How can republicans lie about democrats being the same as nazis when the nazis persecuted the communists in Nazi germany?

[Anonymous]

Nazi Persecution of Soviet Prisoners of War Holocaust Encyclopedia (ushmm. org)

"Yet for Nazi Germany this attack was not an "ordinary" military operation. The war against the Soviet Union was a war of annihilation between German fascism and Soviet communism; a racial war between German "Aryans" and subhuman Slavs and Jews. From the very beginning this war of annihilation against the Soviet Union included the killing of prisoners of war (POWs) on a massive scale. In part, German officials excused their ill treatment and murder of Soviet POWs by pointing out that the Soviet Union was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention and its soldiers did not warrant the protection that the convention extended to prisoners of war."

[nightdrot]

Well, the question is a bit of a misnomer given that Democrats typically - when politics sinks to that level - call Republicans and conservatives Nazis and it is Republicans and conservatives who tend to call Democrats communists and socialists. Suffice to say, that kind of inflammatory rhetoric is neither helpful nor is it particularly employed with considerations of taxonomic and philosophical accuracy in mind.

In fact, what Americans call "conservative" and "liberal" is actually, in historical terms, not the case. What Americans call "conservative" - at least until recently - is actually classical liberalism. "That government is best which governs least" and all the rest, with a streak of social traditionalism rooted mainly in the Protestant Reformation.

What Americans call "liberal," on the other hand, is actually "radical" liberalism. Please note that "radical" in this context does NOT mean "extremist." Rather it is used as the ancient Greeks used the term. Meaning "to the root of." The American liberal harking back to the ideas of Rousseau, believing that man is basically good but is corrupted by the inequalities of power in society. Therefore, government is to be used to engineer social arrangements in such way as to perfect human nature.

This gets even more complicated in that, currently, both parties are experiencing, due to a variety of social, cultural and economic motives, a populist phase. Populism not being a coherent schematic philosophy, but rather a vague expression of various cultural trends of envy and resentment. See also Donald Trump and Joseph Biden, both of whom are playing to these class and other resentments and offer a mishmash of frequently overlapping policy proposals. It being the case that in terms of Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, both offer policies that are less different from each other in method and purpose that at first meets the eye.

That rather long digression aside, the name calling is very much a part of the populist impulse. The name calling being an expression of the bitter resentments that exist in society and the use of the terms "Socialist" and "Nazi" being used less for historical accuracy than to evoke passions.

In fact, the Nazis - which is the German abbreviation for the National SOCIALIST Workers Party - and the Socialists (and Communists) are all parties of the left. (I'll spare you the discussion on where the shorthand of using "left" and "right" as political terms came from.)

Who said this?: "I'm a socialist, but a very different kind of socialist than your rich friend Count Reventlow." The year was 1930, and the speaker was a rising German politician named Adolf Hitler, then already the leader of the National Socialist Worker's (Nazi) Party.

The difference is that socialists in the Marxist tradition argued that the driving force of History - with a capital "H" - was class warfare. Whereas the Nazis argued that the war between the races - not classes - was the thing that made History move.

This then was a split within the extreme left of politics. A philosophical and ideological argument, at the most fundamental level, about what drives History and therefore how best to organize and govern the state and society. It being a truism that fights within the family, so to speak, tend to be the most bitter and brutal and such this argument was.

Long way around, the bottom line being that the name calling in American politics is not terribly useful because, in general, the labels Americans tend to use in their politics are content free and tend to be more "in the eye of the beholder," so to speak. They don't mean what the users of the labels think they mean. They therefore don't explain very much and therefore tend to degenerate - particularly in populist periods and given mass communication technologies - into meaningless sloganeering. Less than meets the eye, to say no more.

[bamesjond0069]

One of the best answers to this question I've seen anywhere. The only thing I think it misses is literally ANY judgement to the initial claim. Just because it's not 100% a true or false statement, I think one can objectively state that the circle that is composed with Democrat supporters and the circle which contain Nazis does in fact overlap to some degree, where the circle composed of Republicans and the circle of Nazis does not or almost completely does not overlap. There is no way a group who believes as a core principle judge on character and not color cannot overlap with a group who's core beliefs contain racial segregation (for any purpose). So based just one one highly main core belief one is drastically closer than the other. So I think to not give a judgement on the initial claim is trying to play too safely when it can objectively supported or denied to some degree.

[nightdrot]

@bamesjond0069 Well, the claim has two problems beyond that which I outlined.

First, at least in stereotypical terms, Democrats tend to call Republicans Nazis. Republicans tend to call Democrats socialists or communists. Again, these being not an attempt at well thought arguments, but rather an attempt to hurl insults and enflame passions.

The point being that I believe the questioner accidentally reversed who calls what party what epithet. In that narrow sense, I believe the question was in error.

So then my judgment on the question at the most basic level is that it was simply mistaken about who calls whom what. (It being possible that it was an accidental mis-phrasing of the question.

Then I addressed the problem with the name calling at a more fundamental level. It basically being that Americans tend not to have a very deep grasp of the pedigree of the ideas that they express. This then resulting, at the rhetorical level beyond mere emotion, a dialogue of the deaf. While at a more fundamental level, Americans tend to get results they did not intend because they do not grasp what the ideas they express were intended to accomplish.

That all said, thanks so much for the "thumbs up" and your kind comment. Also for your comments that gave me the chance the plumb the depth of the question a bit more.

[ZXCwWRQWz]

Ouch! Politics. I suspect those people making the accusations are extreme and blind-sighted but the way communism and fascism manifest -- in practice, not in terms of ideals -- tends to be quite similar. People who want to think it's some opposite psychologically that leads to fascist regimes vs. communist regimes seem to be missing something huge. Any ideology that requires people to conform to the same mindset and values to have a chance of working as realized is basically the same thing from my standpoint.

[Nomina]

That's a very surface level comparison you're making. It's not so much about the parties they were affiliated with, so much as the tactics they used.

There, you might find some similarities. Ask yourself HOW did the nazis persecute whomever (that's right) was on the receiving end of said persecution, and see (honestly 🤨) whether there are similarities with the way Democrats operate.. at least nowadays.

[goaded]

It's to distract from the obvious parallels to 1930's politics in Europe. Mussolini and Hitler both came to power without being elected to their positions, and they abolished elections soon after. Wisconsin's Republican candidate for governor has been recorded saying that if he's elected, his party “will never lose another election” in the state. Hundreds of Republican candidates are unwilling to say the 2020 election was fair, even the ones who were winners in that election.

As to accusations that the Democrats call Republicans Nazis, which has come up over the last few years for the above reasons, they've been calling any progressive laws that help the majority of people "socialism" or "communism" for literally 100 years. Now, it's reached the point where Republican leaders are undermining the democratic process, knowingly lying about the 2020 election, and anyone who votes Democratic is not just wrong, they're evil, groomers, baby killers, Nazis.

[Anonymous]

Communists persecuted nazis in Germany too. They also persecuted the polish

[Anonymous]

Democrats are nazis

They did what they did to the communists for 1 reason, they don't like competition