In a shocking turn of events, the guys that shout “Lügenpresse” (lying press) at journalists, say “Heil Trump” at meetings, and describe the supremacy of the white race like Richard Spencer…are Nazis.
The guys who idolize Hitler and copy his exact rhetoric down to the original German are, shockingly, Nazis and racists. ThinkProgress has decided to recognize this.
There are Nazis in DC saluting Donald Trump. They are not "alt-right," they are NAZIS. Share this and resist this. https://t.co/fXOt1aqBCf
— Simon Helberg (@simonhelberg) November 21, 2016
The Nazis have convinced more conservative consumers of racism that using a different name than Neo-Nazi helps. They’ve made their brand more appealing to “ordinary racists” by renaming it “Alt-Right.” And ThinkProgress is having none of it.
In a statement put out earlier this week, the editors of the site managed both to brilliantly outline the role of journalism in the age of fascism, and put out a call to arms to other journalists and news outlets to do the same:
“So you might wonder what, if anything distinguishes the alt-right from more hidebound racist movements such as the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan. The answer is very little, except for a bit of savvy branding and a fondness for ironic Twitter memes.”
The letter goes on, because ThinkProgress is not done with racists and literal Nazis that call themselves something else:
“With that in mind, ThinkProgress will no longer treat ‘alt-right’ as an accurate descriptor of either a movement or its members.”
Refusing to treat people with kid gloves, ThinkProgress nails the point home with this next quote.
“The point here is not to call people names, but simply to describe them as they are. We won’t do racists’ public relations work for them. Nor should other news outlets.”
NAZIS. THEY ARE NAZIS. CALL THEM NAZIS. THEY ARE LITERALLY SAYING THE ACTUAL NAZI THING THEY ARE NAZIS STOP FUCKING AROUND. https://t.co/yAk2NzgiAp
— ?️?Ofjoseph Trout? (@Jenny_Trout) November 21, 2016
Amidst a rallying cry across America not to normalize the abnormality of Trump or Stephen Bannon or the “Alt-right” by failing to call them what they are, ThinkProgress is an example of how journalism should be done.
Major news networks should do some soul-searching to ask themselves what purpose it serves to place racism, xenophobia, and nativism under different branding.
Liberal America, for one, is committed to providing that kind of honesty. It is interesting that those who so often rail against “PC culture” choose to say “Alt-right” instead of the much more accurate “Nazi”. We, along with ThinkProgress, are not going to help them hide their true colors.
Check out the video below of Richard Spencer saying these words:
“And we recognize the central lie of American race relations: We don’t exploit other groups, we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us and not the other way around.”
He is a literal Nazi. So call him that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq-LnO2DOGE
Featured Image: Screenshot Via Twitter.
