nilvoid:

geistygeist:

geckopirateship:

The important thing to realize about neo-nazis and modern nazi sympathizers, because it’s the one thing they can’t deny, is that they’ve learned to use their own absurdity as a defense mechanism, to a degree not even Sartre predicted. Having a cartoon frog as their symbol is a strength for them, because it means whenever the media reports on them, they get to turn the narrative into “haha, the mainstream media is talking about a cartoon frog! We got ‘em good!”.

This is part of a wider asset of modern neo-nazism. Truth means nothing to them, primarily with regard to their own members. “Trump’s Phantasmagoria” is an excellent article about this- it explains how trump’s complete disregard for facts actually helped him, because it let people who disagreed with some of the awful things he’s said say “oh, he didn’t really mean that.” And this attitude is everywhere on the right. When milo tells his fans to sexually harass women on his birthday, they respond “he didn’t really mean it! Lighten up!”. When he suggests women in STEM should be limited to 10 or 15%, they say “it was just a joke! He’s not a misogynist!” and laugh at all the people taking it seriously.

There’s no real limit to this. It could turn up that one of Trump’s cabinet picks has actually said “I agree with hitler” or “we should wipe out the jews”, and people would still defend him. This isn’t up for debate- countless internet conservatives have said things like this already, and yet we still have legions of people who don’t consider themselves anti-semites or racists lining up to defend them.

This leads to a really sickening mentality. The tumblr alt-right’s reaction to the current stream of articles about them is basically “Ha ha, this article about how nazism is experiencing an unprecedented resurgence and LGBT people, Jews, and Muslims fear for their lives said Richard Spencer is the leader of the movement, when it’s actually completely decentralized! Hilarious!”

And of course this is all richly flavored with the traditional reactionary bitter ironies. They expect us to ignore all the terrible things they’ve said because “it’s just a joke”, yet they insist that everyone who’s ever said “kill all men” was 100% serious. They adopted “facts over feelings” as their rallying cry, yet the ultimate fruit of their work is the post-truth world.

‘The goose-step, for instance, is one of the most horrible sights in the world, far more terrifying than a dive-bomber. It is simply an affirmation of naked power; contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face. Its ugliness is part of its essence, for what it is saying is ‘Yes, I am ugly, and you daren’t laugh at me’, like the bully who makes faces at his victim.’

 – Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn

This is why making fun of nazis with anime avatars, while entertaining, never phases them because anime avatar or not these people have no shame. They wear their embarassing symbolism proudly so that you can’t hurt them for pointing it out.