Alexandre B A VillaresDec 3, 2022
Eric Blair

As we watch Elon Musk slide into rightwing radicalization in real time, I’m reminded of this 1941 piece by Dorothy Thompson.
“Who goes Nazi?”

In short: it is the people who love money and status and power that are at risk.
Those who resist the urge are the people who have a solid family life; a job they love for the work, not the money; a moral framework based on pluralism and equal access to opportunity.
Worth a read. #nazi #Twitter #liberal

https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/

Who Goes Nazi?, by Dorothy Thompson

Harper's Magazine
Dec 2, 2022 at 11:39pmWeb
Show thread@krisnelsonDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth I have my quibbles with this piece—it’s very essentialist, very much of its time—but it is also one of those primary historical sources that makes me feel a sense of deja vu, like we’re reliving history all over again, and it isn’t any more fun this time around.
Show threadAdam IerymenkoDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth It's simpler than that, though Thompson is not wrong. Elon is being radicalized by the same nerd-to-Nazi pipeline that I watched radicalize probably a full 1/3 of the Hacker News crowd between 2012 and 2016. It plays on all the cognitive and emotional biases of nerds who have never stepped outside their nerd-dom, never seen the world from other social and cognitive perspectives. There but for the grace of a few years in college I would have gone.
Show threadgeerueDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth excellent read. Thank you.
Show threadNancy Ellen Maitri Peden:toad:Dec 3, 2022
@protecttruth send to Maddow???
Show threadMags at LargeDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth Great article. Good writing and insights. Thank you.
Show threadSkoots ✅Dec 3, 2022
@protecttruth where have all the men of brazen consciousness gone?
Show threadToxteth O'GradyDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth I guarantee that Musk has been sliding since that moment in 2020 when he "took the Red Pill", so he hasn't had much farther to slide. But he's only done this to protect that nice pile of cash he built up while creating Tesla (after all, fascists are good for keeping unions out and taxes low). He'd be antifa if they could somehow be monetized as NFTs for his benefit...
Show threadhiding from plagues ☣️♿Dec 3, 2022
@protecttruth I wish I could share this to fb without catching a zucc
Show threadbnitzDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth Kazuo Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day" is an interesting study in the social, economic and practical pressures to be a Nazi. To this day if you follow the money to the leadership of many multinational corporations, you will find fascists neonazis and white-supremacists. Most are self-assured that they are self-made and all they do is right and proper. Millions of their employees and customers have no idea.
Show threadAli Van ZeeDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth as well as an understanding and sense of history …
Show threadNorahDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth just wait till he runs for president 😬
Show threadForevermanDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth I don’t study history but reading posts like this really makes me want to start.. it’s just mind boggling for me to see and think it’s free societies where Nazi movements can grow form and attack the very society that raised nurtured and provided ..I literally at this point don’t have the ability to understand
Show threadKeith DaggettDec 3, 2022

@protecttruth

Musk, Trump, West, are just farts that come before a great shit, for they are clearly clowns.
Something wicked this way comes.

Show threadFerrousDec 3, 2022

@ktdoggett @protecttruth Hitler was widely written off as a clown too.

https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-incompetent-lazy-nazi-government-clown-show-opinion-1408136

Hitler Was Incompetent and Lazy—and His Nazi Government Was an Absolute Clown Show | Opinion

Why did the elites of Germany so consistently underestimate Hitler? Possibly because they weren't actually wrong in their assessment of his competency—they just failed to realise that this wasn't enough to stand in the way of his ambition.

Newsweek
Show threadKeith DaggettDec 3, 2022

@ferrous @protecttruth

It ain't the same today.
We aren't suffering the financial pain that Germans were after WWI.
It's plainly artificial angst that wealthy interests are trying to foist upon the unwitting.
There is nowhere near even a plurality of such people.

Show threadFerrousDec 3, 2022
@ktdoggett @protecttruth sure! I'm not sure how this connects with the point about Hitler also being dismissed as a clown, though?
Show threadKeith DaggettDec 3, 2022

@ferrous @protecttruth

There is no comparison to Hitler that I am even acknowledging.

Show threadFerrousDec 3, 2022
@ktdoggett @protecttruth that explains it, then.
Show threadKeith DaggettDec 3, 2022

@ferrous @protecttruth

Whatever, dude.
I don't even know you.

Show threadFerrousDec 3, 2022
@ktdoggett @protecttruth no. I just had a relevant point to make about the dangers of dismissing the dangers of fascists just because they're clowns, which you're not going to take on board, which is fine.
Show threadneoteotihuacanDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth That was something!!
Show threadOlavDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth perhaps Mr/Ms N wasn't around then. They are quite chatty yet engaging, and very much into civil rights, trans rights, etc. But the 1st Tuesday of November they'll vote for the Nazi, who promises to not raise their taxes.
Show threadChris JamesDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth Really struck by that phrase of a “lost generation”. I think we have one of those now, but not all would go nazi. Where people have lost access to education and job opportunities, especially in industrialised towns seeing former livelihoods rusting away is that humiliation that pushes people to the far right.
Show threadNeil HargravesDec 3, 2022

@protecttruth The fascinating thing about this is something we tend to forget easily: that being Nazi or expressing pro-Nazi views was quite mainstream before the war and hence it was perfectly legitimate to identify people as such. I find this all the time reading letters and diaries from the period.

Now there's such embarrassment at using the term that often we fail to see the far right for what it really is, and they're skilled at obfuscating too (Kanye West excepted)

Show threadAlexander RutholDec 3, 2022

@protecttruth
I often used to wonder: If I'd lived in Germany in the 1920's - 30's, would I have been a nazi? Would I have supported Hitler?

The TrumPutin era answered that question: _no, I wouldn't._

Show threadAlexander RutholDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth
"Mr. Hitler, whom I do not support-"
Show threadNiallDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth
plus ça change.
The first few characters read like the British Tory party. Mr D sold Brexit to Britain.
Show threadWTFDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth Elon has become radicalized along with Kanye. The wealthy megalomaniac is easy pickings.
Show threadFred LunauDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth
Thanks for posting this article. It surfaces the importance of the many nuances in life that may, possibly, shape our character - and "inexplicably" turn us into something unrecognizable.
Show threadLakeRNistiredDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth Watched “Keeper of the Flame” Tracey/Hepburn last night. Overly dramatic but Hepburn’s monologue of how her husband was planning to control the US had my husband and I thinking of Trump and his ilk.
Show threadLindsey WallaceDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth frightening how many of our leaders the risk profile describes
Show threadPaul AllenDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth Thanks a lot for sharing! Though written in 1941, the piece describes an eminently relevant ecology that's simply teeming with species of #Nazi and #antifa.
Show threadHelen121Dec 3, 2022
@protecttruth What an interesting article. We know so many of these people in our political class. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. #Nazi #Fascism
Show threadDr Soledad Miranda PhDDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth do you really agree that if you don’t have a solid family life and a job you love you are doomed to become a radicalized supremacist?
Show threadKarynDocDec 3, 2022

@protecttruth

Great line: But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.

Show threadMelissa ChimeraDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth this convo here is why I’m so glad to be on Mastodon. Thank you all for an enlightening read & convo.
Show threadMelissa ChimeraDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth this Harper’s read here @georgetakei and the comments are everything re: the CEO of twitter, and those that are susceptible to that thinking.
Show threadIn #Flancia we'll meetDec 3, 2022

@protecttruth interesting -- I don't think a priori Musk will go nazi, but this sounds like very interesting reading, thanks.

I'm also looking forward to the next item you listed. Perhaps I'm wrong -- I just think that Musk will become more altruistic and socially aware as we advance through the decade, although maybe this is just my hope.

Show threadBob GlicksteinDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth This is one of the most remarkable things I have ever read, thank you.
Show threadThis Old HikerDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth Very interesting, and probably a good description of its times. The ones that concern me today are the masses of miseducated, under(or un-) employed, and socially disconnected young men. They are today’s variant of those who have destabilized societies throughout history.
Show threadWndlBDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth Elon has a solid family life, #amirite? It’s just a question of which family…
Show threadBonnie SchwertnerDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth That’s incredible!
Show threadrikDec 3, 2022
Also this: https://damonlinker.substack.com/p/what-does-peter-thiel-want
What Does Peter Thiel Want?

Untangling the beliefs of the enigmatic billionaire

Eyes on the Right
Show threadAlonDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth This is such a bad article. One the Jews in the room goes Nazi? And conversely, the aristocrat with secure status doesn't, which even in 1941 was obvious hogwash from even a cursory look at Germany or even at who led the collaborationist government in France...
Show threadAviva GaryDec 3, 2022
@protecttruth This thing was spot on when I first read it many moons ago...
Show threadCarla MartinDec 4, 2022
@protecttruth 😢 👍 That hits home very much with me as if it had not been for my wonderful grandfather who was in the Secret Service and who saved as many as he could, my family would have perished.
Show threadmk30Dec 4, 2022
@protecttruth @saltphoenix fascinating essay! remarkable how relevant it feels today.
Show threadWillardDec 13, 2022
@protecttruth How many now have a job they love for the work, not the money?
No wonder the country is sliding into Full Out Fascism.
Show threadAnna NicDec 13, 2022
@protecttruth A good piece, but mostly that of a writer. I don't think this is a good scientific explanation. Thing is, it seems easy with people like Musk, but what about that seemingly happily married, liberal art teacher who threw his wife out and became a Trump lover during the pandemic? I still wonder what happened there and I fear the answer to who goes Nazi is not as simple as it is put here. You might not immediately recognize those people at a party...
Show threadDiligence JonesDec 13, 2022
@protecttruth
This was so good.
I felt I could identify many of these people today.
Show threadOctoberDec 20, 2022
@protecttruth as much as the joke is that musk is super divorced, I think he legitimately does a lot of what he does because he's painfully, fatally lonely and has few to no actual friends