I get this, but US neonazis were also popular at the time too. The klan had a show on my local public access channel. Every gun show was littered with turner diaries stuff. Part of the "Nazi" hate was the Nazis being German and thus European and "gay", lots of places I lived were fine with US Nazis - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

mugrimm.bsky.social • 1 day ago

I get this, but US neonazis were also popular at the time too.

The klan had a show on my local public access channel. Every gun show was littered with turner diaries stuff. Part of the "Nazi" hate was the Nazis being German and thus European and "gay", lots of places I lived were fine with US Nazis

Reposted from Claire Willett

I know we talk about this constantly but it is truly one of the greatest mindfucks of my lifetime. as an 80s kid a Nazi was the most unambiguously, nonnegotiably evil thing you could even be ADJACENT TO, like morality for kindergarteners, and now we have to relitigate that shit every day???? ffs

Comments

umberhulk.bsky.social•1 day ago

The thing a lot of people took away from learning about Nazis is that they themselves should have been the ones doing those things

insanemistress.bsky.social•1 day ago

People miss the 80s/90s because they were children and had no responsibilities just like how people miss the 50s/60s/70s. They miss not having to work a dead end job that doesn’t afford them to live

insanemistress.bsky.social•1 day ago

the people yearn for communism they are just too propagandized to understand it

mattwentyone13.bsky.social•1 day ago

It’s like no one understands that Waco, Ruby Ridge, OKC bombing happened in the 90s.

suddenlygarmo.bsky.social•1 day ago

the big Lebowski really drives the second half of this one home huh

cmonmaque.bsky.social•1 day ago

I’ve said it before many times but “the klan marching is actually a sign of our strength because it shows how committed we are to free speech” is an objectively super fucking despicable thing we all grew up hearing

larunasoftpaw.bsky.social•1 day ago

"I don't like what you have to say but I'll fight for your right to say it" actually it's your moral imperative to fistfight people who say certain things.

literalmente-fadul.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think the klan marching is a great thing as it makes it easier to trow a p1p3 b0mb at them and k1ll like 10 at once.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

100% lol

cmonmaque.bsky.social•1 day ago

College protesters need to get maced because they’re dangerous. The klan though? Well they gotta march. It’s real important.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

Reagan himself had students shot and killed with national guard troops as governor on his orders!

cmonmaque.bsky.social•1 day ago

Americas problems, you see, began with trump

dzdzdzdzdzdz.bsky.social•1 day ago

A beloved Brown biology professor wistfully recalled inviting the leader of the American Nazi party in 1996 as a Strength Of Free Speech Moment after students tried to kick the inventor of stop-and-frisk off campus in 2013 lol https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2013/10/miller-70-p-02-fascism-and-the-open-campus

blandphilosophy.bsky.social•1 day ago

So basically the only change is they got over hating Europeans?

ernieluckman.bsky.social•1 day ago

people just memory holing David Duke.

wasteti.bsky.social•1 day ago

The Columbine High School massacre was done by some Nazi kids, but most of not all of the media left that part out and just called them mentally disturbed.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

tbf the media didn't know that until the FBI report came out like 2 years later showing they were nazi edgelords who were shockingly popular relative to earlier reports.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

Reagan was endorsed by the Klan and his first presidential rally was at a lynching site celebrating their local history. His VP had direct connections to the Nazi party and helped put high ranking Nazis in power post WW2 in Europe despite being a WW2 vet. https://bsky.app/profile/clairewillett.bsky.social/post/3liomqolkqc2b

ronninator.bsky.social•1 day ago

I cannot fucking deal with people doing "uwu conservatives used to be respectable" nonsense.

yeeyee187.bsky.social•1 day ago

There’s also a bit of history with neocons liking Russia as Russia not the ussr

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

There's literally recordings of Reagan saying African leaders are monkeys who have just learned how to wear shoes and need to dance less with Nixon

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

When the press kept asking the president about "GRIDS" as it exploded in American cities, reagan said "Im not worried" and then told a joke about the Drs prescribing the AIDS diet, crepes, because they could be slid under a door so no one would ever have to touch those gays.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

He did this same joke with the press pool over like 3 years

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

There are thousands of similar anecdotes sadly. http://www.theclotheshavenoemperor.com/

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

It can't be emphasized enough, Trump is mostly playing off the Reagan playbook, the fact they were both entertainers with broken brains from dementia and believed 90+% of the same shit is why Trump found success.

Comment image

storytimeratlarge.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yes, Reagan was an awful man.

pashion.bsky.social•1 day ago

It literally blows my mind that people have the nerve to say Ronald Reagan would be rolling in his grave. He'd be drooling with envy at all of this.

tallsprucetree.bsky.social•1 day ago

Government finally getting dismantled was what he wanted to get around to doing and failed.

atribecalledkvetch.bsky.social•1 day ago

I believe his rally at that lynching site is also when he first deployed the phrase "welfare queens" as well.

noddemix.bsky.social•1 day ago

Kathleen Belew's book Bring the War Home really drives home how frighteningly mobilized they were in the late 70s up to the OKC bombing

octocryptid.bsky.social•1 day ago

This is so goofy, thinking in the 80s being a Nazi was considered the most evil thing imaginable when Satanic Panic was in full swing and suburban moms thought DnD players were sacrificing children. Only could come to this conclusion if you got your information from watching Indiana Jones

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

I mean in media nazis were universal bad guys, there was an episode of Kojack for example about the Belarus Connection (a book that was at the time discredited but later turned out to be a 100% accurate look at Project Paper Clip), but like a lot of that was "Our Nazis aren't as bad as the Germans"

octocryptid.bsky.social•1 day ago

Sure in media which is my point. But media just showed the aesthetics of Nazism. As if people can only see someone as a Nazi if they're goosestepping around wearing a swastika armband and not, you know, from their words and actions

octocryptid.bsky.social•1 day ago

The fact these people couldn't make the connection between Nazis gassing queer people and Reagan laughing about the AIDS epidemic saying "let it kill all those faggots" just because he didn't wear a black uniform with skulls on it while doing so is really something

agnosticnixie.bsky.social•1 day ago

I had the same thought years ago - a whole lot of people are just so unable to conceive of fascism as anything but nazis that if you showed them the estado novo or, hell, italian fascism they'd struggle to fully get that this too is fascism

thebestbrian.bsky.social•1 day ago

The scene in Falling Down where Michael Douglas has a run in with the Neo Nazi and is like "hey I like being racist like a REAL AMERICAN!"

emmaberquist.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think a lot of people's recollections of the 80s/90s are through television--it's not like kids are reading the news

danifroom.bsky.social•1 day ago

As much as Nazism has long been part of the GOP, I don't think it seeped (back) into everyday culture until well into the 00's. There was no way for the average American to be subjected to Nazi propaganda unless you went looking for it, while at the same time media was becoming more and more diverse

ronninator.bsky.social•1 day ago

I disagree. I think if you look at news from that time, you will see nazi talking points that were just ignored or accepted by most people.

ouroboredom.bsky.social•1 day ago

Marilyn Manson's Beautiful People (1997) spent 66 weeks in the US top 40.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

tbh I disagree if we mean "nazi" here to include Neo-Nazis.

Neo-Nazi rallys were incredibly common, David Duke was routinely on TV, Pat Robertson too, etc etc.

danifroom.bsky.social•1 day ago

Maybe it was a regional thing? David Duke was definitely never on TV where I'm from unless it was news reporting on how awful he is or maybe something making fun of him

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

He was on national TV and has been on CNN at least once a year since its inception.

He publicly supported Reagan on national TV news.

danifroom.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yes, I agree with all of that. Sorry, when I was replying to Emma, I meant things *not* on the news.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

I can't express enough, this was just something you were missing.

TV news LOVED interviewing open nazis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yx3c0i5Fyk

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

Neo-Nazis were in full public recruitment mode, and they were RAPIDLY gaining numbers.

They changed tactics in the 90s and moved to the Ghost Skins method of recruiting police officers since they were their largest barrier in the 80s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ldpS4ZG8sM

dashwallkick.bsky.social•1 day ago

I was shown documentaries and interviews with neo nazi enclaves in high school. they were filmed and produed in like 93. They've been around a long, long time, like cockroaches.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

I started reading the news when I was 6, I had learned how to read the prior year, we frequently didn't have cable, but we did always have a newspaper and I had read all the books in the house I was capable of reading by like 8, and then just all the books by 12, save my mother's Harlequins

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

I do understand that's wildy freakish behavior but my grandfather got me into it because I thought he was cool and he read the paper every day lol

largefailson.bsky.social•1 day ago

honestly cool as fuck, and probably we'd be better off if more of us had done so. or maybe not idk, my brain is fuckin slop and i grew up in a conservative family and reading like tom clancy shit thinking it was Real Life

emmaberquist.bsky.social•1 day ago

ok fine prove me wrong you weirdo!!

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

Nah it was freakish behavior, to the point teachers did contact my parents being like "I'm not sure local news is appropriate for an 8 year old", which frankly the teachers were correct lol

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

My parents were very much in the mindset of 'all reading for a child is good', but also it made me a freak who was getting online and arguing with strangers at like 8 years old because my mom had a telecommuting job occasionally and my dad loved the internet despite the fact we were broke lol

emmaberquist.bsky.social•1 day ago

not quite the same but my mom knew I loved roald Dahl and bought me all the second hand books she could find by him, not realizing that he also wrote some very adult books

emmaberquist.bsky.social•1 day ago

lmao

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

Imagine a 9 year old talking about the OJ Simpson trial or new revelations in the Tawana Brawley controversy or the LA riots and that's just the fucking worst lol

rhetorusrex.bsky.social•1 day ago

If you're GenX they were daytime tv guests. The guys who broke Geraldo's nose.

noyou.bsky.social•1 day ago

I had EMT friends that would tell me about times they had to rescue people living in houses covered in nazi shit and that was like post-9/11 NJ. I also remember iwriteokay talking about how gun shows always had those guys known for nazi things and really good jerky.

iamaphextwin.bsky.social•1 day ago

They were affectionately branded as "skinheads" locally even in suburban Detroit

wessoman.bsky.social•1 day ago

I like to show young people that old movie "Suburbia" because it's true- As much as there were leftist punks, there were also a lot of nihilist punks, and a surprising amount of homophobic, right wing punks too, a lot of which were racist skinheads.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

Still an insane amount of Nazi punks and frankly Nazis are a massive part of Punk DNA, because Punk at its core is a reaction and thus reactionary lol

The modern revision of punks "cleaning out" Nazis from their spaces is frankly laughable

wessoman.bsky.social•1 day ago

I agree and disagree. Yes, there are still an insane amount of Nazi punks. But some Punk scenes are effectively cleaned out of Nazis, that is also true. Nationally; there are still an overwhelming amount of Nazi punks, but depending on your local scene that may not be the case.

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

To me it's like 50/50 you land in a town and ask a cabby "where do the Nazis hang?" it's a punk club lol

mugrimm.bsky.social•1 day ago

You're nuanced enough I'm fine, I take issue with the "there are no Nazis in punk now, and frankly it's not part of its history' guys

rhetorusrex.bsky.social•1 day ago

They had them on daytime tv regularly but they were always framed as a kind of goofy curiosity - at least that was how I took it as a kid, that they were tolerated bc they were buffoonish non-threats

ogfattcatt.bsky.social•1 day ago

Growing up is realizing Americans hated Nazis because they were foreigners, not because they were genocidal bigots.

poppyhaze.bsky.social•1 day ago

There’s a reason why Illinois Nazis are in Blues Brothers (1980), the neo-Nazi militia movement was in the culture