Least surprising devolution ever


The Nazis are taking over the Republican party. Are you shocked?

Nazis appeared to find a friendly reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year.

Throughout the conference, racist extremists, some of whom had secured official CPAC badges, openly mingled with conference attendees and espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories.

The presence of these individuals has been a persistent issue at CPAC. In previous years, conference organizers have ejected well-known Nazis and white supremacists such as Nick Fuentes.

But this year, racist conspiracy theorists didn’t meet any perceptible resistance at the conference where Donald Trump has been the keynote speaker since 2017.

At the Young Republican mixer Friday evening, a group of Nazis who openly identified as national socialists mingled with mainstream conservative personalities, including some from Turning Point USA, and discussed so-called “race science” and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Also, they’re theocrats who hate democracy.

In one of the most viral moments from this year’s conference, conservative personality Jack Posobiec called for the end of democracy and a more explicitly Christian-focused government. While Posobiec later said his statements were partly satire, many CPAC attendees embraced his and others’ invocations of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

“Satire.” Heh. Right. A good question to ask when anyone makes the “satire” defense is “What were they satirizing?”

Comments

  1. Rich Woods says

    “What were they satirizing?”

    Industrialised genocide and Mengele’s experiments. A laugh a minute. Heads were rolling in the aisles.

  2. StevoR says

    2024 and we still have nazis.

    Also they are getting louder and more influntial and normalised.

    Dafuck?

    Knowing all we do now. With the benefit of hindsight from the 1930’s -40’s.. we’re still doing this why? How?

    Just WTF and so depressing and not a -fucking ‘gain..

  3. StevoR says

    Are you shocked?

    Disgusted, angered, disappointed but, no, this has been coming for a long time. Jan 6th and before.

    “Satire.” Heh. Right. A good question to ask when anyone makes the “satire” defense is “What were they satirizing?”

    I’m tempted to say “themselves” but it wouldn’t be true – because it plainly isn’t satire. (Someone should ask them to define what that word means I do not think it means what they think it does.. /Inigo Montoya.) The reichwingers aren’t intelligent enough and lack the wit and humour to actually do satire. Even if they’d claim otherwise. They’re just ..not. Satire isn’t punching down. It isn’t bullying and attacking others who are weaker. These klowns are not too swift on the uptake even if they have actually heard of Guillivers Travels. They are pretending to use a thin veil of cruel not actually comical humour to hide their serious sadism and make a joke of it and pretend its normal and okay. It is not. Also they don’t fool as many people as they think they do. At least I think and really hope so.

    See also the final link to the TYT clip here:

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/02/24/i-am-proud-to-be-non-religious-and-non-christian/comment-page-1/#comment-2213229

  4. Artor says

    The GOP has been embracing Nazis for years already. The previous ejections of Fuentes and others were merely performative, while promoting Nazi policies wholeheartedly. They have just stopped pretending they aren’t all Nazi-adjacent.

  5. robro says

    There have been racist authoritarians in the GOP for quite a while now. It has been a good shtick to cover their true agenda: make the very rich happy. What seems different is that they have permission to be more open about the hardcore fascist/Nazi side. Gone are the days of dog-whistle politics.

  6. jeanmeslier says

    So the fascists ” take over ” the fascist party? Oh no, what a turn of events

  7. says

    Satire was an excuse for the abusive responses during the “deep rifts”. People used to power don’t know humor beyond “makes me feel good”. Fortunately their actual humor reveals what they feel negative about. Many do and don’t know what humor does in social conflict. They’re used to using it, but don’t really know why they just feel bad when it gets called out. The ones who do know are crafting social conflict messages, and feeling better.