The correct answer is, “NEVER!!!”
In my childhood it was, “Do your parents know you’re gay?”
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First I heard using “Democrat” instead of “Democratic” as an adjective was Bob Dole in a debate years ago. He kept referring to the “Democrat Party,” and said millions were killed in “Democrat wars” of the 20th century. I imagine the Republicans wanted to separate the words Democrat from democratic. Now I even hear liberals calling it the Democrat Party.
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Well, consider that the Orange Idiot publicly declared that he would only take one dollar in salary but has actually in fact been picking up every penny of it so far. You see, he will give it back at the end of the year. Or, perhaps at the end of his term. Or maybe after you die. Or…something…
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What happens when you answer “Yes”?
Don’t answer, I already know from personal experience 
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The classic “heads I win, tails you lose” school of argument.
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well, that’s good, isn’t it?
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Whatisthisidonteven
Wow. It says a lot, that people whose main occupation should be pretending to be serious adults, can even consider this sort of thing, let alone actually put it out there, and even probably get away with it.
In any other country with pretensions to be part of the ‘Free World’, the announcement of such an utterly demented brain-turd, however focused to a subset of the populace, would be scandalous; a clear indication of malignant incompetence.
But somehow, in the nation supposedly leading the Free World, this will pass with nary a blip.
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Social Trend X: threat or menace?
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I have expressed my reservations about Nazi comparisons regarding the current US admin before.
Please don’t.
This doesn’t just normalise the use of Nazi comparisons, and makes them meaningless. It also feels like an insult to the Nazi victims, and relativises the crimes against humanities planned and performed by Germans, their allies and helpers.
Please.
Don’t.
I beg you.
We can’t let it happen again. It’s important that we call out fascism when we see it. What I hear you saying is: “Trump and his avowed neonazi entourage isn’t fascist, and the threat he poses isn’t that big of a deal.”
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Then you have completely misunderstood my post.
It is one thing to call out neo-fascist ideology and methods reminding everyone who isn’t stupid of totalitarian regimes.
It is another thing to use pictures of the victims of the Nazi regime to draw a direct comparison.
Please. Don’t do this.
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That kind of esoteric respect seems like a bit of a luxury in this cultural war, in which the gloves have come off…
Maybe we can worry about that stuff again in future, if we manage to rescue a future worth living in from the clutches of these abominable barbarians.
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With all due respect to your political feelings: using the incomprehensible suffering, destruction and annihilation of actual human beings as an exchangeable image background you can project your fears on seems not at all necessary, nor desirable.
In fairness, he’s not the first…
'Do you think George Bush, a good Christian white man…should send troops to Iraq to stem the brown, Islamic tide from coming over here and fucking your daughter? 'I’d like to say I’m for this war.’ 'Ninety-eight percent of all Americans support the war. This just in!’
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It’s less about projecting fears than heeding the old saw about being condemned to repeat history.
Any other time before now in the Western world, and it’d be hyperbole. But to insist that’s still the case may well be a grave mistake.
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I understand where you’re coming from, but there’s an argument to be made that this kind of imagery and meme equally serves the survivors’ and victims’ exhortations to “never forget.” It’s not a co-incidence that bigotry-infused right-wing populism is crawling out from under the rocks in the West at the same time that direct experiences of the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazism are passing out of living memory.
The process of forgetting and minimalisation is being aided and abetted by those same fascist scumbags now taking power. Note how the current regime occupying the White House attempted to downplay the fact that the Holocaust was, first and foremost, a genocidal programme aimed at one particular group (one that Steve Bannon happens to particularly dislike). Go outside the U.S. and, with the exception of Germany, that kind of denialism and downplaying becomes worse.
People must continue to understand that a horrific Nazi-like* outcome is always a possibility once they give right-wing populist bigots and fascists power. The source of that suffering, destruction and annihilation can be comprehensible, even if the direct experience isn’t. That task becomes more difficult to do if people aren’t reminded on a regular basis about the regime the perpetrated the “gold standard” of industrialised genocide against a people.
[* history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme, as Twain is reported to have said.]
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I am all against trivialising what the current administration is doing, and even more opposed to what they are communicating.
Learning from history, however, includes not placing them on equal footing, contextually and literally, with the actual historical Nazis.
If you feel you must do so, please, I beg you, try not to use their victims, and specifically also not images of their victims, as a canvas.
@gracchus, I think that we agree very much that these images should not be forgotten, ever. I do believe, however, that they should not be used out of their context. And I am opposed using pictures of victims as a kind of meme magic in a discussion board. I am not to decide if it does victims and survivor a service, but I strongly doubt it.
I agree that it is very important to keep the memory alive, especially because the last who experienced the horror of the genocide, but also those who became entangled in the regime and know how easy it was to shrug off the knowledge what was happening are nearly all gone. This memory includes the differences to today’s situation. And the respect for those who suffered.
Wouldn’t you both agree that the text superimposed on the image is a statement strong enough on its own?
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Thank you. That is exactly what I intended by the post. Looking away isn’t an option, many in my family died at the hands of Fascists in Europe. My Father fought the Nazis, I will not allow history to do a repeat.
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Misattribution of the quote aside (it’s more commonly attributed to Trotsky), it’s strong enough on its own for me, but that’s because I understand the context of the quote and am educated enough to understand why it’s so powerful and applicable to the Nazi as well as other totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. I don’t make that assumption of others, and sometimes it has to be slammed home with an archetypal image of what exactly happens when politics gets too interested in people – complete with Nazi villains and their victims. An image meme sometimes does that in an effective and pithy manner.
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