Seeing liberal usage of the word “Nazi” thrown around in online discourse used to cause me to roll my eyes. My understanding at the time was that it was a hyperbolic charge undermining the fatal effects of Nazism. I felt invoking the word cheapened it with each use when there were more specific insults one could levy. Understandings evolve.

The mistake I made was thinking Nazism was an artifact delegated to the past and not one contributing to echoes and repeating patterns. As I further researched far-right groups (first as a curiosity for a sociology assignment, then more seriously) I realized these groups were really borrowing from a playbook Nazis popularized.

Nazism and Nazis never went away.

Groomer/Predator/Pedo

One of the most common epithets you see hurled online towards anyone daring to stand up for 2SLGBTQIA+ rights. Search my handle on Twitter and include any of the above three; you’ll be flooded with results. It’s in vogue now but the Nazis used the exact same phrasing to pass stigmatizing laws against the LGBT community of Germany at the time. These arguments would spread in the US following the Second World War. Coincidentally, so would Nazis.

Banning and Burning Books

Of course, if you’ve watched Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, you’ve seen re-enactments of Nazis burning books. We’ve seen many examples of hate influencer accounts on Twitter gang up and pounce on elementary teachers here in Ontario for simply having queer friendly books in their classroom. If a teacher even mentions, or someone leaks a photo of their classroom, that they have a book about a child transitioning, these transphobic influencer accounts unleash torrents of abuse.

If you guessed I was going to link this behaviour to Nazis in the 1930s you’re catching on. 90 years ago, a revolutionary clinic was raided and the wealth of information it contained was razed. This attempt to erase people from history leads to the misinformed thinking that trans kids pop out from the ground and haven’t always been with us.

Antisemitism

Most know that Nazis are antisemitic. The problem is that most can’t identify antisemitism in discourse spread by the far-right today. There are a bunch of tropes they use casually. A shadowy cabal of powerful people controlling world politics? Yeah, that garbage has been with us for a while. Mentions of The Great Reset or those including the World Economic Forum (usually shortened to ‘WEF’)? It’s the same kind of garbage.

Once your eye is trained to notice these things, you’ll find that a lot of these transphobes also peddle in antisemitic conspiracy theories. The signs are all there but unless you are taught these things, chances are you won’t seek them out on their own. But when people of a certain political strip are hellbent to prevent that from happening, it’s because they want history to repeat itself.

Cracking Down on Rainbow Clubs and GSAs

There is a strong parallel between this sudden vitriolic increase in wanting to shut down rainbow clubs/GSAs in schools and gay associations in Germany as the Nazis rose to power. In Ottawa, we’ve seen protests at schools with rainbow clubs trying to shut them down or largescale walkouts for Pride activities as benign as raising a flag.

The Nazis weren’t happy with LGBT+ people congregating and having associations, either. In fact, they went out of their way to dismantle them with brute force.

Conservative parties in Canada are tripping over themselves to tap into queer and transphobia by outing students. This haste to either keep kids in the closet or have them go through a bureaucratic process to identify them should sound familiar to anyone who knows the history of the pink triangle.

Learn to Take a Joke/They’re Just Trolls

A common retort whenever a hate influencer gets called on their violence is that they weren’t actually being serious. They were just joking when they made that threat on a live stream. Those of us taking note need to lighten up.

But if you know how violent white supremacists have always gotten their message it out, it’s through allegedly “edgy” humour. Hitler did the same thing decades before taking power. Go on any journalist’s account when she’s documenting far-right violence. Read the creepy comments not as jokes but as threats. The goal is always to intimidate and silence. A pattern emerges for whom these comments are directed towards.

How Can They Be Homophobic/Transphobic/______ When They Associate with ________?

I was going to use the variable x instead of blanks in the above heading but then remembered Twitter has been renamed and it might throw people off.

But I digress.

One of the laziest ways for the far-right to try and escape criticism is to prop up a model member from a minority group they usually persecute. Can they really be anti-Black if they have this Black person espousing their views? Can they really be homophobic if they have this lesbian agreeing with their points on their podcast?

Yes.

The history of the Holocaust is replete with examples of collaborators. Today, we have many examples of people trying to grift off white supremacist violence even though people from their own minority group are clearly targets.

This is playing out in the current anti-trans panic with people claiming to be gay or lesbian fighting against the word “queer” or openly questioning the inclusion of transgender folks in the larger 2SLGBTQIA+ community. We’ve seen examples of the far-right in Canada finding a trans person they can parade around and claim their violence isn’t really all that violent. Or a queer school board trustee candidate, surrounded by open homophobes, who campaigns against the human rights of 2SLGBTQIA+ students.

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In Summary

When you encounter someone who regularly espouses any of the above views, treat them as you would a Nazi. Don’t debate them. They aren’t interested in having their mind changed. They want to waste your time and at the very least harm your mental health. Don’t uncritically boost their garbage to your audience.

You don’t need to play any respectability politics game with them. Respectable people don’t parrot Nazi talking points. Take note of when the account was created. Check who follows them. Check who they follow. Block as many of them as you can to protect yourself from the next online swarm (guess who else attacked others through mobs?).