I had just finished watching some clips of Tucker Carlson when I came upon this twitter thread. For some reason it all seemed familiar:
The images I found researching my new Nazi May Day piece are really mindblowing. First up: socialist imagery plastered in swastikas. Then: swastikas on top of maypoles. The Nazis phased the holiday from the first to the second in order to supplant socialism with Völkisch fascism
Workers holding tools and red flags — classic May Day, except they’re surrounding Hitler and the flags have swastikas on them
Meanwhile, the trade unions were banned and replaced by the German Labor Front, whose flag appropriated classic workers’ movement imagery and paired it with the swastika
You can read about what the hell was going on here
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/nazi-may-day-hitler-socialism
Originally tweeted by Meagan Day (@meaganmday) on May 1, 2021.
Read the whole piece if you get a chance. It’s just fascinating. The Nazis were totally blatant about co-opting the rhetoric and imagery of their enemy and turning it into their own propaganda.
Our homegrown neo-fascists aren’t quite as good at it, but listen to Tucker Carlson some time as he uses left wing language and complaints against the left. Check out his paeans to Elizabeth Warren’s book some time. It’s chilling the way he twists her intent into an Viktor Orbanesque white nationalist call for women to leave the workplace and have many more children so the country can be repopulated with “Real Americans.” He knows what he’s doing.