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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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Today I Learned
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I've been reading about the Holocaust a fair bit of late, and it's interesting to see the debate around the functionalist/intentionalist view of how it happened. OP's story seems to lend credence to the former version, in that the Nazi state was a patchwork of warring factions that were each trying to take power for themselves and in an effort to do so, tried a little too hard to do what they imagined Hitler wanted of them, namely more and more murder and ruthlessness and general mayhem, eventually culminating in plans for wholesale extermination. This is the functionalist view, where things happened almost in a bottom-up fashion, whereas the intentionalist idea is one where Hitler planned the Holocaust from day one in a top-down approach. I personally think it's more likely to be the former though, at least from what I've read about it anyway.
Growing up in the '80s and '90s, I never really learned much about the Holocaust aspect of WWII. I knew the broad strokes, of course, but the finer details of the Nazi state's operations are where the true horror lies. Even without WWII or the Holocaust, it was one of the purest examples of a nightmarish dystopia run by corrupt, amoral, incompetent, petty, narcissistic lunatics and sociopaths. The parallels with certain modern governments is terrifying...
Very few people understand what fascism is in the concrete day to day sense. Fascist politics are very normalized in the modern world. They obfuscate everything they do. The more they can confuse and entangle antifascists the better. While we try and deconstruct their empty statements and lies they spend the whole time making confusing and conflicting statements, trying to garner as much support from bigoted people as possible. Its a union of bigotry, greed, and manipulation.
Fascists are themselves parasitic to democracy. Their existence within democracy whatsoever steadily nurtures them. The more tolerable their ideas are the faster they will grow. Tolerating Nazis at all is the same thing as promoting them. Their ideology spreads like a virus, it doesnt try to convince you merely overwhelms you. It harkens out to the priviledged masses fear of the other, and then surrounds them in a fog of conflicting information and symbolism. It says "believe in me and I will keep you safe" before outputting a barrage of rage, hatred, disgust, fear and dread. It uses language like symbolism itself. It preoccupies itself with definitions, centralizing itself as authority over reality itself. Once someone has become a fascist it is statistically impossible to change their views. Once someone has become a fascist they are overwhelmingly likely to never change. There is no scientifically proven way to deradicalize them. That's how powerful a hold it creates. True believers in fascism exist in this perpetual state of anger and confusion. The rest see utility in fascism, to advance their bigotry or to profit off of corruption.
I was watching the PBS American Experience episode on Nazi City, USA.
Hearing literally the same words that came out of the American Nazi party in 1930s that have been spewed by Republicans in the last 10 years was frankly TERRIFYING.
... isn't the functionalist (?) version more what the west/victors wrote about WWII? Not even as propaganda per se, just bcs it can be summed up in one line & afterwards easier to append propaganda for various purposes.
Clearly if Hitler planned everything that happened he would have needed to hold power for a lot longer to solidify his sole influence or have overwhelming public support (and then do all the rest).
It was a difference between Western powers versus the Soviet Union. Western powers tried to make sure that Germans understood their complicity to genocide even if they didn't operate concentration camps. In contrast, the Soviet Union generally portrayed the problem being Hitler leading the people astray.
What is wild is that MOST people had no idea about the Holocaust as it was happening. That when we learn of WWII and all that was around it and you hear about the camps you think "no shit we went to help with that." But then find out that wasn't really a motivation for the masses is crazy.
Governments knew, for sure the Brits.
There was a letter explaining everything.
I suspect they allowed since it served their purpose of creating israel which they were heavily involved in.
Same as the zionists who made deals with the nazis who could be taken to the camps: those that didn't want to move to israel later.
What are you talking about? Brits may have known but they were losing until the US came to help. They had no power to stop anything at the time. And governments aren't a populace. My original statement was that the masses were not motivated by their existence. The media was newspapers and they may have small articles here and there. But it was not common knowledge that these camps even existed.
You can't even read a statement and understand what was said. You must run stop signs and blame other cars for not paying attention.
bye, not wasting time on you
BTW If you're american it isn't yours either.
Since americans generally possess the vocabulary of an infant
I mean you would know right? Since you like reading one word and acting outraged. Maybe pick up a book that doesn't have coloring and take a class from someone that isn't a relative.
I don't need to value an evaluation from someone who I can't actually trust to understand a doorbell without instructions.
Interesting debate, and certainly has some truth to it. Because individuals seek personal gain, they fulfill someone else's ideology they don't really care about but it helps them to get promoted or get rich. But Hitler definitely planned the holocaust as a "final solution to the Jewish question" in Mein Kampf.
In that sense Trump is very different from Hitler - he doesn't really believe in anything but being the strong man. He has no ideology. He's not really a racist. But he adopts ideology that enchants and beguile the masses, so it works similar to the functionalist view.
I believe that MAGA functionaries actually look for things that would shock and pain liberals, and then make that real, simply because it would be "fun" for the MAGA crowd and enrage the libs, and keep them constantly in a confused and shocked state. Just to keep it all going.
No, he is. Yeah, he'll pick up and abandon most positions at the drop of a hat, but racism has been one thing that he's been consistent with, going back at least to the Central Park Five.
I think he has some "baseline European racism" but I honestly don't think he's a foaming at the mouth with murderous intent, says the n-word with the hard r several times a day kind of racist. He's just an extremely flawed sociopath on top of that. Openly saying racist shit is just like openly saying things like "God bless America" after a bomb-run on yet another sovereign nation: the dummies respond positively to it, and words are cheap, so why not do it? The only difference is that he's definitely somewhat racist, but does not care about God or religion even the tiniest bit, lol.
You dont think Trump is racist?????
White people invented the power plant, the car, and the plane. It requires an explanation.
One explanation is that culture and science advanced to the point where that is possible, by `standing on the shoulders of giants´ ~ Isaac Newton
Royalty like Trump prefer an explanation that their blood and genes, rather than their privilege and opportunities, are greater than others. Since they wont admit that men are created equal, they cling to belief in hierarchy.
I think I understand what they mean. Trump is not a racist ideologue. He's not a "capital R" Racist, the way Hitler was. He's racist and his racism influences everything he does of course. But that's "lowercase r" racist. It's not what defines him, it's just one of his characteristics, maybe not even his most defining one.
Well I do think he is "casually" racist but not serious. Like it's not a guiding ideology. If it's between making a scene or shaking the hand of a colored person's hand he has no problem with that. He doesn't really give a shit. He's a malignant narcissist, which means he is driven by the psychological need to be "the best and most amazing person". Justifying that just because of his whiteness would probably almost be an insult to his unique greatness.
I also think his mind is in a kind of fugue state where he's not fully conscious, like sleepwalking. He's more like an LLM that is constantly throwing things out "to win" and his mind is optimized to do that very well. If you'd institutionalize him, put him on medication to calm him down and then slowly and calmly begin talk therapy you'd probably find he's just a standard narcissist without any special ideology. Possibly Hitler was similarily "out there" in that regard, but they actually and truly believed in their ideology. They also believed in their nation and making it great, which Trump doesn't give a shit about either.
You can define fascism (including racism or sexism) as a "sincere belief in inequality based on identity". He certainly believes in that, just only for himself. In comparison, neoliberals also have a sincere belief in inequality, just based on class / wealth.
Even if you propose that he's using racism as a tool, that still makes him racist.
Sure, but that's not really the point. And I do think it's an important point to understand how trumpism and neofascism works.