We Must be United, Against Nazis

In his inaugural speech, and others which preceded and proceeded it, Joe Biden called for unity. It’s a familiar plea, a tired one even, that we’ve heard from past presidents and other politicians at any time of conflict and strife, which is pretty much always. A difference between this and some past instances is that the two current sides in this country, to the extent that they can be treated as binary, are uncommonly incompatible and irreconcilable. That is because one of the sides in contention are nazis. There are nazis, and there are the rest of us, and we cannot unite with nazis.

While not actually members of the German National Socialist party, and maybe not card carrying members of any domestic neo-nazi organization dumb enough to issue ID cards, it’s fair for our purposes to call them nazis. Sure, many of them are closer to klansmen. Maybe most don’t have affiliation to any organized hate group. But they are all part of a fascist, antidemocratic, generally bigoted white supremacist movement, so nazis suffices. If it stinks like shit, why call it anything else?

That is not to say that all Trump supporters or those who question the 2020 election results, whether they be private citizens or political toadies, are nazis, but they are allied with nazis, they are cheering and marching alongside nazis, making them nazi collaborators, if you will. Even those who don’t cheer or march, but who agree with the rhetoric of fascism and bigotry, who troll and talk shit online or in person, who harbor diseased thoughts and feelings in their twisted hearts and wretched souls, there’s no uniting with them. There can be no unity with nazis and nazi sympathizers ever.

It is impossible to unite with people whose ideology is dependent on division, which by its nature privileges and glorifies one group within a society while it excludes and persecutes others.

It would be great if life were like a movie, and we could, like in American History X, turn ardent nazis into passable human beings by finding them each a Black friend and giving them a basic education. Unfortunately, those true and dedicated haters, the hardcore nazis, will not be turned around by education, empathy, or logic. Maybe there’s hope for some of the nazi hangers-on, some of the idiot collaborators, who aren’t actually the worst people ever but are just pathetic nazi bandwagon jump-onners who should know better but just really fucked up, and have continued to fuck up, and appear inclined to fuck up forever. Maybe. But they’ve done a lot of fucking up, and there’s only so much you can blame on brainwashing. These are not all otherwise decent folks who lost their way and dipped a toe into fascism. This isn’t a problem easily remedied with decency and understanding. These are people in denial of reality, or who are aware of it and violently hostile towards it. So long as they beat the fascist drum and line up beside nazis, we have to be united against them.

This absolutely is a stance that must start at the top. There can be no uniting with Republican politicians who are, or who have supported nazis. Biden has long rode this dangerous delusion that good work can be done by working with Republicans. It can’t. And nothing positive can be accomplished through collaboration with nazis. Uniting with Republicans is a repugnant prospect in general. But the idea of working towards unity with the majority of the current crop is unacceptable. Every nazi or nazi collaborator in government must be expelled at the least.

We do need unity in this country. But not between everyone. That’s impossible. And we don’t need the sort of bland liberal unity Biden is promoting, where effectively what is meant by unity is calmness, complacency. Stop fighting and do what we say. Fall in line with the status quo. The unity of mainstream politicians is that which keeps relative peace in preserving the neoliberal capitalist order. Make no mistake, they don’t want the radical left rebelling any more than the radical right. Sure, they don’t like nazis anymore than the rest of us, but it’s the disruption to business as usual they oppose most strongly.

Going forward, we do need to be united. But not with everyone. Not everyone can be welcome when a considerable portion of the population is ideologically dedicated to being unwelcoming and hostile to the other members of the group. Frankly, we have to be unwelcoming and hostile to those people, to nazis. We have to shut down and silence them at every instance. Yes, that is discriminatory. Yes, that is a double standard. Because they’re fucking nazis.

The bounds of free speech and compassion and respect and empathy do have a limit. There is a line; it is fascism and nazism. You draw the line at fascists and nazis.

We need to be united, against nazis.