It Begins Small

On a recent FaceBook thread, someone commented that calling the “alt-right” and the myriad Trump supporters “Nazis” was uncalled for, and an insult to those murdered during the Holocaust.

Here is my (edited) response :
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There are those who are really determined to try to minimize the perception of the evil that Trump and followers want to perpetrate.

We have these measures, either in place or publicly proposed by the Trump administration:

• - Advocate for murder of those who are “the wrong kind”
• - Propose concentration camps
• - Separate children from families as soon as they are in detention
• - Forced labor of those in detention
• - Callousness toward documented abuses
• - Calling for forced exclusion based on religion
• - Demonizing the free press
• - Build a private army (the mercenaries that Xi wants to put in place)
• - Rigging elections by disenfranchising voters
• - Agitating trumped up criminal charges against political opponents
• - Make the private industrialists more dependent on his largess
• - Purposelessly denying critical disaster recovery resources because those caught by the disaster are the “wrong kind”
• - Calling for entire fields of study in science be defunded and discredited, solely on political grounds
• - Attempting to install a de facto, if not de jure, state religion based on an extreme sect
• - Fostering a personality cult to protect their leader from scrutiny
• - Nurturing and encouraging violent extremists.
• - Skewing the courts to deny redress by, and protection for, those without wealth and privilege
•  

Yet you want to minimize recognition of these evils, as there appears more and more public approval, as those adherents of this darkness see more tolerance for, and even encouragement of, their beliefs and aspirations.

So, yes, there is all the more reason to stem the tide now, by identifying it, and recognizing it, and denouncing it for what it is

The Nazi presence in Germany and Austria did not appear, as a fully formed Athena from the brow of Zeus, without preamble.

The population knew of this canker, and if not publicly embraced at the start, was approved of and supported, in private. When the hate was publicly displayed, it was not immediately denounced.

So the movement grew and was embraced by enough of those of power and influence that it led their nation.

And to claim, as some have done, that this current crop of racists, bigots, and fascists do not “deserve” the appellation of “Nazi” is both disingenuous and itself belittling of the people this new incarnation has as its targets.

And we must act now, lest we be ridiculed in future generations for saying "we didn't know" or "I didn't participate," or "I was just a good American."