their chance. Leftists have been talking about this for decades and just got told "not everyone you disagree with is a fascist"...
Eldritch@piefed.world · 19 pts · 173d
The motherfucking business plot. A literal fascist plot to overthrow FDR. Implicating the Bush family. It's been 100 years of creeping Republican fascism at least.
ccunning@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 173d
Before the Southern Strategy(c.1960s), klansmen, etc… were more likely to be Democrats than Republicans.
The people have always existed (by various names). I think this is more an inspection of the party itself’s shift
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 173d
I doubt they're referring to the party affiliation, and instead to the ideology of the voters and politicians.
The orgs/brands/teams they've historically supported are irrelevant when their current support is dependent on present and future fascism.
ccunning@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 173d
Sure - if their point was “fascists have always been fascists” then I agree; who wouldn’t? But that’s not what the article or discussion was about.
silence7@slrpnk.net · 12 pts · 173d
During the KKK era, the Democrats were the ones in favor of hate, while the Republicans were not. The parties radically flipped after the passage of the Civil Rights act as a direct result of Nixon making a decision to support the hate to win elections, though the full flip took decades to play out. We're hitting the end of that now.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 173d
This, but also it was more complicated as well: There were conservative and liberal contingencies in both parties, but after the big flip, conservatives went with or stay with Republicans, and progressives gravitated towards Democrats.
I'm 50, and I grew up after the flip, so it's weird to think about how it must have been before. I think that's the only reason things worked out as well as they did after WWII. Somehow we managed to push back against the racists and make some progress (Civil Rights Act, etc.) and even kinda pushed them into the racism closet for a while there. But boy howdy they exploded back out when the Tea Party took off and Obama was elected. But by that point, the Republians had already been working on attacking our democracy for a couple of decades.
The Southern Strategy was one big waterfall moment; another was when the Republicans partnered with evangelicals. I think the first big moment when partisanship really started to show its ugly head was the attack on Clinton and the attempt to impeach. Not that he didn't abuse his office for blowjobs, but that really was not impeachable - and they didn't get him for that, they got him on what was really a technicality. But after that, it feels like the gloves came off and partisanship was the primary tool of the Republicans.
Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 172d
This makes it sound like he was getting blow jobs from political favors.
He had an affair with one intern.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 172d
The point of the phrasing is not "this is a fair description of what was happening" but more "even if it was as bad as this, it's still bullshit". So you're right, but that's why I phrased it that way.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 173d
Technically......... the nazis have always been us. Hitler took huge inspiration from US politics and policies, so to see it come full circle....... the call is coming from inside the house!
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 173d
We spent all our industrial effort and millions of lives to defeat ourselves. Hooray us for stopping our evil ways. Eventually. In many respects.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 173d
We've managed some progress. As much racism is a huge issue and on the increase, overall minorities today are a bit better off. Lynchings are a bit less common; sundown cities far fewer in number. Haven't seen segregated water fountains or anything like that in a bit. Although there's certainly still redlining and plenty of inequality...
Women have done even better - as recently as 1974 being unable to open a bank account without husband's signature. While there's still plenty of inequality there as well, that situation has improved even more.
I certainly don't want to minimize the successes, it's just that the increases in bigotry that we've seen in many areas just feels worse because it felt like we were making progress, only to realize that it is truly a slog and struggle.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 173d
Quite so. And yet come election time we will hear, with the greatest fervor, how everything about our government should be changed instantly and successfully and that is why we must all refuse to vote or to throw away that vote on a candidate with no chance of winning.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 173d
Yes and no.
chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 173d
Wow Atlantic.....really hot take. Did you finally realize what we all knew years ago?
silence7@slrpnk.net · 21 pts · 173d
For the author, pretty much. He's been spending his time on BlueSky arguing that what we are seeing isn't really fascism.
mrmacduggan@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 173d
Yeah this is a reheated take that should have been posted in 2015.
daychilde@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 173d
And nearly a decade late even then.
Anyone who didn't see this with the rise of the "tea party" just wasn't paying attention or was ignorant. Maybe not about us heading toward fascism (especially so quickly), but there was an increase in nazi bullshit even then - but with the rise of the sheer public racism that RUSHED out of the closet... we knew we were fucked.
Ferrous@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 173d
Bingo.
Mainstream media was asleep at the wheel as the fascist threat solidified.
Either that, or they were willfully obfuscating what was a clear-as-day motion towards fascism.
Google: trump fascism before:2016-01-01
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/04/why-you-should-stop-calling-donald-trump-a-fascist/
https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trump-isnt-a-fascist-hes-a-media-savvy-know-nothing
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/16/opinion/whose-fascism-is-this-anyway.html
https://theweek.com/articles/574097/donald-trump-leading-protofascist-movement
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/09/trump-may-be-a-loudmouthed-demagogue-but-is-he-a-fascist/
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-fascist-354690
HubertManne@piefed.social · 5 pts · 173d
we need more stating the obvious honestly because for some its not so obvious. the rebulicans want to pretend everything is all normal and hunky dory.
AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social · 27 pts · 173d
No. They HAD a nazi problem when they decided to let in the first nazi.
Now they are a nazi party.
UnspecificGravity@piefed.social · 24 pts · 173d
Trump proved that the "moderate" right would tolerate the inclusion of actual Nazis, white supremacists, and other fringe right-wing groups (along with previously unaffiliated weird counter-culture groups like antivaxxers, conspiracy theorists, flat earthers, etc) as long as meant they won elections and got their supreme court picks.
The "moderate" objection to extremists was always nothing more than a fear that it would cost them elections, it was never really an ideological or moral position.
rbos@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 173d
It's a big tent, and they let the Nazis in. So now it's a Nazi bar, and kicking them out would now be a Problem.
Tigeroovy@lemmy.ca · 19 pts · 173d
No, WE have a Republican and Nazi problem and they're the same problem.
devolution@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 173d
They also have a pedophile problem, too.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 173d
Oh right, that.
devolution@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 173d
It's sad that you can say that with seriousness, right?
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 173d
Oh the whole thing’s a fuckin travesty.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 16 pts · 173d
Well, the Nazis borrowed a lot of slogans and ideas from the KKK, who was folded into the GOP during their southern strategy push to grab up the racist/religious vote.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 173d
LOL, "how"? "[B]ecome"?
Has The Atlantic met the Republican Party?
silence7@slrpnk.net · 8 pts · 173d
The author of the piece is a former Republican. They actually flipped sides on the hate thing a few decades ago, but it took a while to get to the point where open Nazism instead of dog whistling was ok
goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 pts · 173d
But that's the core of the republican party. It's always been for hateful bigots
minorkeys@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 173d
Because fascism is the far right and all fascism acts the same. It isn't difficult.
tempest@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 173d
Technically they always had a Nazi problem they are just enjoying the fruits of their labor at the moment.
I can't imagine American Nazis were voting for the Dems.
minorkeys@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 173d
The GOP doesn't have a Nazi problem, it's what they've always been. It isn't a problem for them, it's the ideal. It's everyone else who has a GOP problem.
Bytemeister@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 173d
How?
That's like asking how Trump got in the Epstein files over a million times. It was a coordinated effort by both of them, that lead to a long and comfortable relationship with the slimmest margins of plausible deniability.
I'm still waiting to see if the Nazis jail and execute the Republicans eventually, or if it will be the other way round.
bhamlin@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 173d
I'm pretty sure the problem is that they don't have a problem with Nazis.
inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 173d
living and growing up for twenty five years of living in the rural midwest, I could have easily told you how this happened and how radio and cable news spread this problem.
pachrist@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 172d
Many Nazi ideas are a direct port of racist ideology from the USA. It's pretty easy to argue the Nazis picked it up from us. The Republican party is a haven for Nazis, not because Nazism is a new phenomenon in the USA, but because it's made in the USA.
Lasherz12@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 173d
The Republican party has been embracing the death cult vibe long before Trump. It's the natural location for Nazis to coalesce.
You don't cater to evangelical zionists without the death cult ingredient. In many ways the US portion of this goes back to Jerry Falwell and the UK portion goes back even further.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 173d
As the reactionaries like to state they were part of the Democrat party before the Civil Rights Act. This issue goes beyond party lines and is about the truth of this country to those who aren't privileged to be born wealthy, male, and white.
4am@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 173d
🔫🧑🚀”always has been”
MajinBlayze@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 173d
Any discussion of the open acceptance of Nazis into the GOP that doesn't mention gamergate is, at best, incomplete.
The fact that a central part of was some guy making up stories about his ex cheating on him is fucking wild.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 173d
GOP was accepting Nazis way before gamergate happened.
MajinBlayze@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 173d
Sure. Not trying to say otherwise, but they were at least largely quiet about it, they used euphemisms.
It's the whole "you can't say n* n* n*" speech from Lee Atwater.
Once open bigotry was more broadly accepted (or at least it was clear that any pushback was stifled) they opened up. And gamergate was central to exposing that, and showing the GOP that there was an appetite for open fascism.
Not to mention people like Bannon explicitly came into prominence through the gamergate movement
squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 173d
I agree with you and the lineage is obvious when looking at how Steve Bannon pushed GamerGate at Breitbart and then went straight on to become Trump's campaign manager.
And Bannon's name missing from that article is one of the article's major flaws, considering how much Bannon shaped the MAGA movement as a whole.
hector@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 173d
So what is this gamergate thing then? I know the gaming communities can be toxic to say the least. That they were a lot of the alt right that propelled the president to his first election win, only possible though because the democrats threw the election with the most unlikable candidate they could find to repudiate their base and embrace monied interests they are supposed to be the ones to oppose.
Objection@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 173d
Back in the day (90's-early 2000's) it was hard to see how the right would ever really appeal to the younger generation (people were less politically engaged in general). There was no "alt-"right, just the traditionalists and Christian fundamentalists screaming about how Dungeons and Dragons is Satanic and shit like that. Those guys were incredibly lame, and very out of line with the sentiment of young people at that time, which was generally a kind of "free speech absolutism," brought on by being the first generation with access to the internet. Shock images/videos were common and being able to handle that sort of thing was a point of pride. Pretenses of respect and decorum were stripped away in favor of the raw and unfiltered.
Gamergate was the moment when this energy really began directing itself against left/liberal/minority figures, and took on a more explicitly political character. Because sometimes those people would critique video games and commit the cardinal sin of caring about things, while also sometimes disparaging things that people liked. Certain women became targets of hate in certain communities, and it wasn't long before rumors started circulating that a female game developer (who was frequent target of hate) got favorable reviews because she was sleeping with the reviewers. Thus the famous line, "It's not about misogyny, it's about ethics in games journalism."
As liberals and leftists were not really on board with all the harassment campaigns and violent threats, and they faced more and more criticism from that direction, and they eventually formed into (or at least formed a key component of) this "alt-right" movement that rejected the pearl-clutching and feigned piety of the traditionalist right, while still hating minorities and progressives and all that.
MajinBlayze@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 173d
Apropos of nothing, apparently there's an email in the Epstein files referencing a conversation between Epstein and Moot (Admin of 4chan) implying he convinced him to create the pol board (where a lot of both the culture and organization behind gamergate originated)
MajinBlayze@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 173d
If you don't know about gamergate, I almost don't want to spoil that.
This is one of the better summaries of gamergate and how it shaped the "alt right" movement, imo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYWHpgIoIw
Doomsider@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 172d
America First - White supremacy garbage slogan adopted by the KKK back in 1920.
America is for Americans - Identical Nazi slogan "Germany is for Germans"
One homeland, one people, one heritage - A variation of a Nazi slogan "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" which is listed as a central Nazi phrase at the Holocaust Museum.
We will have our home again - ICE recruitment effort. Used by far right ethno-nationalist Völkisch movement.
Numerous speeches referring to vermin, poisoning blood of our country, etc which are all Nazi/White nationalist dog whistles.
megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 173d
How? Initially because it was expedient and then later because it became a central pillar of the platform. In the 70s and early 80s they adopted the southern strategy and dog whistles to flip over all the Jim Crow southern democrats who were fuming at LBJ and the democrats for going along with the civil rights movement.
Like, they’d lost the debate about “the new deal” in the 40s and 50s and “the great society” in the 60s, and knew that actually repealing such things would be electorally unpopular, but they still wanted to get rid of them and all the taxes on the rich that funded them. So, gotta find some wedge big enough to convince some people to look past losing such popular programs, they went with “racisms”.
UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 172d
The racist shit started earlier. Daughters of the Confederate and so on. Nixon was a racist shit and a republican who was pivotal in the war against drugs. He also was recorded saying the war on drugs was to get black people. He disproportionately sent blacks and poor people to war.
https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/
Then there's Reagan. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/31/747041525/historian-discusses-recording-of-reagans-racists-comments-made-to-nixon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
MehBlah@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 173d
It became more overt due to the die off of all those from WWII that punched nazis.
chaogomu@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 173d
A bunch of those who punched Nazis were kinda sort of rooting for those same Nazis before the US entered the war, some of them very high up in the pre, and post-war government. And those same people kind of sort of stole a lot of Nazis and brought them back home.
CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 173d
Agreed, and a whole lot of young idiots don't seem to be falling into the fascist funnel.
I sure hope that Fourth Turning theory is wrong, but JFC, it sure looks like they may be onto something.
I'm absolutely terrified that Taco will completely crater this economy and that's when things are bound to get very, very bad and very quickly.
Ironfist79@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 172d
Conservative ideology is inherently fascist. You cannot separate them.
silence7@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 172d
There is a range of ways to run an economy and a society which can all work reasonably well. Conservative doesn’t have to be fascist. Its more that Republicans purged the non-fascist conservatives from any position of power
Klox@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 173d
The US has a Nazi problem. It's called the Republican party.
Soulphite@reddthat.com · 5 pts · 173d
They just waited for the real bad ass anti-fascists to get old and die off before becoming so emboldened to nazify again. Just like the coward racist pedophile assholes they are.
gointhefridge@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 173d
The call is coming from inside the house.
BaroqueBobby@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 173d
It’s the racism, and naked desire for power, stupid
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 173d
I know we were all really enjoying bashing leftists for being anti-semitic when they have the nerve to protest the Palestinian Genocide but The Republican Party is genuinely extremely anti-semitic and becoming more so at a terrifying velocity.
It should scare everyone how openly the Republican Party is flirting with true genuine anti-semitism, whether you are jewish or not, this is a matter of accelerating dehumanization and skapegoating.
I also want to take this time to tell centrists who sat by and watched this happen while hyperfocusing only at screaming at leftists to shut up, stop being anti-semitic and take the conversation elsewhere, fuck you.
Also...
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
KiloGex@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 173d
Trust me, the GOP doesn't think it's a problem.
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 173d
Always have been, just not as out in the open as now
neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 173d
rbos@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 173d
Fruit of the Bircher seed.
Wilco@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 173d
They have to go somewhere ... and "conservative" just means white or wannabe white.
Gammelfisch@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 173d
The neo-Nazi shit withing the Government of Putin was simmering until Nov 2024. The fucked up Unite the Right Asswipes in Charlottesville, VA proved it.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 173d
The answer will SHOCK you!
TomMasz@piefed.social · 1 pts · 173d
It's a bit more like the Nazi's got a marketing makeover.
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 173d
They are one and the same. All the people who fought the Nazis in WW2 are mostly dead now so bringing back old Nazi slogans isn’t surprising to me.