National Socialists don't exist anymore as they've pretty much all passed away at this point. The Neo(new)-Nazis of today are so few you wouldn't even be able to fill up a small stadium. And we're talking about 1,000 people at most, which is across all of the US, not including Europe.
I've told you before, and I'll say again, I don't trust those numbers one bit; it sounds like some crock you've been fed by people who are trying to convince you that they're not extremists more than anything.
In 2008 around 70 people participated in a nazi march in Lund, Sweden (
p. 220). You and I both know that Sweden is a tiny-ass country by comparison to, really, anything that's going to generate major ripples. According to
Wikipedia, there were around 500 protestors at Charlottesville - the groups organizing the "Unite the Right" rally were largely explicit neo-nazi groups, and the organizer wasn't exactly shy about it being a "white nationalist" (ie white supremacist) event: (
source)
Saturday’s “Unite the Right” rally was meant to unify various white nationalist factions against unidentified enemies, Damigo said in his video Saturday.
When even self-described "Western chauvinists" (not a pretty thing to call yourself or identify with tbfh)
don't want to associate with you because you're too neo-nazi, you may be a neo-nazi.
You've also got multiple prison gangs, including Aryan Brotherhood, which also exist and act outside of prison and
easily surpass your 1000 figure. Given that some of the identifying tattoos these guys get are freaking swaztikas, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that yeah, they're neo-nazis. I'm sure someone with access to police gang/prison inmate databases could, hypothetically, go in and search for swaztika tattoos and likely come up with more than 1k hits.
That said, I do think folks could stand to be more nuanced in their language. Just because someone harbors prejudices doesn't make them a Nazi. Just because someone enjoys using people's prejudices to manipulate them doesn't mean they're a Nazi. Just because someone has fascist or authoritarian tendencies doesn't automatically make them a Nazi. Centrists might be Nazi apologists, but Nazi apologists aren't necessarily dyed-in-the-wool Nazis themselves.
Being more precise in our language would give bigots and trolls less leverage to play the "Leftists always call people 'Nazis'" card, and would help to drive home the absolutely vital point that you don't need to be an extremist yourself to be complicit in the rise of an extremist ideology.
I am all for nuance, and think it's
sorely missing from a lot of discourse especially lately. However, I think we also need to be careful about things like "this group consists of nazi apologists" (I honestly don't know if your intended reading was "okay, so it's true that centrists are nazi apologists" or "if you encounter a centrist it's possible that this particular individual is a nazi apologist", so I can't say whether your statement is the type that is problematic).
Especially when there's a vocal subset of outspoken not-nazis who would take any criticism of their methods as whataboutism. If you want to read "centrist" literally as "in the exact middle between nazi and not-nazi", that's not the best ground to stand on, but I don't think that's the position that
all people who identify as centrist are coming from. (Also begs the sidenote that what is whataboutism in one context may not be in another.)
Similar with the "complicity" assertion - while there's a good dose of truth to the whole "the only thing necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing", it unfortunately is one of those things that runs the risk of coming with a lot of collateral damage when swung by people with a lot of clout. And even when the damage isn't to people who are
entirely innocent, I will confess that I find the idea of people who've been basically cult-recruited into the fold taking the brunt of the hit while the people pulling the strings are savvy enough to dodge most of the bullets pretty... troubling. While they've made bad decisions, they were also exploited for someone else's agenda and it sucks that it can't always be the people at the top falling the hardest, yanno?
Also, yes, you should maintain a healthy, balanced skepticism about the things people say about themselves and others, and as much as possible, seek evidence before just automatically buying into claims and rumors.
I will add here that "evidence" can be extremely misleading. Far as I know most or all the screenshots that have circulated of me saying "that doesn't violate rules" are legit (pretty sure all the ones I've seen have been; can't speak for any I haven't, obviously).
However, since they've been collected by people who have a vested interest in reporting particular kinds of content, and since people aren't generally going to take and circulate screenshots of a staff member saying "yeah, taking action, thanks for the report", the selection is biased and is based on a skewed sample. A lot of them have also been "yeah, I reported the exact same thing and got the same answer" which, yanno... is kind of how a consistent enforcement system works? So I'm understandably pretty lukewarm about how "evidence" gets interpreted in trial by social media.
Also: Just because someone is "nice" to you (especially in a first encounter) does not mean they are telling you (and/or themselves) the truth. Predators and manipulators are very good at playing nice to get what they want.
Absolutely. It's also good to be extra vigilant if you happen to belong to a perceived vulnerable group that right-wing extremists have identified as good recruiting grounds. These include, but are not limited to, people suffering depression (particularly ones that express feelings of isolation), people with autism spectrum disorders, and nerds/geeks with feelings of disenfranchisement. Doesn't mean every single member of these groups will
actually be a receptive target, nor is it a value judgment against them, but it is the nature of the beast to seek out people whom they feel may be most receptive to manipulation and radicalization.
It is also, I would argue, not a fault to play the "I'll be polite to you long as you remain polite to me" game, even if you know the other party is likely acting in bad faith. That's absolutely something that comes down to personal opinion and what works for you, however. I'd personally rather have a bunch of people acting frostily civil to each other when they have to interact at all, than a bunch of personal attacks flung around, because I don't like conflict.
To continue my point earlier, something I’d recommend to those of you on the recieving end of the Nazi accusation is to try to focus less on the misuse of the term and more on the intent. Solely pointing out how the correct definition doesn’t apply to you doesn’t address the intended criticism and in a way helps perpetuate the lack of nuance that
@Troj referred to.
And when both the accusation and the intent is bad? :V
(I realize you were probably not directing the post at me, so the question is kind of tongue in cheek. If you have advice to give I'll happily listen to it, the whole topic is just a sore spot for me. I like to think understandably so.)
