Why It’s Morally Wrong to Call Half the Country ‘Nazis’ and ‘Garbage’

At one time, William F. Buckley was arguably the most famous conservative in America, and he debated a famous liberal, Gore Vidal. Well, at one point, things got heated and this exchange happened:

VIDAL (loftily): As far as I’m concerned, the only pro- or crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself (Buckley). Failing that—

SMITH: Let’s, let’s not call names—

VIDAL: Failing that, I can only say that—

BUCKLEY (snarling, teeth bared): Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your godd@m face, and you’ll stay plastered—

While we could certainly make the “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” argument, if there’s such a thing as “fighting words,” calling someone a Nazi to their face qualifies. In my book, it’s as bad as calling a black man the N-word or making crude comments about someone’s mother. You accuse someone of being a Nazi, you’re calling them one of the evilest people in history. You’re accusing them of being ready to murder people and put them in camps.

Now, you might say, “They’ve been calling Republican politicians, particularly presidential candidates, Nazis FOREVER,” and that is very true. Trump was Hitler in his first term, mild-mannered George W. Bush was Hitler, Reagan was Hitler… it was just Hitlers all around. However, we also all know that politics is a dirty business and anyone running for high office, particularly President of the United States, is going to get ripped, insulted, undermined, and attacked constantly. Fair, unfair, that’s how it is.

However, widespread, extraordinarily vicious attacks on the general SUPPORTERS of politicians are a much newer phenomenon.

Why?

Well, for one thing there tended to be a belief that elections were won by bringing people over to your side. While there’s still some of that, today, both sides are much more focused on rallying their own base to the polls than bringing in new voters.

Furthermore, Americans have become much more ideologically uniform in the places they live and online. In other words, if you’re AOC or Nancy Pelosi in a far left-wing district, you don’t need Republican votes and you don’t hang around with Republicans. You live your life, in the real world and online, in a bubble where you don’t have Republican friends, don’t hear the Republican side of issues, and generally exist in such a way that you are completely out of touch with what Republicans believe. You learn what Republicans supposedly believe via people like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, who also know nothing about Republicans, but who interpret everything they do through an insane lens. Conservatives can’t get away with this the same way that liberals can, which is why study after study will show you that conservatives understand liberals much better than liberals understand conservatives.

Now, during this election, the closing argument of the Harris campaign has essentially been that Trump is Hitler and his supporters are fascists and Nazis. It’s worth noting that we’re not talking about messaging coming from Reddit or ANTIFA, we’re talking about a message that has been hammered home by the Harris campaign and some of the most prominent liberals in America. Sure, the idea that Trump is Hitler is dumb in every way imaginable. He’s already served a term in office, and he didn’t throw anyone into camps. He’s been actively pursuing the Jewish vote, he’s friendly to Israel, and his own daughter Ivanka is an orthodox Jew. You may think he’s a bad person, a narcissist, or the wrong choice for President, but clearly, any sane person should be able to see he’s not Hitler.

However, what’s really concerning is the smears leveled at Trump supporters by the Harris campaign and some of their most prominent surrogates, including big liberal media stars who may as well be on the payroll. The Harris campaign spent an inordinate amount of time focused on the idea that Trump was having a “Nazi rally” in Madison Square Garden. Basically, the idea was that Nazi sympathizers held a rally in MSG back in 1939, so the fact that Trump is doing a rally there means he, along with everyone attending, is a Nazi:

This was capped off with this quote from Joe Biden:

“The only garbage I see floating out there is (Trump’s) supporters.” – Joe Biden

Obviously, this is incredibly stupid. We could say that just based on the sheer number of Jews there:

However, we could also add that there are lots of big-name politicians who have held events at Madison Square Garden. Among others: FDR, JFK, George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.  

Were they called Nazis for doing those rallies? No. This is all just nonsense. However, it’s incredibly harmful nonsense.

When you’re labeling half the country as “Nazis” and “garbage,” there are real consequences. Maybe not in deep blue Berkeley or Manhattan where you don’t ever have to see someone who disagrees with you unless you want to do so, but there are plenty of places in America Democrats and Republicans live together. When you start portraying people as the pinnacle of evil simply because they don’t share your political views, it leads to mistrust. It breaks up friendships. It ruins marriages. In the long term, for a country to work, people who disagree with each other need to be able to cooperate.

Again, that doesn’t mean agreement or playing pattycake all the time. Politics is a nasty business.

But there needs to be a modicum of respect for well-meaning people on the other side and what they want. If we turn politics into a zero-sum game where we all hate each other and want to hurt the other side even more than we want to help the country, where does that leave us over the long term? How do we live together? How do we hold the country together? Heck, why would we want to hold the country together under those circumstances?

Don’t call half the country “garbage” and “Nazis,” because you’re creating levels of division that will hurt the country badly over the long term.

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