[ note: This article received 450 comments and 3 awards in 1 hour after it was posted to r/conservative, until it was (ironically) censored by the leftists goons that run Reddit. Comments which agreed or furthered the discussion were systematically censored and shadowbanned. Follow up posts decrying the censorship were censored. You can read that story here. I’d link the Wikipedia article on controlled opposition, but the page was deleted (aka censored) last year. Here’s the Reddit thread on that. You can’t make this shit up. ]

Convincing everyone your political opponents overlap with the Nazis on a Venn diagram, using some weirdly cherry-picked and subjective traits, is a great campaign strategy. After all, what person in their right mind would want to vote for the biggest baddies in history?

Enter the Nazis, after 80 years of relative obscurity, thrust back into the mainstream of political dialogue circa 2019, just in time for the US presidential election. Suddenly, there’s a Nazi hiding behind every bush. A Nazi around every street corner. The Nazis are on TV. Children are waking up in the middle of the night: “Mommy, there’s a Nazi under my bed!”

What once existed as a lunatic fringe group of about .00001% of the population is now 150 million people, and you can be certain they vote Red.

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

But let’s be fair. The left only considers those on the far right to be Nazis. So take comfort, conservatives, if you’re just normal right instead of far right, you are a watered down, less-extreme version of a Nazi. You’re sort of like the i-cant-believe-it’s-not-Nazi version of a Nazi.

Leftists are quick to take the blame for Stalin and the much under-publicized atrocities of Soviet-style communism, so long as it means they can position themselves opposite Hitler. But is Hitler truly the ideological opposite of Stalin, or was he—dare I say—a close cousin? The question is important to explore, if we are to place Nazis on the spectrum of right and left, as we understand them today.

First, let’s dispense with labels

The term National Socialists Party, which is what “Nazi” stands for, is the pink elephant in the room. Socialism is a leftist ideology after all … But often labels and categories are misused and abused, as many who have been labeled Nazi have learned. Perhaps “socialism” was mistranslated from the native German. Perhaps it means something different today than it did back then. In any case, we’ll let that one slide. For now.

Instead of looking at labels and categories, we will examine what the Nazis actually did, and measure them up with what those on the right and left are doing today.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.

The Nazis were authoritarian

People on the right advocate for limiting the reach and power of centralized government, which is the very opposite of pushing for authoritarianism. Authoritarianism as an aspect of the right is a non-sequitur. It simply does not follow.

The far right, on any realistic spectrum, are anarchists, not authoritarians. Because anarchy is the extreme of less government. Authoritarianism is the extreme of wanting more government. Therefore, authoritarianism is far left. Those who advocate for stronger centralized government are on the same side of the political spectrum as Nazis.

These conclusions are so fundamental and axiomatic, you have to wonder how heavily influenced by propaganda popular opinion is on this matter. It is not a subtlety or something that requires inference or complex math. When confronted with this basic syllogism, leftists must attempt to redefine the words in the argument to weasel their way out of the inescapable conclusion. That’s not what authoritarianism means! That’s now what stronger government means! Knowing full well, what those words mean, and how they are popularly understood.

Yet despite this basic and easy to understand syllogism, the most popular interpretation accepted by historians is that those on the right start out asking for less government at the mild side of the spectrum … and magically flip at the extreme end of the spectrum to wanting more giant, overreaching, authoritarian government…. That’s not how spectrums work.

Even if you did concede that the Nazis were “far right,” it is popularly accepted that the big baddies of communism, aka the Stalinists and Maoists, were also authoritarian. Therefore, if authoritarianism is not exclusive to the right or left, it cannot be used to identify a regime as on the left or on the right. It’s like looking at a bicycle, then looking at a car, and declaring the bicycle is a car because it has wheels.

The Leftist will say “the right are Nazis because they are authoritarian,” then once cornered, revert to “the right is authoritarian because they are Nazis.” Its circular reasoning at its worst. Next!

The Nazis were nationalists

Members of the right are often seen carrying the American flag and expressing pride for one’s country, which is a form of nationalism. And nationalism is a part of Nazi ideology…so that means the Nazis were on the right … right?

It only makes sense if you don’t think about it. When you do think about it, you realize how ridiculous it is to automatically equate all forms of American patriotism with Nazi-era German nationalism. By that definition, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both patriots, were also flaming Nazis. The very people who defeated the Nazis, were also Nazis.

Nationalism, as the term is colloquially understood, is a perversion of patriotism. Patriotism is faith in one’s country. Nationalism is blind faith in one’s country.

The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war. - Sydney J. Harris

Leftists reason that Nazis were on the right because Nazis and the modern right share a strong sense of nationalism. Leftists do not allow for nuance and interpretation to be had in that argument, despite there being, upon closer inspection, a clear distinction between nationalism and patriotism. Only when it comes to the issue of Hitler being a socialist, does the leftist suddenly invite nuance and interpretation back into the argument.

(Sneak preview: the leftists will clarify Hitler was not a socialist, despite saying “I am a socialist.” Hitler said this not as an off-handed remark in an after-dinner conversation, mind you, but in a book he wrote. Apparently, early 20th-century German politicians joke around all the time about being socialists in books they write.)

In Orwell's "1984," the ruling party known as the Party implemented a system called Newspeak, which involved changing and narrowing the definitions of words to control and manipulate the thoughts and actions of the people. The Party aimed to eliminate words and concepts that could potentially challenge its authority or promote independent thinking. By limiting the range of language, they sought to restrict the range of thought and ultimately maintain complete control over the population.

Sound familiar?

The word "patriotism” is one of those problematic words. Its very existence reminds us of the positive side of nationalism, because not all pride and love for one’s country is evil.

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first. - Charles de Gaulle

Orwell himself distinguished between nationalism and patriotism in his essay "Notes on Nationalism."

Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved.

By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. [..] Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally.

The Nazis were socialists

• The right is often seen as being a strong advocate of the free market economy.
• The left is the party of welfare. The party of social economic programs. The left often mocks and pokes fun of “late stage capitalism.” Capitalism is a dirty word among leftists. It’s no secret: socialism and communism are leftist extremes.

The only way for leftists to get out of this one, is to revise history, and pose Hitler as a capitalist... which is exactly what they do. And it’s not difficult to do since Soviet propaganda after the war, in an attempt to distance communism ideologically from the Nazis, portrayed Hitler as a capitalist and likened National Socialism to western economic systems. Marxist-leaning western scholars gladly took this bait, and still today continue to perpetuate the idea in an act of wish fulfillment.

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth." - George Orwell

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist Hitler wasn’t a socialist.

The National Socialist German Workers’ Party or Nazis were not just “socialists” in name. The evidence is overwhelming. The Nazi state exerted total control over industries, production, and resource allocation. Every sector of the economy was nationalized. If you were a business owner, at any moment, a Nazi could barge into your building and demand forfeiture of the business and all its profits. Personal property rights were 100% at the mercy of the state.

While some private businesses were absorbed into the state apparatus or subjected to government control, others were allowed to operate within a framework of state supervision and regulation.

By every definition, the Nazi economy was centrally planned. There was literally a guy sitting behind a desk in charge of dictating what the prices of each commodity should be. Instead of the free market, dictating what the prices of commodities should be.

There was a universal income, for everyone except political dissidents and Jews. The Nazis abolished personal property rights via the Reichstag Fire Decree of 1933. Hitler himself said “I am a socialist” in his second book, Zweites Buch.

I am a socialist. I see no class and no social estate before me, but that community of the Folk, made up of people who are linked by blood, united by a language, and subject to a same general fate. - Adolf Hitler, Zweites Buch

If there is any doubt whatsoever, that Hitler and the Nazi regime were socialist, I encourage you to watch Hitler's Socialism: The Evidence is Overwhelming. The author (TIKHistory), who has been called a “fascist” for calling Hitler a socialist, walks through scores of historical documents and literature on the topic to support the premise that Hitler was not only a self-avowed socialist, but a socialist in action, of the most purebred kind. If you’re still not convinced, watch the longer version of the video (5 hours) which comes with pages and pages of references, direct sources and citations.

The left will fight tooth and nail to make the world forget that Hitler was a socialist. They must avoid exposing that truth at all costs. Because if it is recognized that Hitler was in fact a socialist, the entire argument of Nazis being on the right falls to pieces. And the image of the right wing extremist Nazi bogeyman hiding behind every bush suddenly doesn’t look so plausible.

Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past. - George Orwell, 1984

The Nazis were the party of change

• The pessimistic view of conservatives is that they are the party of the “status quo.”
• Leftists aka progressives want to move forward and conservatives want to hold us back.

These political axioms are pointed to when it’s convenient, and ignored when it’s not. Conservatives cannot be the party of status quo while simultaneously being the party of violent revolutionaries that want to overthrow their state, as the Nazis were.

Here’s another syllogism for you.

• Conservatives are on the right
• Hitler was on the right
• Hitler was a conservative

Hitler was a conservative. Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, does it? Even the Marxists would never be so bold, as to describe this mustached maniac, revolutionary that he was, as a “conservative.” Yet conservative and “on the right” are interchangeable terms, when we describe the modern left-right political spectrum. This is yet another clue.

But the Nazis wanted a return to the glory days of the German Empire… just like MAGA.

This is as much a false equivalency as equating patriotism with nationalism, or, say, apples to oranges. The Nazis overthrew their government and completely overhauled it. Republicans in the 2016 presidential election did not campaign on overthrowing the government and converting it into a socialist regime. They campaigned on wanting to bring back the good things about America, not the bad.

Further, the left, much like most militant and revolutionary regimes, is the party of youth and change. The right is the party of the aged and the unwilling to change. How are we to believe that the party of grandmas and grandpas, set in their ways, will be the party of violent change and upheaval? Again, these stereotypes are dragged out into the spotlight when it’s convenient (Republicans are just old racist people hoarding wealth), and ignored when it’s not.

The left had an entire presidential campaign revolving around the word “change.” Of course, it was never considered that “change” can also be a bad thing. After all, it was Hitler who changed a relatively benign republic into a militant socialist dictatorship.

The Nazis skewed younger

• It’s no secret that the American right skews older, while the left skews younger.

Hitler was an environmentalist, and a vegetarian, but we won’t take those cheap shots. We will, however, discuss the general age-leanings of the Nazi party, and see how they compare with the left and right today.

Demographic traits like age are not ideological leanings, like authoritarian vs anarchic, nor do we have any reason to believe they are causative to ideological leanings (they may very well just be correlative). Nonetheless, age is one of the most common traits we use to describe modern day political leanings. I’m sure you’ve heard it before: Republicans are the party of old people, and Democrats, the party of youth. And this is thoroughly backed with hard data.

Again: these political axioms are pointed to when it’s convenient, and ignored when it’s not. When placing the Nazis on the modern day definition of right and left, we should use the same vocabulary we use to describe political stereotypes and generalizations today (i.e. the spectrum of right and left).

As it happens, the Nazis, along with the Democrats, were also the party of youth. The Nazi party’s ability to recruit and influence the youth played a significant role in its rise to power. The Nazi demographic skewed younger because younger people’s emotions are easier to manipulate.

In 1945, the American Journal of Sociology did a study on the demographics of the Nazi Party and found them “comparatively young.”

The Reichstag under Hitler comprised the leaders in the Nazi fight for power during the twenties. Statistical analysis of this groups shows that they were comparatively young, mostly veterans of World War I, and frequently members of the Black Reichswehr thereafter. [...] The Nazi appeal to youth and the “war generation” against petrification of public life under the “system” was reflected in the youthfulness of its leading members.

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party actively targeted and mobilized youth through organizations like the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) and the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel). These organizations were used to indoctrinate young people with Nazi ideology, instill loyalty to Hitler and the party, and prepare them for future roles in the Nazi state.

The Nazis were big on censorship

• Conservatives often invoke the first amendment and decry the issue of freedom of speech
• Leftists call for more censorship, to combat “misinformation,” and actively censor people via social media. The Twitter Files are only the ones we know about, because, by some miracle, a disgruntled billionaire decided to sacrifice his personal fortune and reputation to expose at least one of the tech corporations which controls speech in the digital age. To leftists, “free speech” is a bad meme, to be mocked and poked fun of.

Leftists seem to be unaware of the fact they not only control America’s most influential academic institutions, Hollywood, big tech, and almost every major news and media outlet, with few exceptions like the relentlessly lampooned Fox News. Yet somehow, the leftist sees himself as the underdog.

The Nazis extensively used propaganda to manipulate public opinion and stifle dissenting voices. They controlled media outlets, such as newspapers, radio, and cinema, to disseminate their ideological messages and suppress opposing viewpoints.

Ironically, the left has the same extreme level of control over information the Nazis had. And because of it, conservatives are powerless to combat the idea that they fall on the Nazis side of the political spectrum.

The most you’ll probably ever read about the matter will be from this anonymous article you are reading now.

The Nazis were intolerant of religion

• The American “religious” right is full of bible-thumping hillbillies—a depiction the left adores. Republicans are, categorically, the party of the religious. Remember Jerry Falwell’s insufferable Moral Majority?
• The Democrats on the other hand are the party of atheism, agnosticism and secularism. You don’t need to go very far into leftist circles to find a strong abhorrence for religion.

In "Mein Kampf," Hitler expressed disdain for organized religion and criticized the influence of Christianity, particularly Catholicism. He viewed Christianity as a weak and foreign religion that undermined the strength of the German people. He believed that it propagated a doctrine of turning the other cheek and promoted universal love and compassion, which he considered to be detrimental to the development of a strong and militant society.

Hitler's cabinet was full of Anti-Church radicals including Martin Bormann (head of office for the Nazi party), the propagandist Alfred Rosenberg, and Heinrich Himmler (the highest ranking officer in the SS). Hitler was constantly butting heads with the Pope. Nazi Germany, along with fascist Italy, was officially condemned by Pope Pius XI for his “myth of race and blood.” Many historians believed that the Nazis intended to abolish the church, replacing it with the state, after the war ended.

Nonetheless, it is not fair to equate Nazism with leftism simply on the basis that they both are intolerant of religion (that would be another false equivalency). But when it comes to the issue of deciding which spectrum an ideology lies on…. Deciding whether to place an ideology on the right or left... The overwhelming conclusion is that the Nazi party was not on the “religion-friendly” side of the spectrum. Therefore, putting it on the right, as we understand it today, is disingenuous.

If we are generalizing, which is what leftist do when they put Hitler on the right (or invoke left-right terminology for that matter), the generalities must also be allowed to go in the other direction. Generally, Nazism was opposed to religion, which puts it squarely to the left on that issue.

The Nazis used “science” to justify atrocities

• The American right with its religious underpinnings is often portrayed as being “anti-science.”
• The Left on the other hand, often personifies “science” as justification for social change. Remember the science says this and the science says that. See: Covid 19 and Global Warming.

The Nazis glorified science and used it as a justification to commit atrocities, such as experimentation on humans. Nazi leaders distorted aspects of Darwin's theory of natural selection to support their racist ideology. Hitler's references to Darwinism or evolution were generally made in the context of promoting their concept of racial struggle and survival of the fittest.

The Nazis were infamous for committing atrocities in the name of science not religion.

Opposition to communism

Because the Nazis were against communism, this is often cited as proof they are “far right.” Since being on the right is often associated with being pro-capitalist and anti-communism. This is simply a hasty generalization or guilt by association.

If people group A hates people group C, but group B also hates people group C. Group A is not automatically an advocate of group B, simply because they both share a hatred for group C.

If that were true, the allied forces would have thrown their guns down and held hands with Soviet Russia, after Hitler’s Germany was defeated. Instead, they fought a 50-year cold war against Soviet Russia, their former allies, because Soviet Russia and the western world were ideologically opposed.

Yes, the right is known for its anti-communist sentiment. But just because the right hates communists, does not mean they love all enemies of communists.

In other words “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is not one-size-fits-all. If it was, pedophilia would be acceptable, so long as the pedophiles hated violence. The Sunni Muslims would not be slaughtering the Shiite Muslims, because both Sunni & Shiites share a hatred for Jews.

The fallacy becomes even more absurd when you consider how adjacent, on the political spectrum, Hitler’s socialism was to the soviet brand of communism. A close study of both communism and socialism reveals the truth: communism is a more extreme form of socialism. The Nazis aka National Socialists Party were a leftist political ideology. Both the Nazis and Bolshevists, socialists and communists, were two competing leftist ideologies.

It is true, of course, that in Germany before 1933 and in Italy before 1922 communists and Nazis or Fascists clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties. They competed for the support of the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. But their practice showed how closely they are related. To both, the real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common and whom they could not hope to convince, is the liberal of the old type. - F.A. Hayek, The Road To Serfdom

This is why the battle for “was Hitler a socialist?” is so important. People understand that socialism is a leftist ideology. History needs to be rewritten in order for Hitler to be considered on the right, and that very thing is happening now. Just try googling “was Hitler a socialist” (and witness the sheer magnitude of defer, deflect and deny) or ask ChatGPT if the Nazis were for a universal income, or any number of issues that would betray a likeness to the modern left. Witness how expertly ChatGPT will evade the question, or evade any answer, to any question which might contradict the narrative.

Conclusion

Authoritarianism and nationalism are loose blanket terms. You must exercise heavily subjective reasoning to conclude those on the right bear a passing resemblance to Nazis. But you need not make subjective claims and can stick to purely objective claims to qualify extreme leftists as bearing a striking resemblance to Nazis. Those on the left who practice censorship, racial divide, antipathy for religion, antipathy for the free market might not be Nazis in name, but are Nazis in spirit.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. - Mark Twain

In one century of the Roman Empire, Christianity was condemned as a crime which could earn you death by tarring. In another century, opposing christianity could earn you death by tarring. History did not repeat itself: the oppressed became the oppressors. But history did rhyme: for a second time in Roman history, one group of people oppressed another for their religious beliefs.

If the great evils of history repeated themselves exactly as they were, they would be all too easy to aid. Nazis won’t return calling themselves Nazis. But the principles they stood for can still return under a different guise.