Here are some photos of the Nazis who marched on Charlottesville with Tiki torches over the summer. If you’re anything like me, you were horrified to see these Nazi f–kers walking around in khakis, not afraid to show their Nazi faces, not afraid to be known nationally and internationally as agents of violence, fascism and racism. They were and are the banality of evil, the polo-shirt-wearing dark underbelly of America, only in Trump’s America, all of the creepy-crawly Nazis have come out into the light. They don’t worry about being “outed” as Nazis. They are proud of their belief systems. They are proud of their hatred and bigotry. Not only that, they feel oppressed. They are aggrieved, and that’s why they voted in record numbers for Donald Trump, because petty, stupid white men need to feel aggrieved together, and he spoke their language.
So what did we need over the Thanksgiving holiday? The New York Times thought we needed an article called “In America’s Heartland, the Nazi Sympathizer Next Door.” Hours later and thousands of tweets later, the NYT changed the headline to “A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland.” You can read the article here.
What’s the big deal with the article? The writer, Richard Fausset, frames several American Nazis as just regular, nice “heartland” people who just happen to have abhorrent views. To be clear, no one is saying that the New York Times cannot or should not cover the rise of neo-Nazi fascism in America. People are arguing that the New York Times – the paper of record, a supposed of beacon of journalism – should not make “Nazism in the heartland” sound like a quaint trend piece, like “a lot of people are eating Swastika cupcakes these days” or “Nazism is the new quilting.” DO BETTER.
The NYT Nazi fluff text is only further proof that, at a fundamental level, large segments of the US intelligentsia do not appreciate the existential crisis now facing their republic. In short, they’re not actually concerned — and they really should be.
— Jasmin Mujanović (@JasminMuj) November 26, 2017
I don't care about their fondness for NPR
I don't care about their four cats
I REALLY don't care about their bridal registryThey're Nazis, and they're looking to recruit, and they think they president and the GOP are with them.
And they are right.
— Julius Goat 🦆 (@JuliusGoat) November 25, 2017
I wanna live in a country where NYT reporting with a sympathetic tone on a Nazi who likes "Seinfeld" is 1000000x more offensive than Hillary Clinton calling white supremacists "deplorable" because they're, you know, deplorable.
— Charles Clymér🏳️🌈 (@cmclymer) November 25, 2017
NYT: nazi who are you??? what do you want
NAZI: white power, cops even more murdering black people w impunity, feudalism, hitler was v v chill
NYT: but nazi what do you want
NAZI: i just said
NYT: oooooo so what are you putting in that pasta you're making, looks yum— Alice Sola Kim (@alicek) November 25, 2017
Hey @nytimes, look! Nazis can seem like regular folks! From the @AuschwitzMuseum: a photo of Nazi staffers having fun between killing Jews: pic.twitter.com/M0a38bA6SU
— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) November 26, 2017
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Repulsive and so ill-judged. This is up there with Laurie Penny’s breathless feature about Milo in the WHAT THE EFF WERE YOU THINKING stakes.
There was a fantastic tweet storm by Mangy Jay (magi_jay) as to why this was irresponsible journalism and should never been published in its current form. Worth a read:
https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/934875769850998790
That was epic. Thank you for sharing it.
RE: They don’t worry about being “outed” as Nazis.
While they’re not wearing hoods, they actually do care about being individually outed. I think they found pride in being a sea of screaming, angry white faces, however once people started identifying them and jobs had repercussions (such as lost jobs) then we saw some regret over poor decisions. Although, it must be noted, none of this regret was about the stupidity and immorality of their flaming racism. So bring on the consequences.
In regards to NYT, I’ve been side eyeing them since their focus on Hillary’s emails. They also have a reporter who’s particular focus is remaining chummy with the Trumps. She likes to paint them as making Machiavellian decisions, when in reality the Trumps have tripped and stumbled their way to the WH.
ETA: Also, let’s stop with the America’s Heartland bit. It’s so inaccurate and exclusionary on so many levels.
“In regards to NYT, I’ve been side eyeing them since their focus on Hillary’s emails.”
And I’ve been side-eying them since they consistently sold the Iraq war to a vulnerable American public.
UGH! Major eye roll. I wasn’t reading NYT at that age, but I could see them doing it. I’ve been all about The Post in the era of Trump. Not to say WaPo is without fault, but the NYT is getting egregious with their errors.
Google Judith Miller for more info on how the NYT (accidentally?) helped the Bush administration sell the Iraq War.
Agree with all your points. As for Maggie Haberman, I thought for a long time she was keeping Trump close in the way that “keep your enemies” close makes sense if you don’t want to completely alienate someone and have continued access. But I’m starting to rethink that.
Trump keeps Haberman close. She is one of a handful of reporters he calls on the regular to gossip, complain and basically just shoot the sh$t. His relationship with the media is so freaking weird.
Haberman has a big old squealy girl crush on Trump, which should tell you all you need to know about her. She went on Charlie Rose and actually, with a straight face, called Trump “a lonely man,” a “very smart man,” and pronounced him “charming.” Not even Kellyanne would do that – deep in her heart SHE knows Trump is a moron and a criminal. But Haberman told Rose that everyone should read The Art of the Deal, a “remarkable book.” All of her tweets are total apologies and normalizations of Trump and his regime’s policies. So – either she’s being paid by him, is being coerced by the NYT to write and say this shit, or she’s in love with him. My money’s on the last one, and how *incredibly* gross and sick is that?
That heartland stuff is stupid and American propaganda.
Normalizing evil is definitely one of the rungs on the ladder. I read this and was creeped out, particularly given that “nice, normal” people like him killed the members of my family who didn’t leave Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century.
This article is the result of the year long “mea culpa’ on the part of the media for failing to call the election correctly, thereby being accused of not understanding “real americans” and Trump supporters. Actually, one faction of that group is perfectly easy to understand. They are white supremacists and Nazis. However, now in Trump world, they suddenly deserve our understanding. The article is in some quarters being called a “swing and a miss” Just a “miss” for me.
Yeah, I guess I can see where they were coming from but the bottom line is they don’t deserve a platform. I think that’s part of the reason Trump got elected — too many people continued to give him a platform, month after month after month instead of dismissing him as the crackpot he is. The tweets Kaiser posted were sobering.
The Republican party is abusing truisms. Yes, both sides should be given equal time, but what if one side is using the privilege only to lie and deflect? Why haven’t journalists learned by now? It’s like they are being brainwashed with the rest of the populace.
I have never commented here but this is the truest statement I’ve read in a long time. Yes, I don’t get it, and I hate it. At some point, you can’t keep “being fair”, you’ve got to just say and do what’s right.
I agree with the basic point they were trying to make, in that nazis are not restricted to these images of American History X that many think, they can look normal and you might not even notice until you get into a conversation with them and it’s on the increase, how many of us have found friends or coworkers true selves come out of the woodwork with their “I hate all this PC crap, (because I’m a big fat racist, misogynst)” stuff since Trump started his run…however….the NY Times made an absolute cock up of the reporting of this, and their subsequent “I’m sorry you were offended” message. The tone that should have been there towards these twats, one of horror and disgust, is completely missing.
These people and their ideals are not normal in any way shape or form. They are abhorrent, hateful, evil, no matter how many cats they own or waffle irons are in their Target bridal registry. They failed in their reporting of this.
Christ, all these patriotic “Murica is our country, support the troops” assholes seem to forget that a whole generation of America’s youth gave their lives fighting against these people and what they stood for.
Its kind of like how people have false images of serial killers/rapists as these ugly deranged creepy ‘hunchback’ types when really they look like every day people in most cases.
But do we need the reporter to present his horror and disgust? Can’t the reader come to these conclusions on her own?
A reminder that many of us are not shocked that nazism and racism are done by regular people. You know if NYT talked to ONE black person they could’ve summed this whole stupid article in a few sentences. Racism is done by everyone from your neighbor to the cops to the judges that hand out punishments. From your supposedly woke liberal friend to those that have Nazi flags in their windows.
A couple people on twitter wrote about how this is the problem with “woke” white liberals: they are always trying to find the “other side” to racism. Because that’s productive to find another side to those that want you dead.
But considering they will never experience that we have dumb articles like this. The media did this all last year treating trump with kid gloves all the way to the WH. Glad to see y’all havent learned. Happy I tossed my subscription last year.
An interview with Ta Nehisi Coates was rebroadcast on my NPR station on Thursday. When asked about “common ground” he said he wasn’t interested because there is no common ground with nazis. I wish the media would figure that out.
They never will because they will never experience any fear at the hands of these people. Again this is the exact problem we are having with the DNC too. They want to court the middle class white vote so badly that they do this crap too. There’s no other side to racism. And MLK had it completely right when it came to the dangers of the moderate.
There were people (African Americans, Jewish) people posting about their relatives that were killed by KKK members and Nazis. It was awful to read. The threads
Excellent points. Could these journalists just for once interview those of us whose lives are being put at risk by these odious racist/sexist/homophobes?
If they did maybe they would stop with the dang puff pieces about nazis and racism.
I always like reading your comments, Nicole, and find them very informative. I can’t tell you what an insight so many of the comments here have given me on how things are for Americans, especially in the last year.
Thanks I appreciate it. Cbers are pretty awesome
Well said, Nicole. I have to say, though, that it seems crazy to me that anyone thinks there’s “another side” to racism. That’s another narrative invented by the right, I think.
Maybe but its perpetuated by the left
One thing the past 2 years have found me saying too often: If you go too far to the right (politically speaking), you come out on the left. If you go too far to the left, you come out on the right.
This. But unfortunately, there are “free speech absolutists” on the left who promote that idea too.
So well said, Nicole. Are you a writer by trade? If so I would really love to read your work. If not, you’ve got the gift for sure, just sayin’!
It is very true. I have always known Nazis look like ordinary people and I am in no freaking mood to read how reasonable they are. It is abnormal and twisted. They were neighbors and regular people in WW2 so now I am supposed to be shocked by it? I am surprised this is considered news to anyone.
The light hand is disturbing and romanticizing these people is dangerous propaganda that gives them a pass.
She should be suspended for this nonsense just like others were for criticizing 45.
This reminds me of 1930-33 Germany when Hitler coerced the press with the help of Goebbels.
Wait…isn’t Emperor Zero stacking the courts with unqualified clowns? Oh yes, Hitler did that too.
Yes. And the British press was pro-appeasement and anti-Semitic and the NY Times ran a magazine puff piece about Hitler’s mountain hideaway in 1937. You know, where he thought deep thoughts. Like how to kill Jews.
Sinclair Broadcasting, a right-wing group, is taking over local broadcast in the US. Koch Bros taking Time Inc. So we have media consolidation in service of the right wing. And yes, court packing too – not only unqualified, but right-wing unqualified. Because we have left-wing unqualified people too (CR: Jill Stein), but they’re looking for right-wing zealots.
It’s depressing. Keep fighting. We have to defeat the tax bill to show they’re not invincible.
I am so frustrated with the US press.
The NYT and other US media outlet editors think “fair” and “balanced” news coverage means bland, equivocating stories about horrible people. You also see American journalists during on air discussions use vague words about drump’s outrageous and hateful actions. They seem so weak. The WH press corp allowed itself to be humiliated by Huckabee Sanders’ demand that they each say something they were grateful for before asking a question and then she mocked them. And several journalists fell for it. Disgusting.
Give me journalists like Aussie Jonathan Swan from Axios who report on and respond to this drump administration in a way it deserves–outrage, disgust, and without any guile.
Yup..and they continue to say sweet phrases like ‘he misspoke’ or ‘untruth’ rather than use the word Liar.
“disingenous” always bugged the crap out of me
I would heartily recommend Louis Theroux’s “Louis & The Nazis” documentary as a antidote. He goes in all super-friendly with a coil of rope and just quietly sits back and watches them hang themselves. The NYT journalist may have been trying something similar, but missed the mark.
It was filmed well before Trump (early 00’s) and -on a positive note – apparently the twin poster girls of Aryan Pop featured have since grown up, turned their backs on white supremacy and blossomed into pot-smoking socialist hippies.
Oh, man! I know what we’ll be doing tonight. We just watched his Scientology doc. Thank you!
I think the NYT was trying for that, but he doesn’t have the skills or perhaps even the background knowledge on these types of movements to make it work. At all.
He was too lazy to do research. Not a good reporter, maybe not a reporter at all. Just a pretentious writer. I hope his career bombs, but he’ll probably go to a right-wing outlet instead because he sure comes across sympathetic to his subject. He also seems surprised that this Nazi didn’t become racist as the result of a “racial crime.” Because you know all racists are racist because blacks and Jews hurt them. Shocked that the editor let that one through. The whole thing was a clusterf**k of patronizing whiteness.
You know I was JUST thinking of Louis’ documentary. He has such a gift for challenging his subjects but never seeming like he’s attacking them which gets them to open up. I agree this is probably what they were aiming for, instead we got “Nazis: They’re just like you and me!”
Great recommendation! All of Louis’ docs are worth a watch.
That would be worth a watch.
Elkie: Thanks for the recommendation, I’m watching “Lois and the Nazis” now. The NYT article was devastating, the whole concept of “let’s humanize the people who hate and disdain and dehumanize us” is just sickening. Sure, let’s look at the “good” qualities of those who want us banished or dead: NO. I’m still shocked.
I saw this article and maybe it was an earnest attempt by the NYT at providing a nuanced view of alt-right supporters, but I believe a neutral approach was a bad approach. Nazism is (and has proven to be) a dangerous ideology, and the NY Times probably did more harm than good with this glamorizing piece.
The way I read the article, it was not about a nuanced view, but rather about showing, that you often can not see evil from the outside. That Nazis do not look like monsters, but like normal nice people, which make them even more dangerous.
The Nazis in the third reich did not appear marching in the streets out of nnwhere, the first appeared as concerned citizens who promised to bring order and stability. And that their most dangerous trick, appearing normal and harmless at the beginning.
I came here to say this exactly. If you’re looking for obvious monsters, you’re looking in the wrong place. It’s more likely to be Brad from accounting.
The piece didn’t accomplish this. It didn’t go into the problems with this loser having Nazi ideology or his aims in organizing in support of Nazi ideology: IE to kill Jews. It didn’t challenge his lies – “Hitler was chill about the gays” – and it didn’t place him in context of modern Internet recruiting for white supremacist hate groups. Above all it didn’t ask him about the killing at the Charlottesville rally of a woman named Heather Heyer and I say named because the reporter was too lazy to actually write her name.
The piece makes it more palatable to befriend, support or at the least passively tolerate Nazis, and this guy is a Nazi.
It also hyperlinked to a website selling Nazi merchandise, including swastika armbands. What kind of a newspaper links to a hate groups web store? This is advertising.
Yes to what lara and Joy said. It’s like teaching children about “stranger danger” as if child predators look like scary monsters, when instead it’s Uncle Dave or Coach Bob. Really shallow understanding of the problem, of history too.
I agree, lara. The article was poor, but there really are Nazis and sympathizers out there who appear as normal as normal does. This must be explored and exposed so we have a chance at combatting it. The leaders of alt-right and neo-Nazi movements are getting really clever at disguising their odious views behind code words and their organizations behind good public works projects. For example, there’s a very dangerous neo-Nazi group here in Quebec that operates Christmas toy drives. I can’t agree with the notion that just discussing and exploring these things is wrong, we just have to be careful in the method of it, which this reporter wasn’t enough.
These people are horrifying, but I rather that they are out in the open so the rest of society can see what scum they are and can deal with them. If they want to be open about their racist views, then I guess that they don’t mind their employers, co workers, friends, family being aware of it too? I would not be surprised if many of these people are in the closet when it comes to their racist ways. They only feel safe in large crowds.
It should have been framed much better, but I do actually think the article captured something we need to address.
These are normal people. Terrible people, but still, normal people. I don’t think acting like there’s a huge dividing line is that helpful, not when 50+ million people recently made it clear they’re, at the very least, highly tolerant of these views and almost another 100 million let it be known they don’t care enough about it to vote. There’s a reason Nazi’s are feeling comfortable right now, a reason why they can be ‘out’ as Nazi’s and still retain friendships and community ties, and it’s because great swathes of the population are tolerant of them and do sympathise with them. A huge part of that is because they aren’t the weird outsider skinheads anymore. They’re normal looking people living normal lives. They’re making you your coffee, they’re doing your taxes, they’re sitting across from you at Thanksgiving.
This is how you get a repeat of 1930’s Germany. Not with lunatics like David Duke and gangs of meth dealing skinheads, but with Nazi’s who exist comfortably in society, and with a society that lets them.
Jussie, have you ever read Hannah Arendt and the idea of the “banality of evil?”
The thing is, the NY Times thinks it was ‘warning’ people about something most people – most marginalized people, most women, most POC, most Jews, most migrants, most refugees – already know. And it did it in a way that suggests that people who don’t have anything to fear (at the moment) are okay if they find themselves liking Nazis. That it’s okay to befriend them, allow them, support them. Instead, modern Nazis should be ostracized, shamed and shunned. The Nazi in this piece was complicit in the killing of Heather Heyer, and yet the reporter didn’t even commit to including her name. Didn’t challenge this Nazi on any of his lies and his ignorance. Didn’t place this i the context of a KKK- and neo-Nazi ridden Southern Ohio. Didn’t ask a white guy who has a job who he works for or why he thinks things are “so bad.” Why he thinks killing Jews is the solution. What his Traditionalist Workers Party stands for (killing Jews) or what they are working and organizing to do (kill Jews). It’s a triumph of style – vacuous, “ironic,” hipster style – over substance and does not belong in a newspaper.
More on the problems here:
https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/934875769850998790
This article and the backlash only got Jewish me and my Jewish husband thinking about which of our gentile friends and neighbours would read things like this, think “not so bad, maybe he’s just a little misguided but he’s right, Hitler was chill and didn’t know what Himmler did” (a denialist lie). Which ones would betray us? Which would look the other way when they marked our door, threw rocks at us, shot through our window, attacked our Jewish schools and synagogues? Which would refuse to hire us, which ones would fire us? Which ones would steal our cars, home, assets? Which ones would hide us – which ones would turn us in? Why should we have to think this way in 2017 – and 2017 Canada?
Your post made me cry WaTP. It is how we are feeling and this article was like poking a tender wound that has never really healed. My elderly relatives are getting anxious.
This is not a new idea or concept that needs to be bludgeoned into us. Doesn’t anybody think it’s weird that every white person in America has 1 racist relative that they only see on holidays and it’s never the same person? The summation of that is there are a lot of racists in America that are average people. This has been the case forever and I don’t understand why it keeps getting brought up as a surprise. But I’m Black, Southern, and went to school in New England so the average American being racist is not a surprise to me.
So sick of sheltered, out-of-touch “journalists” who keep treating the rise of Trumpian Racist Evil Gnomes as a novelty that they feel compelled to cover like the release of a new IPhone. It is beyond ridiculous, and it is dangerous. It is a terrible form of “tolerance” for those people who would like to wipe out a great many of us. It is irresponsible for the NYT to publish stories like these.
My sentiments exactly. I am also thinking that the journalist wanted to attract attention by doing some kind of “contrarian” take on Nazis. Dear God!
It is dangerous. There’s a reason this is illegal in Germany and
as usual, America is going to find out the hard way.
Succinct and appropriate. Thanks.
As someone smarter than me said, this bullshit article is proof that jews don’t “control the media” if we did there wouldn’t be any nazi puff pieces
This idea about “America’s Heartland” makes me sick – as if the coasts don’t matter. Sorry to be an East Coast snob for a second, but the “heartland” gets way, way more in terms of government money (relatively) than the coastal states do. New York (my home state) pays more than they get back. These “heartland” states are running a deficit. But oh, how cute that they have Nazis.
And I’m so sick of journalists trying to seem “fair” by trying to write humanizing stores about these assholes. It reminds me of way back in the day when the show Friends was still on – I remember hearing that the writers’ room had a running count of words per character per episode so each character got the same amount of lines. The country isn’t a show about 6 do-nothing 20-somethings. When people are bad, they are bad. Don’t give them an equal voice because you want to seem fair. Don’t “find the good” in a fucking Nazi.
Agreed. Modern journalism, in a Fox News world, has mistaken even-handedness for objectivity.
It’s interesting that for a region that “feels neglected,” America’s heartland gets an awful lot of coverage, even from “coastal elites” like the NYT.
Yes, but much of that coverage treats us like provincial yokels.
To know what responsible reporting would look like, check out:
https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/934875769850998790
All the things that could have and should have been done to place this Nazi scumbag in historical, sociological and geographic context.
This is good. The Times should be ashamed of themselves. It seems as if they truly don’t know what their job is. Both the journalist and the editorial board at the paper need to examine themselves.
If you must send someone to interview the Nazi, send a WOC. Someone who’s life experience could not be more different, not another white dude. I say this not to disparage all white dudes, but as a reminder that white men are soooooo deeply conditioned to side with each other in any situation that it would take THE most skilled of all the white dude reporters not to fall prey to that conditioning. And the guy who wrote this piece…. doesn’t seem like the most skilled of all the white dude reporters.
That piece was a mess, At most, it should have been an aside to a more in-depth piece examining the larger neo-nazi movement in the country. You can’t do a “Nazi’s: They’re Just Like Us” treatment and leave it to stand on its own. Context is important.
I’d like to see a character write up about minorities that live and work in ‘Murica’s heartland.’ How THEY feel when they drive past hundreds of Maga signs and make coffee for, serve rednecks w Nazi tattoos and rebel flag shirts at their place of employment. How about we talk about their ‘normal’?
+a million.