I'm a 45 year old Catholic, husband and father to beautiful 7 and 4 year old girls. I teach 4th grade. My wife is Lutheran, girls baptized Lutheran, they attend my Catholic school (I just learned I will be teaching my 7 year old next year, one year earlier than I was anticipating). I'm politically conservative and religiously liberal. In the past I've voted Republican, Democrat, and 3rd party. I need my candidate to have ideas and solutions, not an R or a D. If I feel our two party system does not provide that, I'll do my own research and vote for a 3rd party candidate that aligns more closely (not completely) with what I feel is important.
I have a wife, parents, in-laws, coworkers, friends.....some voted Trump, some voted Harris. They are the most kind and loving people you will meet. None of them are Nazis and I feel we ought not throw around that word in particular, we ought not paint people with so broad a brush. I feel doing so diminishes those few people left alive today whose lives were impacted by real Nazis. You may hate Trump. Call him "Emperor Dipshit", call him "Tangerine Palpatine", that's fine. But this country is not run by a Nazi regime and the fact that you CAN say those things about him, the fact that people can make and post videos like the one above, criticizing the government is proof of that. Boarder enforcement is not Nazism. Looking at the books to find government waste is not Nazism. I think these tariffs suck, I think it's a ham-handed implementation, I think at best it puts a nail into the coffin of the hobby and at worst harms families and small businesses. It's not Nazism.
In general I believe in boarders and enforcing those boarders. Every country in the world does it. I'm sympathetic to those coming from shit hole countries wanting to contribute and provide a better life for their families, I believe they should have the opportunity to be here, but I also believe turning a blind eye to the legal process of being here is dangerous. At the same time, I've taught wonderful students from kind, loving families who I suspect are not here legally. Am I going to drop a dime to ICE? Do I want "jackboots" to drag them apart? Hell no. I pray for them and their situation.
Unfortunately for the good people of the United States, we live in a two party system. Those two parties are primarily concerned with their stranglehold on power and not the prosperity of those beneath them. Voters need to make a choice that is not black and white. I have Catholic family members who are against abortion but have voted Democrat. Are they "baby killers"? No. They were presented with two (usually bad) choices and they chose what they felt was the lesser of two evils. The past year the people of this country were shopped two terrible alternatives to Trump. When the only two choices you give Americans are two extremes, that's not going to end well. People start to look at choices that are not black and white as black and white and you start the division amongst kind and good people and pit them against each other. That's a bad thing.
I want to push back on a couple of things here - because I don't think we need to say 'not all Trump supporters are Nazis.' That's already been covered. There's other reasons. They're just not GOOD reasons. What I don't agree with is the argument against naming a thing. Not every single person that voted Trump is a card-carrying Nazi. But Trump is. Many people in his inner circle very much are. It's not a questionable thing. It's not just trying to find the most hurtful slur to throw at them. Stephen Miller and Bannon, for example, are PROUD Nazis (Christo-fascist white supremacists make you feel better?). There is no debate to be had on that matter. It's just true.
It's also true that Trump has had the complete (near-complete) support of every Neo-Nazi/White Nationalist terrorist group in the US, including the KKK. That's not just people trying to be mean and say mean things. It's literally true.
So there's nothing wrong, and everything right, with calling Nazism when you see it. Because that's what it is. And if we can't name a thing, then words don't have meaning anymore. But really, we can't name a thing because it makes people uncomfortable. But you have to live with the uncomfortable truths just as much as we have to live with the fact that certain types of people can support Nazism without being Nazis. At least, at first. But again, none of the reasons for doing so are good or virtuous reasons. They're just reasons other than 'I am also a huge Nazi.'
It's also worth pushing back on two big Republican talking points that are total bullshit; "enforcing borders" and "it's not fascism if you can say it's fascism without being killed." To the first point; enforcing our borders isn't what we're doing. As many commentators in the political word have said - what Donald Trump is doing is cruelty for cruelty's sake. The US had border enforcement LONG before ICE even existed. That is a fact. Until we started illegally kidnapping people and shipping them to a foreign torture prison, we had constantly-fluctuating border crossing numbers. Trump bragged about the fewest crossings in 2017, but 2018 and 2019 crossings were WAY up. He's just a liar that only points to statistics he likes and thinks make him look good.
But again, the US has enforced its border effectively (or at least as effectively as today, minus the massively illegal and psychotic behaviour by the federal government) for decades and decades with less cruelty and targeted harassment. So why do it? Because the cruelty is the point. ICE doesn't even need to exist, unless someone is going to argue that we didn't have any border security before 2003. C'mon.
The thing about being able to say what you want means it's not Nazism/fascism is also just massively wrong. Go look at the famous comparison picture between women on a beach in 1970s Iran, and women on a beach in modern Iran. Just because you have a right at this specific moment does not mean someone isn't actively working to take it from you. Full authoritarian control doesn't happen in a month or two. But when you have a president saying the media is the enemy and targeting anyone that says things he doesn't like and forcing compliance from law firms -- how long before you CAN'T say whatever you want on the news anymore? How long before all news is just state run propaganda? He literally attacks reporters every single time they're within earshot of him. You do realize what he's doing when he does that, right?
Just like many things he does - it's right out of Hitler's playbook. And that's NOT hyperbole. It's quite literal and needs to be taken seriously.
Think of it this way, because I believe you're probably a good person. You wouldn't want families torn apart by jack-booted thugs. But Donald Trump does want that, and is actively pursuing that. And has found people more than willing to put those boots on and 'just follow orders.' Remember the last time someone just followed orders despite being something no one believes a good-hearted person would do to another human being?
Also, for the record, Trump has talked lots about deporting legal immigrants. In fact, many of the immigrants he talks about deporting are Dreamers or refugees. Trump abuses the fact that many Americans don't actually understand the process of immigration, which allows Trump to blanketly claim that anyone that came here without a visa is 'illegal.' That's not how any of it works, though.
I'd also, if you're still reading this, like to push back on two more things; voting Democrat doesn't make you a baby-killer because Democrats aren't forcing people to have abortions. It's not a good comparison at all. If you voted for someone that said 'I'm going to shoot every baby in the face if I become president' - then yes, you are a baby-killer by proxy if you vote for that person and they follow through. Not the same thing at all.
Also it's silly to say that Americans were given 'two extremes' for choices. Kamala Harris was only an 'extreme' choice to racists and misogynists. She was SO centrist that it's physically painful to watch people call her Left-Wing. Sometimes I wonder if anyone in the United States on the Republican side of things actually knows what a far left 'extremist' looks like. It ain't a career prosecutor with the full weight of the Democratic party behind her, I can tell you that. Also, I think you would struggle to ever convince me that ANYTHING the Democrats have ever suggested for policy is so extreme that it justifies voting for the human version of a YouTube rage-bait video screaming about anything even remotely progressive and threatening to jail or kill (or, you know, disappear to a foreign torture-prison) anyone he doesn't like. Hell, as I said earlier above, you'd be hard-pressed to convince me how good Christian voters can think the 'maybe better medical access and don't put children in cages on the border' party is more extreme and unacceptable than voting for the rapist felon.
I still believe there's value in talking about this stuff. I believe in rehabilitation and change (which is why I don't believe in most forms of long-term imprisonment). I appreciate that, if you got this far, you were willing to share your thoughts respectfully and I hope you took something of value from my response.
(A new record for me -- my post was so long I had to split up my two responses -- hence the double-posting.)
