If you happened to be alive during the years of 2016 to 2020, you can probably recall the routine issuance of frantic bulletins that “Nazis” were suddenly on the march in the US. Not just that some ludicrous, ragtag group of self-identified Nazis could be occasionally spotted in the wild — which had always been a somewhat regular, albeit
It's hard to see where an organization like the ADL, founded explicitly to counter blood libel and hate against the Jewish people, can possibly benefit from allowing actual neo-Nazis to take to the streets unchallenged in the United States, much less (presumably) approve of shipping arms to a government-linked Neo-Nazi militia group halfway across the world. Weren't we instructed to "punch a Nazi" during the Trump era? Now we're arming them and saluting them and calling them defenders?
One needn't back the Russian invasion of Ukraine to ask what's wrong with this picture. Prior to the invasion, if you advocated siding with Nazis for *any* reason, perhaps short of an invasion of aliens via UFO, you'd be viewed as a hate-filled bigot and banished from public life. (Even in the case of the alien invasion I think you'd have a hard time justifying it in the prestige press, frankly.) Now it's all well and good because of... Vladimir Putin?
This is utter insanity. The Nazis have gone from being a well-earned byword for evil for the best part of a century to brave defenders of a steelworks in the space of a few months.
“Subsequently, Trump was accused of having confirmed his Nazi-enabling intentions when he was seen to have equivocated in his denunciation of the offending Nazis”.
C'mon Michael, you are wayyyy better than this. I am so sick of hearing this lie that he somehow expressed sympathy for the Nazi's in Charlottesville. If you actually look at his Press Conference you will see that TWICE he veered wayy out of his way to say that 'when I talk about good people I'm not including the Nazi's. They deserve to be condemned totally'. Twice.
But here we are, four years later, and people are still letting the lie stand that he was sympathetic to the Nazi's. Our pathological liar in the White House even continues to say that Trump's sympathy for Nazi's was the event that compelled him to run for the White House.
Please, can we stop giving this claim that Trump supported the Nazi's credence, when it's clearly a lie? I know you wrote the paragraph in a way that was meant to point out that some people back then made that claim... but c'mon half the people reading your column still believe he actually did just that! And he didn't. Shouldn't the truth matter?
I can't say I'm surprised. After all, the ADL and SPLC are two of the most dishonest organizations to ever pose as activists. The ADL was founded early in the Twentieth Century as a reaction to the arrest and trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank for the murder of 13-year-old factory girl Mary Phagan. It is believed that Frank had been having sex with the girl and other girls in the factory and that he murdered her when she came in for her paycheck. (My personal opinion is that her death was accidental, that she fell and hit her head on a machine in the room where they were dallying but Frank lacked the character to report it.) Jews in the North went absolutely wild and accused the prosecution of antisemitism when Frank's Jewishness was never a factor.
The SPLC was started by a con artist direct mailer to support the Democratic Party in the South. It has ALWAYS been a shill for the DNC. It's founder, Morris Dees, has since been fired by the organization even though he built it from the ground up.
Neither organization is to be trusted. They claim to ferret out "hate groups" when there is no more virulent hate group in the country then they are.
As for the Asov regiment, battalion or whatever you want to call it. It appears they are no more. The remnants are cowering like rats in a former steel mill where they were hiding behind civilians. However, the Nazi ideology is widespread in Ukraine where Nazi Stefan Bandera is hailed by a heroic nationalist.
My favourite cover for the neo-Nazi Ukrainian “defenders” is that there couldn’t be such a Nazi element openly operating on the ground, in the military and intelligence because Zelenskyy is Jewish…
The guy is Jewish, Nazis couldn’t possibly be running vast portions of Ukraine’s military and intelligence. End of story.
Clever, no?
My favourite comeback to that came from the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov (and yes, I’m quoting a Russian, therefore I must be an agent):
Lavrov on Italian TV: "The fact that Zelensky is Jewish does not deny the Nazi elements in Ukraine. I believe that Hitler also had Jewish blood."
Another great article Michael. Most of us living in the Substack Ghetto are pretty much up to speed on this atrocious reality. However the proverbial “man in the street”, sorry, the proverbial LBGQTXYZ have more important things that occupy their mind. The Four Horsemen appear to have left the starting gate - and they’re off! Good times.
Reporters are feckless sellouts, yes? That’s what Michael is telling us, yes? Why does it fall to Michael to research and tell this story? What is the invisible force that causes them all to knowingly misrepresent? They know, but they persist, what’s the impetus?
I watched the White House correspondents dinner and it is clear they have no qualms, in fact they are altogether chuffed.
Hyperbolic, but seeing as Nazis are the topic, I think it could be the same phenomenon at play when average Germans stood by while their Jewish neighbours were carted off.
Is your spouse guilty of this type of thinking, onboard with the narrative? Are your children? How about your friends? Do you think Michael Tracey is on to something and what would your circle of friends think? Do you have hope? Do you think we can reason our way out of this wholesale embrace of philistinism?
My answer to all these questions: to late, fait accompli, they have won.
What have they won, NARRATIVE CONTROL they tell us the stories we live by and it is within their almost exclusive purview to change those stories: that’s what Michael’s pieces about.
And that's why Donald Trump is the most amazing political genius of all time: one single individual human somehow became both a literal reincarnation of Adolf Hitler AND Vladimir Putin's personal butt puppet.
That's right. This astoundingly brilliant pussy grabber actually UNITED the Nazis and the Russians.
Donald Trump is like the Holy Trinity, only with two irreconcilable parts instead of three. And also the two parts are evil. But other than that he's a one-of-a-kind eternal fuckin' political genius. No wonder the Democratic machine was so afraid of him.
Speaking of weaponry, this piece is a laser guided cruise missile into the awful hypocrisy of the Democratic Party from the Trump to Biden years. From Ukraine to COVID to #MeToo to dark money to the economy there is nothing but double standards
The fact that everyone from the Pentagon and the State Dept. to the NYTimes and the ADL and ACLU turn a blind eye to Azov Nazism demonstrates that every American "in the know" is scared shitless of Russia.
It seems that US power thinkers fear Russia because it's a wildcard. It's not under our control or even our influence. I guess the airtight logic of Western planners is something like: "We can't control Russia. Russia fought Nazis in World War II. QED we must attack Russia with an army of Nazis."
Good and thorough post on this. Not surprising under this climate we have random teenage thugs emulating these outright Nazi types wearing the merch style Azov Battalion clothing available on the internet including Amazon. The topsy turvy world of shallow, trending, constricted thinking - actively prohibiting certain free speech while encouraging more militaristic and authoritarian speech and behavior - is reprehensible.
It's hard to see where an organization like the ADL, founded explicitly to counter blood libel and hate against the Jewish people, can possibly benefit from allowing actual neo-Nazis to take to the streets unchallenged in the United States, much less (presumably) approve of shipping arms to a government-linked Neo-Nazi militia group halfway across the world. Weren't we instructed to "punch a Nazi" during the Trump era? Now we're arming them and saluting them and calling them defenders?
One needn't back the Russian invasion of Ukraine to ask what's wrong with this picture. Prior to the invasion, if you advocated siding with Nazis for *any* reason, perhaps short of an invasion of aliens via UFO, you'd be viewed as a hate-filled bigot and banished from public life. (Even in the case of the alien invasion I think you'd have a hard time justifying it in the prestige press, frankly.) Now it's all well and good because of... Vladimir Putin?
This is utter insanity. The Nazis have gone from being a well-earned byword for evil for the best part of a century to brave defenders of a steelworks in the space of a few months.
I fear this will one day backfire greatly.
“Subsequently, Trump was accused of having confirmed his Nazi-enabling intentions when he was seen to have equivocated in his denunciation of the offending Nazis”.
C'mon Michael, you are wayyyy better than this. I am so sick of hearing this lie that he somehow expressed sympathy for the Nazi's in Charlottesville. If you actually look at his Press Conference you will see that TWICE he veered wayy out of his way to say that 'when I talk about good people I'm not including the Nazi's. They deserve to be condemned totally'. Twice.
But here we are, four years later, and people are still letting the lie stand that he was sympathetic to the Nazi's. Our pathological liar in the White House even continues to say that Trump's sympathy for Nazi's was the event that compelled him to run for the White House.
Please, can we stop giving this claim that Trump supported the Nazi's credence, when it's clearly a lie? I know you wrote the paragraph in a way that was meant to point out that some people back then made that claim... but c'mon half the people reading your column still believe he actually did just that! And he didn't. Shouldn't the truth matter?
I can't say I'm surprised. After all, the ADL and SPLC are two of the most dishonest organizations to ever pose as activists. The ADL was founded early in the Twentieth Century as a reaction to the arrest and trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank for the murder of 13-year-old factory girl Mary Phagan. It is believed that Frank had been having sex with the girl and other girls in the factory and that he murdered her when she came in for her paycheck. (My personal opinion is that her death was accidental, that she fell and hit her head on a machine in the room where they were dallying but Frank lacked the character to report it.) Jews in the North went absolutely wild and accused the prosecution of antisemitism when Frank's Jewishness was never a factor.
The SPLC was started by a con artist direct mailer to support the Democratic Party in the South. It has ALWAYS been a shill for the DNC. It's founder, Morris Dees, has since been fired by the organization even though he built it from the ground up.
Neither organization is to be trusted. They claim to ferret out "hate groups" when there is no more virulent hate group in the country then they are.
As for the Asov regiment, battalion or whatever you want to call it. It appears they are no more. The remnants are cowering like rats in a former steel mill where they were hiding behind civilians. However, the Nazi ideology is widespread in Ukraine where Nazi Stefan Bandera is hailed by a heroic nationalist.
My favourite cover for the neo-Nazi Ukrainian “defenders” is that there couldn’t be such a Nazi element openly operating on the ground, in the military and intelligence because Zelenskyy is Jewish…
The guy is Jewish, Nazis couldn’t possibly be running vast portions of Ukraine’s military and intelligence. End of story.
Clever, no?
My favourite comeback to that came from the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov (and yes, I’m quoting a Russian, therefore I must be an agent):
Lavrov on Italian TV: "The fact that Zelensky is Jewish does not deny the Nazi elements in Ukraine. I believe that Hitler also had Jewish blood."
OUCH!
Does anyone ever wonder if they are living in the same world as other people?
Another great article Michael. Most of us living in the Substack Ghetto are pretty much up to speed on this atrocious reality. However the proverbial “man in the street”, sorry, the proverbial LBGQTXYZ have more important things that occupy their mind. The Four Horsemen appear to have left the starting gate - and they’re off! Good times.
DNC and Biden cabal claims that a biggest domestic threat are “white supremacists” – while financing and arming Ukro-Nazis !! What a FRAUD…
Your taxpaying money is paying for salaries of Ukraine soldiers, including card carrying Ukraine Nazis – THINK about that !!
But 70+ years of unspeakable crimes against Palestiniand are "kosher" -- arms and billions of dollars annually
Excellent reporting.
Reporters are feckless sellouts, yes? That’s what Michael is telling us, yes? Why does it fall to Michael to research and tell this story? What is the invisible force that causes them all to knowingly misrepresent? They know, but they persist, what’s the impetus?
I watched the White House correspondents dinner and it is clear they have no qualms, in fact they are altogether chuffed.
Hyperbolic, but seeing as Nazis are the topic, I think it could be the same phenomenon at play when average Germans stood by while their Jewish neighbours were carted off.
Is your spouse guilty of this type of thinking, onboard with the narrative? Are your children? How about your friends? Do you think Michael Tracey is on to something and what would your circle of friends think? Do you have hope? Do you think we can reason our way out of this wholesale embrace of philistinism?
My answer to all these questions: to late, fait accompli, they have won.
What have they won, NARRATIVE CONTROL they tell us the stories we live by and it is within their almost exclusive purview to change those stories: that’s what Michael’s pieces about.
Thanks for such a great essay. My neighbors have I stand with Ukraine Flags.....I would like to scratch out Ukraine and write in Nazis!
Thank God for Rand Paul and the brave 57 Republicans that voted against this war mongering package. Now we fund NAZI’s. Amazing.
Great info Michael. Plus an appropriate amount of tongue-in-cheek remarks to keep a longer article interesting!
And that's why Donald Trump is the most amazing political genius of all time: one single individual human somehow became both a literal reincarnation of Adolf Hitler AND Vladimir Putin's personal butt puppet.
That's right. This astoundingly brilliant pussy grabber actually UNITED the Nazis and the Russians.
Donald Trump is like the Holy Trinity, only with two irreconcilable parts instead of three. And also the two parts are evil. But other than that he's a one-of-a-kind eternal fuckin' political genius. No wonder the Democratic machine was so afraid of him.
Perhaps the CIA is feeling nostalgic.
Speaking of weaponry, this piece is a laser guided cruise missile into the awful hypocrisy of the Democratic Party from the Trump to Biden years. From Ukraine to COVID to #MeToo to dark money to the economy there is nothing but double standards
The fact that everyone from the Pentagon and the State Dept. to the NYTimes and the ADL and ACLU turn a blind eye to Azov Nazism demonstrates that every American "in the know" is scared shitless of Russia.
It seems that US power thinkers fear Russia because it's a wildcard. It's not under our control or even our influence. I guess the airtight logic of Western planners is something like: "We can't control Russia. Russia fought Nazis in World War II. QED we must attack Russia with an army of Nazis."
Good and thorough post on this. Not surprising under this climate we have random teenage thugs emulating these outright Nazi types wearing the merch style Azov Battalion clothing available on the internet including Amazon. The topsy turvy world of shallow, trending, constricted thinking - actively prohibiting certain free speech while encouraging more militaristic and authoritarian speech and behavior - is reprehensible.