No assumptions need to made. People wear those hats (or armbands, or party pins, etc.) to signal their political affiliation … with a right-wing populist movement.
[ETA: this is an example of a later edit adding new information, clarifying a point, etc.]
Well, have a cookie (unless you’re an Objectivist or Libertarian style Voluntaryist, because scratch the surface and you’ll find social Darwinist authoritarianism right underneath). But being anti-authoritarian means nothing if you’re not willing to acknowledge authoritarianism even when it’s shoved in your face.
What original context? Ruben’s cartoon doesn’t use the term or show the swastika. My own initial response comparing the Nazi armband to the MAGA hat (deleted when your comment was flagged away) was about how the two articles of clothing were both used to signal the wearers’ political affiliation. My comment was as follows:
You mean the kind of history resources that describe Germans in the early 1930s saying “Wow, since when was someone who wore a stupid armband a right-wing extremist?”
What does that have to do with anything? If your comments get flagged here it will be for engaging in apologism on behalf of bigots.
To be clear, from Ernst Rohm to Philip Johnson to Milo Yiannopoulos, history has shown that there have been all too many LGB people willing to make common cause with or excuses for those fascists who would destroy their less privileged brothers and sisters. Sadly, some trans people might do this as well today.
Both the MAGA hat and the swastika armband happen to be symbols of right-wing extremism, but I made it clear that the MAGA hat wearers’ ideology is distinct from Nazism. @papasan’s cartoon points out the similarities between the Confederates, the Nazis, and the MAGgAts without drawing direct equivalences between their ideologies.
In the context of American history since 1945, this movement is a right-wing extremist one: openly hostile to the institutions of liberal democracy, strongman-worshipping, anti-intellectual, picking on scapegoats, and emboldening racists.
Your concern is noted. It won’t keep the U.S. from sliding into right-wing extremism, but I’m sure it will be a comfort when thugs yelling “MAGA” treat you like they did Jussie Smollett or Heather Heyer.
