[Image caption: a series of tweets by @pookleblinky, reading:
âSteve Bannon is a nazi. When given power, he will kill Jewish people. Thatâs not interesting. Thatâs what nazis do when given power. What is interesting, is that many people grew up learning about the Holocaust, and are going to âwatch and seeâ.
My mom is a nevertrumper. She studied the Holocaust since she was a kid. She met with survivors in college. She, even though she knows on an intellectual level that putting nazis in power kills Jewish people, doesnât react emotionally. She empathizes with the victims of the Holocaust. She stands up for Jewish people when people are overtly antisemitic. She has emotional reactions to swastikas, burnt synagogues, testimonials from survivors. She literally has known how the Holocaust came to be, since childhood.
But, when confronted with an actual nazi being put into a position of power: all of that slides off. All of it means absolutely nothing. Instead: âwell Iâll wait and seeâ; âthis is America!â - ignoring that until Hitler, Germans felt the same way about âbut this is Germany!â
On an intellectual, abstract level, she knows that putting nazis in power is a Bad Thing. A thing she spent decades learning about. She knows, in better detail than many people, just how horrifying that Bad Thing can be. But, on an emotional and visceral level when faced with the concrete reality of a literal nazi being given a position of power: nothing.
The thing about trump putting a literal goddamn nazi in a position of power, is that it is a test of his enemies and supporters. He wants Bannon not just because the dude is a nazi. But because it is an obedience test.
On an intellectual level, abstractly, nevertrumpers like my mom know it is unacceptable to give nazis positions of power. Absolutely.How they react when one is literally given a position of power, is a good litmus test of how much leeway that nazi will have. Do they vociferously condemn it? Issue ultimatums: this is absolutely unacceptable. You cannot be allowed to do this, at all. Or do they instead adopt a tentative reluctance. âfirst, heâs our president and we must support him. Second, this is America.â
This is an obedience test to those who support his party. How much will his enemies within it put up? Dictators always turn the members of their party, however reluctantly, into collaborators with a share of blood on their hands.
This is also an obedience test for his enemies outside of his party. Internet radicals, millennial antifas: what resistance do they offer? Do his enemies outside the party respond to a nazi being put in power, by loudly disrupting the process of normalizing this? Or do they write very witty jokes and sell artisanal safety pin jewelry on etsy and write thinkpieces on Hogwarts?
Itâs a simple obedience test. It doesnât seem, on its surface, like a life or death decision. But, itâs the first of several tests each of which determine how far supporters will go and how little enemies will do. Each obedience test will occur after the results of the last have been sufficiently normalized.There is never one single test, a poll asking âis it ok to kill Jews?â
Instead: a series of tests, each edging toward atrocity, each relying on the previous one to have normalized the outcome of this one. The moment America normalizes the result of this obedience test, there will be another, with slightly higher stakes. Those higher stakes will not look higher. After you put the first nazi in power, is a second one really that huge a thing to get around? After you put a nazi in power, is him doing anti-semitic things really that shocking?
So: the next obedience test will have higher stakes, and will look *as hard* as this current one. How you react to this obedience test, is *exactly* how you will react to the next. Itâll feel just as easy/difficult morally. Itâll seem identical in stakes and difficulty as this obedience test. But, itâll have higher stakes, and take more effort to fail it.Importantly: yes, there is actually an âalright letâs kill Jews y/nâ test. It doesnât feel any different from the first, smaller test. That last test will not feel like it has any higher stakes, or any more moral difficulty, than the very first already forgotten test.That last obedience test, pretty much sets the bar for how obedient you are. And, requires nothing but war as a means of disobedience.That last obedience test always happens. And: fascism moves faster than you expect. It doesnât take long for the ramp to reach it.
How long? It took Hitler, in an age before instant ubiquitous communication, 4 months to lead up to that question. Fascism moves, let us say, 5 times faster than you expect. You donât have 4 months, you have 24 days before that last exam question.You have 3 weeks to loudly, visibly, and passionately fail every obedience test given to you. You have 3 weeks to loudly, visibly, and angrily *disrupt the process that allows each test to set the baseline of normalcy for the next* You have 3 weeks to loudly, visibly, and angrily prevent each obedience test from setting the standard of normalcy the next one violates.
No, in 3 weeks you will probably not be given a literal yes/no poll on whether itâs cool to kill Jews. But itâll be too late to prevent one. After those 3 weeks, those obedience tests will keep coming, and will keep establishing the grounds of what is normal. And sooner or later (sooner than you expect, even if you expect it soon) that last biggest obedience test will be asked of you.â]
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