That's why they hate us deep down. They can't reconcile the fact that they are not actually the most progressive and tolerant person in the room.
We actually support the LGBT community, we don't just say we do. We don't just wait until politicians finally get on this side of the fence and then cheer when they finally get on the right side of history.
Liberals are the kind of person to say their community is accepting of all genders, all nationalities, all minorities etc. but then not ban fascists who threaten that acceptance (and even lives) because everyone deserves free speech. It's like they walk half the way, then suddenly stop and stand there, claiming this is actually where the trail ends even though you and they can clearly see the trail keeps going beyond the horizon.
We have better politics in all ways.
- We actually want things to get better
- We actually don't want people to die, no matter if it's from homelessness, hunger, or Ukraine.
- We actually want to hold our politicians accountable.
- Shit, we actually want competent officials.
- We actually want democracy, not whatever capitalism passes off as democracy (hey here's a riddle, you get to vote every 4 years and your boss can decide your schedule without consulting you! Is that democracy?)
- We actually recognize fascism, even when it comes from liberals.
- We actually fight against it too.
- We are able to deeply analyze societal issues and not simply repeat from our high school history lessons.
- We know our history and geopolitics. Liberals will repeat from NATO propaganda. We've actually read about it.
This is impossible to the liberal who thinks so highly of themselves that they must, by default, be the most accepting and progressive person in the world.
And so they resort to calling you a CCP shill instead of actually examining their privilege and positions.
Face it liberals, we are actually the person you think you are. Not the person you want to be, because you don't want to be anything other than what you are right now (because as a liberal you are, after all, perfect). But the person you and your fellow liberals spent years building up as being a pretty great guy.
And yes that includes whatever the fuck conservatives think they are.
During break, a colleague today (at a school) brought up Hitler after watching a documentary about it. We started talking, and he admitted he knew very little about Hitler and how he came to lead Germany, and wanted to know more. I analyzed the whole thing. Other colleagues in the area started jumping in and asking questions. They were appreciative of the way I talked about it and praised me for knowing so much about history and politics, while admitting that they also knew very little.
Now, I'm not saying this story to tout my own horn, but to emphasize what happened next. Bear in mind, nobody at the workplace knows I'm a communist. They know, I'm left-leaning, but that's it.
Anyway, someone then jumps in and says communism and fascism are the same thing ("communism is red fascism and you have to be an idiot and not know any history to be either one").
I bite my tongue and laugh inside. Here they are admitting they know very little history and praising me for knowing so much of it, then saying communists don't know history.
At any rate, I don't think I'll reveal my politics any time so. It's really effective injecting them with historical materialism without using the buzzwords.
How did you explain it to them? Hitler coming to power
TLDR: I went through the whole story, from Hitler joining the German Worker's Party, to becoming chancellor and tried to be as factual as possible, regarding the events. I steered away (and disproved where possible) the "great man" theory regarding Hitler. I emphasized giving context regarding the social, economic and political situation at the time, the prevalent ideological movements among the Germans, how WW1 and the Depression shaped German politics. I tried to show in a materialist way, why the Nazis developed the beliefs they held and why many other Germans were sympathetic to their message.
The original question was that he didn't know that Hitler was Austrian and how come an Austrian became Germany's chancellor. He then asked why the Germans were willing to follow him.
I explained that he was born in Austria but his family were ethnic Germans. Austria-Hungary was a melting pot of cultures, but the state at that time was dysfunctional, resulting in hatred between different population groups. Many Austrian Germans wanted to secede to Germany, viewing other cultures as holding back the rest of them. Hitler was exposed to this rhetoric throughout his early life, especially when he was studying art in Vienna.
I then went through the economic and political effects of the aftermath of WW1 in Germany, and the stab-in-the-back myth ("the German army was going to win, but Marxist and Jew politicians capitulated before that happened"). I find that explaining this myth, is the easiest way for people to understand both how Germans were willing to follow Hitler, and how fragile German politics were becoming before his rise to power. Although, if you use this, you should probably state that it wasn't the only reason.
I explained how Hitler joined the German Worker's Party (precursor to the Nazi party), which by that point had already embraced anticommunism and antisemitism, which appealed to him. However, this kind of rhetoric was already prevalent in Germany, following decades of cultivation of German nationalism and jingoism, the Spartakist uprising, and the stab-in-the-back myth being used widely by the right-wing opposition parties.
I talked about the Munich coup, and how the goverment, especially the military, were sympathetic to it, and how the Nazis escaped with easy penalties.
I then explained how corporations and other nationalist entities supported and financed Hitler and the Nazis, as a way to bust unions, dismantle the worker movement, and to stop (violently) the communists from attaining power. His oratory skills and his actions at the coup quickly gained him supporters everywhere, but especially soin Bavaria and Saxony, which led to the Nazis joining the parliament.
We talked a bit about the Nazi paramilitary thugs and how they were used to suppress worker strikes or outright assassinate leftist figures. I also emphasized how the Nazis, by their own admission, were using leftist iconography and anti-capitalist rhetoric to attract workers to their cause, but that they hardly believed much of it. They also gained a lot of popular support by targeting with propaganda, and aiding financially, people in areas most hit by the depression. Especially farmers and war veterans.
Finally, I explained that following the 1929 referendum to annul the Versaille treaty, organized by Nazis and their allies, gave them a lot of support, which weakened the other traditional parties at the next elections. Chancellor Bruhning started ruling by decrees, to deal with the financial crisis, since the parliament basically could not pass anything. Following this breakdown of politics, and taking advantage of the massive financial and political support that the Nazis enjoyed from the capitalist class, Hindenburg was pressured to hand the chancellorship to Hitler.
Wherever possible, I tried to establish how the capitalist class was very much linked to the Nazi rise to power.