The Dangerous Overuse of "Nazi" as an Epithet
What happens when the all-too-common use of an extreme label makes it less effective in cases where it truly applies?
It’s gotten too easy in the 78 years since the end of World War II to cast aspersions on others by referring to them as a Nazi. What makes it so tempting when you’re upset or annoyed with someone is just how extreme the word is; it’s treated by most (though not quite all) as the ultimate insult and condemnation. The willing participants in, and enablers of, the Nazi Party during the Third Reich in Germany were some of the most inhumanly cruel, atrociously awful people in all of human history. It’s difficult to think of something worse to call someone.
It’s incredibly important that we start resisting the urge to use the word Nazi as an everyday putdown. It should be treated as anything but benign verbal castigation and reserved only for those who can be said to meet multiple criteria for being called such a venomous and nausea-inducing thing.
I’m writing about this today because there are those who, unfortunately, meet the criteria to earn this title in our midst. The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement is a cult-like affair led by an egomaniacal narcissist who wields societal and cultural resentments, anger, hatred, and willful-ignorance to stoke the proverbial flames of discord for his own ends. Using adept and effective propaganda to appeal to authoritarian mindsets with themes steeped in Christianity, patriotism, “traditional” family, a gender binary, patriarchy, and a “might makes right” attitude, this would-be and wishes-to-be dictator has influenced a fairly significant share of the American electorate.
This twice-impeached former president and lifelong conman has been shown a fraud and sexual abuser in civil court and faces 91 felony counts across four criminal indictments, but to MAGA cultists he is the personification of the American ideal; the physical embodiment of the American spirit. Nothing about the man can be honestly assessed as being in keeping with the teachings of Christ, and yet evangelical Protestants adore him and are his core constituents.
We’ve seen the rise of this type of cult of personality who displayed these characteristics and made effective use of propaganda before. It brings to mind black and white images of brown shirts, jackboots, and salutes from the chest, does it not? The “Dear Leader” with the toothbrush mustache was far more blatant about his hatred for numerous groups and forms of identity, but Trump doesn’t exactly stick to dog whistling himself. From referring to immigrants at the U.S. southern border as “rapists and murderers” to instituting a ban on migrants from predominately Muslim countries, Trump makes his racism and nativism pretty clear.
As U.S. Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County, GA Prosecuting Attorney Fani Willis, as well as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, pursue their prosecutions of Trump, some seem to think he doesn’t pose much of a threat. Nothing could be further from the truth. The threats posed by Trump’s 2024 campaign operation and its supporters are numerous and sundry and Trump is still the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
At the top of the list of my most imminent concerns is efficient elections administration and security in 2024. A more long-term worry, should Trump manage reelection, is what he and his ardent supporters are planning for his second term. Democrats do not, in my considered opinion, have a viable plan at the moment for assuring the prevention of Trump’s reascension to the highest office in the land. Joe Biden is hemorrhaging support among many on the left who helped carry him to victory in 2020 (once he became the nominee) with his incessant support of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. No other Democrats appear ready and willing to step in. Spoilers like Sen. Joe Manchin III and the organization No Labels appear poised to hand victory to Trump and the Republicans, even if the GOP’s other nefarious actions fail and even with Manchin warning about the dangers of a second Trump term.
I wish I could say it were hyperbolic to refer to the MAGA movement as akin to at least early Nazism, but it’s not. The similarities are too striking to ignore. There are, no doubt, members of the MAGA movement who are simply substituting authoritarian populism and fascist tendencies for the working-class solidarity they should be pursing to address their legitimate grievances. Were these folks the majority, I would be more hopeful that we could defang this dangerous movement and halt its further rise, but that isn’t the case.
For as long as I live I doubt I’ll ever forget the sight of hundreds of vehicles rolling by in a “Trump Train” parade in October of 2020, just weeks before the elections, as I stood in a small public park in Vienna, WV. Racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic language was painted on cars with children in them. Huge trucks with smokestacks billowed black smoke as the drivers “rolled coal” to insult us climate activists holding a shoe strike for climate on the roadside.
There were confederate flags and crucifixes emblazoned with Trump’s name or likeness (some would call this blasphemy) and caricatures of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, some that really should have been treated as threats of or incitation to violence. It was a stunning display of selfishness, hate, and casual disregard for truth. It was fascism come to America, as promised, draped in a flag (multiple flags really) and carrying a cross.
So, the next time you go to passively call someone a grammar Nazi for correcting your spelling in the comments of a social media post or you start to refer to your neighbor you don’t like as a Nazi because he hates your dogs or someone pisses you off in line at the grocery store for going through the express lane with more than 10 items and you go to call them a Nazi, pause and think again. We’re living in a dangerous and unpredictable time in the history of this nation and world and words matter.
Casually affixing the description of a foot soldier of a mass-murdering megalomaniac of yore to someone is not something any of us should be doing. Careful deliberation needs to go into the use of that word as an adjective. When using the term to describe the occupant(s) of that house in town waving the MAGA flag above the stars and bars, however, you may, tragically, be right.