I see anti-Stancil “leftists” on here have negative polarized themselves into arguing that FDR liked Hitler and vice versa. no they didn’t. that isn’t true.
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sorry but how far does one have to go into the stancil discourse pipeline to arrive at anything that insane? last i checked stancil was flaming a very nice woman with a very cool cat
As a European who knows an unhealthy amount about WW2, one of the subcultures I've been surprised to discover on Bluesky is "leftist Americans who desperately want to believe the US was Nazi-adjacent in the late 1930s"
Do you mean anything the government did around the 1930s? Because obviously slavery was abolished within the lifetime of people around at that time, then Jim Crow, sundown towns, lynchings etc. Maybe not equivalent to nazi Germany but it's not a massive leap to see overlap in apartheid America.
I was thinking more about anything it did in terms of its foreign policy rather than anything domestically. The argument seems to be that the US government was pretty close to being on the other side of WW2.
Oh, when I hear the claim that the US and nazis were similar in a number of ways it's usually in the sense of having a similar ideology and laws that oppress groups, not that they might have been nazi allies.
The us was very nazi adjacent going into the 1930s. We even had a coup attempt called the business plot which seeked to remove FDR and replace him with a military dictatorship. The coup planners selected a man with morals and patriotism by accident and he reported their activities to congress.
I first encountered the word "tanky" in reference to twitter/X posts in support of Putin and general virulent, frothing-at-the-mouth attacks on Ukraine. For a while, there was "MAGA Communism" but I'm fairly sure that was Kremlin astroturf.
It goes back to the 50s. During the Cold War there was always a subset of leftists who pretended the USSR was some sort of utopia. This then got extended to China, Vietnam, North Korea, etc.
Yeah, I get that. The intellectual descendants of 1950's tankies are alive and well, and quite active on twitter/X and also here on bsky. Back when I was a kid, though, we called them pinkos, trying to reserve "reds" and "commies" for the bona-fide hard-core.
I was being somewhat capricious. It probably is a distinct enough phenomenon that it's worth thinking about critically, but I think is basically a feature of tanky thought/propaganda, perhaps an evolutionary strain.
As an American who knows endless amounts about WWII, I agree with your assessment.
I once had German Xchange students; they apologized to my classes for what Reich 3 had done, said they were ashamed--this is 80s and 90s. That's called being mature and oping with shame. US not quite there yet.
Sometimes I wonder if I should subscribe to American Prospect, and then I’m reminded that it almost exclusively employs politically impotent and historically incurious Social Democratic dorks who scare quote “leftists” and inevitably find camaraderie with radical centrists.
I’m sorry that you liberals feel compelled to blind yourselves to very accessible truths about FDRs tacit approval of Nazi Germany in the 30s, but that doesn’t change reality
None of them have quite said that, they just said that "the USA" supported Hitler because Ford and various businesses did, regardless of what FDR may have done or thought
I'm new to that mess and spent two weeks trying to figure out what, specifically, the beef even was, and today I figured out that it's mostly that everyone with a strong opinion about it kinda sucks.
You aren’t pointing to it because it didn’t happen. It’s a gross distortion of actual arguments backed up by fact to protect a guy who could’ve not dug his own hole.
If there's anyone FDR liked more than was warranted, it was probably Stalin (though, any port in a storm). FDR's insistence on decolonization provided real material benefits to the world
He attracts these people like a statically charged suit attracts lint. I literally never see them in the wild until I go to his threads. They orbit him like electrons in quantum space occupying improbable positions.
I haven't seen anyone dunking on Stancil say that, but I have seen a lot of liberals and people defending him aggressively misreading people's posts to reach outlandish conclusions like that.
Do you have examples of a trend or is this just one or two guys?
western capitalist powers love placing socialist countries into impossible dilemmas. MR was bad. but don't absolve the outwardly hostile countries that isolated the ussr and refused to form an anti-fascist alliance with them. they consistently supported fascism over socialism, then and now
I like when y’all forget it was to buy time after Stalin made appeals to the west, which went ignored, to form a coalition against Hitler as Germany began to prepare for war.
So why did Stalin only continue to increase material support for Hitler until the invasion?
Why did Stalin have a nazi turncoat who fled to try to warn Stalin of the nazi invasion, shot? Stalin did not believe that the Nazis were going to invade them and could keep them appeased by supplying them.
Yeah, and Stalin was increasing aid to Germany under the idea that they were capitalists and only acting aggressive towards the USSR because they wanted more resources. Stalin completely misunderstood nazi beliefs. He wasn't some masterful chess player with them.
Lol, you think Stalin broke the pact? Wtf is operation barbarosa then?
Why did Stalin ignore his own intelligence agents telling him of the troop buildup?
You tankies are sub-human.
If he hadn't of purged half the officers of the military Hitler wouldn't have been able to slaughter millions of Russians before being pushed back. Not to mention all the crimes he did to Eastern Europe after. He was an incompetent monster
He bought time by… supplying his enemy with materials used to invade his own country. Your options are that Stalin was not actually buying time or that he was the dumbest motherfucker alive.
Hey, if they just stopped the ongoing trade relationship what do you think would have happened?
It took most of the war for the Soviets to build up their own military production capacity, they fought German tank divisions by digging holes in the ground and putting magnetic bombs on the underside
Well I don't think Hitler would have invaded the USSR in 1939, when he had just gotten to the middle of Poland, nor in 1940, when he still had a hostile France at his back, so...I'm gonna say he would have invaded in 1941, like he did anyway
Germany would be substantially weakened and less able to invade France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Yugoslavia, and Greece. Also the USSR would have more war resources.
But no Stalin had to pull a Chuck Schumer and give Germany everything it wanted
Why did he shoot a nazi turncoat who came to warn him about the Nazi invasion?
Why did he ignore his intelligence agents telling him about the growing troop presence?
Why did he remove all Jewish government officials in a sign of good will to Hitler?
Don’t pretend like this was just a continuation of an ongoing trade relationship, the 1939 Trade and Credit agreement VASTLY expanded what had up until that point been a very frosty trade relationship.
Just a reminder that Stalin originally tried to get an alliance going against Hitler before he could become a threat, and the British snubbed the idea.
I thought the usual antiwar left argument was that Roosevelt was deliberately trying to provoke actual German attacks on the US (pre P H) to give the US justification to enter
FDR expected a Japanese attack but he expected it to be in southeast Asia and the Philippines, it was a shock to him as much as everyone else that Pearl Harbor was the target.
Actually, FDR was more prepared to have to convince Congress to go to war if the Japanese attacked the British and Dutch colonies but avoided attacking the United States.
and then on top of them attacking PH the Germans gifted him a war by declaring it on the US, when FDR all along thought the Germans were by far the bigger immediate danger to the world.
Will had some dumb easily verifiable takes about hitler not being a fan of the US, despite hitler writing about his love of the US and being a cowboyaboo, people called him out on this and posted some of his previous tweets where he admits to not reading books, and how his friends are defending him.
Whenever I see US leftists come out with rubbish like that it just makes me laugh that failed USSR agitprop has outlived the USSR itself by almost 40 years. Very resilient propaganda which did absolutely nothing to advance the cause of communism or the USSR. Unfortunately they seem better at it now
I'll just say that this is how you get a Matt Yglesias and I will leave it up to you all's interpretation as to if I am for or against Will posting a bunch of shit and getting yelled at.
I am, however, going to come out as radical "stop getting yelled at"-ist
Yeah I mean there is an entire swath of this country that supported FDR and then defected to the GOP over his opposition to Hitler. These areas still support the GOP to this day because of their legacy support for Adolf Hitler. If FDR supported Hitler, his American supporters didn't think so.
You misunderstand what I'm saying. Americans largely opposed Hitler in WW2, of course, but if you look at midwestern states with large German populations from 1932-1944 you can see the effects WW2 had on the New Deal coalition (i.e. German-Americans loved Hitler so they left it behind)
Compare the 1936 election in Wisconsin to the 1940 election in Wisconsin. A shitload of German-Americans were genuinely infuriated by FDR opposing Hitler, so they voted for Wilkie.
So you found, what? 6-7 skeets with no motion, that fit your idea of what "people were saying", some of it not being wrong, like Blaise's post about the west attaching themselves to the Reich through trade and peace treaties, and then decided to make a straw-man out of it for this post?
I (a liberal, D voter my whole life) noted yesterday that there used to be moderate, even liberal Republicans, and that the party used to be sane. Boy howdy, the abusive rage that followed! Like: I stated a true historical fact, and was immediately branded a MAGA sympathizer?
I didn't see anyone dunking on Stancil say that Hitler liked FDR or vice versa, do you have enough examples to show that's a trend, or was it just one or two shitposters?
Howard Zinn of course makes an appearance. I used to think he was kind of a useful corrective to rah-rah jingoism in the 90s and 2000s but increasingly I think he just sucks
The People's History was fine? Like "The Lies My Teacher Told Me" it brings up things that don't generally get taught or taught well. He def had his blind spots though.
Bernie was member of a kibbutz that centered Stalin and did not believe he murdered all those people bc the proletariat would never participate in that and said it media lying to make the working class look bad. No really. Stalin's Russia was "The Rising Sun" where Truth would come.
He used to give some good pep talks at the church around the corner from me in Cambridge, but like much of old Cambridge he's dead as a doornail nowadays.
i read the book when i was about 12 and was totally hooked until i got to the WWII chapter, the subject that was my entry point to history as a kid. and then i was like "wait a minute this whole chapter is bullshit"
So after seeing this and what has been posted in reply, I, as a life long person very interested in Am His, even having my undergrad degree in it, and being left leaning, I am glad I have not read any Zinn.
Another problem with those kinds of leftists is what I call terminal chomsky brain. It's this deep unshakeable skepticism of the US as capable of anything good, and that enemies of the US only react to us. No state actor is capable of independent action for their own game it always bc of the US
You see this in the Ukraine conflict where they believe it's bc NATO spooked Putin, and not that he's an egotistical piece of shit who wants to be known as a historical conqueror and reclaim some jingoistic Russian mantle
I think Howard Zinn as corrective is still *mostly* right (caveat, it has been many years since I read it), but as you and Jamelle have already mentioned, excepting that the Civil War section is inexcusably bad.
He was a very powerful industrialist. Founded a car company called “Ford” credited with inventing the modern assembly line.
What you might not know is that the wealthy wielded significant political power even in the 1930’s. And many of the American ones were Nazi supporters
Ford had to pretend not to be an antisemite for the last 15 years of his life, including the WW2 years, because that position was sufficiently repugnant to the public to harm his business. The America First Committee was destroyed by the impression of Nazi sympathy.
The US public was in favor of isolationism until they weren't, and Nazi sympathizers did everything they could to exploit that, but there never, ever was any question about which side the US would intervene on should they decide to
"The claim–that the United States was likely to enter the war on the side of Nazi Germany or support it"
What I saw people saying, which is true, is that Hitler admired and cribbed from American eugenics programs. Not sure where the argument above is being made
Blaise is the only one I'd seen and he's not arguing we were going to join the Axis, just that American business interests were entwined with the Reich, which again was true
While the anti-Stancil leftists are obviously wrong, it was crazy to me when I learned the extent of US business support for fascism. This guy basically won the Spanish civil war for the Nationalists! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torkild_Rieber
There are just so many ways to talk about American support for fascism in the WW2 era without saying things that are false! The way interventionalists and sympathizers battled over the middle ground of "neutrality" over the years is genuinely interesting and it's a shame to flatten it out so much
No Ryan it was only through the strong totalitarian leadership of FDR that the fascist United States was brought unwillingly into fighting a war against fascism. Get with the program or get in the re-education camp.
Hitler, big fan of the USA: "he's [FDR] a sick brain. The noise he made at his press conference was typically Hebraic. There's nobody stupider than the Americans. What a humiliation for them!" -- Table Talk, 4-5 January 1942
My understanding is that in the 20s and earlier Hitler admired some of the US's worst aspects and considered the nation a potential future ally or sort of "kindred spirit", and then soured on the US throughout the 30s and onward for obvious reasons.
also I think he made some Mickey Mouse fanart
Hitler was a big fan of America, just not the dude in charge while we were finally fighting him. Just like for did some cool stuff, but also did some concentration camp stuff to Japanese Americans. Weird how pointing out nuance makes stencil dorks really mad.
"my feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance. I feel myself more akin to any European country, no matter which. Everything about the behavior of American society reveals it's half Judaised, and the other half negrified."
Surely, that quote is speaking for the entirety of America's existence and not some progressive ideas during the time that we finally stepped up to them, right? That quote definitely sounds like the America's history, particularly the majority of our existence marked by chattel slavery and genocide.
Cool, hitler never got any ideas about exterminating a race from our genocide of indigenous folks, right? Lebensraum wasnt him copying our homework from manifest destiny or anything?
That guy was saying that the US backed the Nazis until the last minute and that they intentionally let Pearl Harbor happen so they could switch sides, both of which are extremely not true
He was saying the 1st thing, I dont think he ever said the 2nd.
And, if one stops hyperventilating long enough to realize that [what the US did in time period XYZ] is not fully characterized by [some of the President's goals], his point on #1 stands.
Put another way: the US didnt directly enter hostilities until *after* Hitler declared war on us. This despite the FDR coalition's hatred for Hitler & desire to fight.
Why?
Because there was enough pro-Nazi / anti-anti-Nazi (the same thing) sentiment to prevent them.
tbf it is entirely possible to believe that FDR and Hitler were not pals and also that Stancil is an irredeemably annoying dweeb with an at-best scattershot conception of human society
Yeah I'm seeing a liiiittle too much sentiment that I'd describe as verging on "Stancil sympathy" in here, considering he has considerably more reach and is just as wrong about many, much more pertinent things than his most caricaturish detractors.
Which is like 98% of the Internet, and people would lose less of their souls to the internet if they could just scroll by like a well-adjusted person honestly
That big fan of America, Adolf Hitler: "my feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance. I feel myself more akin to any European country, no matter which. Everything about the behavior of American society reveals that it's half Judaised, and the other half negrified."
Actual Hitler, big fan of America: "I shall no longer be there to see it, but I rejoice on behalf of the German people at the idea that one day we will see England and Germany marching together against America."
the stancil derangement syndrome
is really something to behold. watching people insist that contingency is fake and all of history is a mechanical unfolding almost predetermined sequences just to disagree with him
What? I don’t see anyone arguing that “contingency is fake.” It’s literally just Stancil arguing that isolated contingency is so primary that it completely negates historical patterns of aggregate causality. No serious materialist claims predictive power or disavows stochastic outcomes.
We've all seen plenty of online political beefs, but he really does seem to be on the mailing list of this whole mob of legit mentally unwell weirdos. Actually kind of creepy. The more unsettling part tho is the number of "established" accounts that seem to think it's normal.
I think you misunderstood my post. Stancil is a guy online w/views, some I agree with, some I strongly disagree. But a group of clearly unstable people has created a weird little cult of Stancil stalking/bullying that comes across as pathological & in any other context would be considered bizarre.
But you seem to dismiss that people have reasons to not like him. Again, since I'm assuming you were not there to first-hand experience his behavior on Twitter within our small sphere, you wouldn't know there are a plethora of reasons people dislike him.
Up to and including that he believes his views are the only ones worthy of following. Lots of academics/pundits within that space have had to deal with him for years. Should they not be allowed to express the ill-will he has created locally? On a national platform?
They constantly betray a complete lack of understanding of politics by maintaining that failing to get elected on his first try is somehow discrediting
oh yeah a lot of leftists are saying that for sure. Marx even said it himself in that quote 'historical materialism is just crude determinism guys.' - the 91st broom air probably
why can't leftists see the wisdom of stancils 'stuff just happens' theory
Oh people were very much insisting that random chance and individuals can't possibly affect the outcome of history. Some of them were furious. Marx agreed that historical determination is wrong? Tell them that, please
i was being facetious, marx did not disavow historical materialism. read engels correspondence with j bloch, specifically his response to question 2. contingencies do play a role but for example capitalism inevitably leads to crisis
how a particular crisis manifests will be the result of "innumerable forces which cross each other, an infinite group of parallelograms of forces" but historical materialism is pointing out that the structure is built on sand so it definitely gonna fail somewhere.
I feel like reading some back and forth between 14th century theologians discussing how many angels can dance on the head of the pin would be about as edifying as that particular circle jerk
I agree, I do think that Will Stancil is deranged. and there's proof. he regularly threatens to violently destroy people on here, just for disagreeing with him. are you aware of that?
It’s also sort of wild/intetesting in this case since his original point was not great (trump is simultaneously singular and the product of trends), but the argument became something he is mostly correct about (the US wasn’t a primary inspiration for the third reich).
Some of that is stancil’s doing via quote tweeting poor arguments, but also there is no need to defend those arguments to make the larger point that trump is a product and continuation of the US’s historic harms.
Iglad to be off Twitter, but the pile-ons, thirst posts, loud proclamations of one’s person’s “Evil”, by snipping one quote, exaggerated or out of context - makes a truthful and nuanced conversation impossible. I guess just follow people who have interesting things to say, ignore comments here.
I've definitely gotten better and try hard, but not always succeed, in stopping my eye rolls from becoming mean tweets to dumb things. Still, things are pretty good here! It's a good news aggregator, if nothing else.
if someone has a strong enough personality and is prominent arguing online, then a derangement syndrome will mechanically unfold in a predetermined sequence
The GM of the Portland Trailblazers was a good friend of Bobby Knight, and asked him for advice before the 1984 draft. Knight told him Jordan was the best player he ever coached (Olympic trials). The GM said they needed a center, and Knight said "So play him at center!".
Hmmmm, I’m not sure of this analogy fits here 😂. Jordan did not play GROWN NBA men at 17 🤷🏽♀️. Fun fact: LeBron James entered the NBA in June 2003. He played in his 1st NBA game on Oct. 29, 2003, as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Sacramento Kings. He scored 25 pts in that debut game.
There's a middle ground between both of those! which is also I think pretty clearly Marx's view and the prevailing view at least among 20th century Marxists
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, they do not just fall out of a coconut tree.
I don’t know what people are mad at Stancil for now, but I contend that the 18th Brumaire is still the best of Marx’s texts for understanding Trump’s rise.
From what I've seen re Stancil debate: It's mostly people who don't specialise in German history using poor versions of actually quite intricate arguments, normally as a form of point scoring.
The debate about contingency and continuity will be with us forever. I don't think there's a general solution. I think in public fora, it's normally more a question of blame rather than historical analysis.
not that anyone seems interested in what I have to say beyond dunk potential but I, as someone who reads a ton of history and studied history for six years of my life, do not think there are no trends in history, just that at the end of the day contingency always wins
The trends depend on contingencies, yes, but the contingencies also depend on trends. That's the paradox at the heart of chaotic systems analysis. Saying that one or the other "always wins" neither clarifies nor resolves this tension. This applies as much to history as it does to the 3-body problem
A guy tried to quote the "Tough times make strong men" meme at me, and I immediately said, "Wrong. History doesn't have laws." About half an hour of painstaking explanation ensued.
man people have so much time for you but your ignorant reading of most leftist critique (yes some is stupid) leads people to believe you’re bad faith and then they don’t bother with good faith anymore, and now you’ve got a reputation for not acting in good faith.
FWIW I am interested in what you have to say and would like to discuss it.
I have some significant disagreements with some of your positions - or I think I do, but I can’t be sure because the discussion is swamped by refugees from the worst parts of middle school.
I’ve never liked blocking for a lot of reasons and many of these accounts are happy to brigade you from behind a block for, like, years. There’s no good solution for it short of bans
Wasn't the og point of all this fighting understanding the growth of MAGA and other far right formations, and how to fight back? Seems like a Marxist materialism, an ideas-do-matter materialism, would have something to say about that
But they did? Support is probably too strong a word, but they worked closely with Nazi Germany through much of the 30s (because they were both pariahs) and both the German and French communist parties became roadblocks to containing Hitler.
The failure of the KPD during the rise of the Nazis was due to their belief that a Nazi government would soon collapse and that the communists would be there to take over in the ensuing power vacuum, they were wrong obviously but that doesn't mean they "supported" the Nazis
…each engaged freely in manipulating the other through agreements neither intended to meet?
Hitler supported no one but Hitler. Stalin supported no one but Stalin.
Also it's so exhausting that everyone has read the meme version of every factoid and can't contextualize it or connect it to any bigger meaning except their priors.
Yeah, you're right, I'm done. Stancil is fkn mentally ill. Will leave this stuff up in case anyone else is tempted to treat him as deserving of the benefit of the doubt, then block him tonight. Cheers.
He got a minor detail wrong that was pretty inconsequential to the point he was making?
Even if that story was an excuse and the company had flaws that made the mechanical failure more likely... Which plane fails, and who is on it, is an essentially random event that can shape history
I know you guys are desperate for an excuse to call him racist or something, but he probably just looked up the first account of the incident that came up, which is usually adequate for an illustrative example in a fucking skeet
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as getting extremely mad online.
For a certain, fairly common kind of person, there's nothing they hate more than when they are wrong and someone else is right. They hate Will Stancil more than they hate Nazis because a Nazi has never been right about something.
Comey just gave people a convenient excuse to vote for Trump instead of revealing their own long-held prejudices. He’s not deep state, he’s a douche bag. (Also, and I hate that I have to say it - there is no deep state.)
The existence of shitbirds in the NY field office is itself an historical contingency, even if there are structural reasons that encouraged that existence. But I honestly don’t know what they’re even arguing anymore, are they still on ‘Trump isn’t actually worse/death to America?’
Was your point that you don't understand the difference between "answering a question with the assumption that it's genuine" and "arguing?" Because you just conflated the two.
That's obvious, 94501! M. @whstancil.bsky.social gets legitimate questions that he's too scared to answer. So he needs to cherry-pick OTHER questions in order to construct a #narrative in which all his interlocutors are just crazy people spewing death threats or whatever. ~Chara
I'm guessing the structural forces of Comey's mother and father caused him to be raised in such a way that compelled him to give the famous anti-Hillary letter in October 2016 too, there's really no winning with these people!
M. @whstancil.bsky.social are you aware that Sen. @hillaryclinton.bsky.social and not "Bernie" or "Comey" or any other scapegoat is responsible for losing the 2016 #election?
How is it bigoted? That's intrinsic to democracy. The democratic leader, seeking election, is asking to take responsibility for the entire country. if they lose election, then the responsibility of leadership means taking responsibility for defeat. Gov. @hillaryclinton.bsky.social tried and failed.
After that, M. @petticoatdespot.bsky.social, rather than take responsibility for the loss, Sen. @hillaryclinton.bsky.social and her fandom whinged about it endlessly and did basically nothing to slow down Trump and the GOP fascist takeover in 2016. The conduct of the Clinton faction was disgraceful.
i get that you lean more in the direction that the future is not as determined by economic forces as a marxist may think, but who is saying that there is no randomness at all?
there is a distinct reason that actuarial science is a thing. seems very silly to insist that it is 100% predictive, but i haven’t seen anyone do that, ever.
Oh man check out that thread, because goddamn. I had to block a couple of people who were furious at me for saying that random chance and individuals could alter the course of history sometimes. They were furious, insulting me for speaking the truth. Still arguing with one of them
Will Stancil and the wsy certain people interact with him is a great unveiler of something about certain people: for some, it is worse to be annoying than evil
The way some weirdos interact with Will Stancil go way beyond mere dislike. They treat him like he's a Trump-fellating Heil-Hitlering Nazi when he is, uh, very much not that
This is really disappointing, Jamelle. Stancil has been pulling shit for YEARS to MPLS Twitter. He has earned a lot of the negativity that has gone his way. I'd suggest instead of camping for this guy, you understand the history of what he has pulled.
On the other site, he did come across as a guy who believes all disagreement with his opinions was the product of malevolent propaganda and not, I dunno... reasoned belief. The Bidenomics stuff was ... something to behold.
This has been how he operates for years. It's so tiring and really has been harmful to many in the MPLS Twitter community. Well, whatever is left of that now since so many of us left.
tbh even when i think he’s wrong his replies are somehow full of people who are even more wrong, or asking weird creepy shit about his sex life or the like
Yeah he's kind of awful IMHO, but the specific personality he displays also just brings out the most powerful kind of lunacy in the discourse. He's like a lightning rod for Twitter main character energy, himself included.
I’ve had to mute him a few times when I get slightly annoyed then I get over it. Meanwhile he posts something like “America isn’t the sole evil in the world” and it’s like pages of death threats.
He's doing the Goddess's work, then. I usually mute the idiots after ten replies or so, that's usually enough time to do a full loop of their scripts, good on Stancil for sticking it out.
I'm ambivalent on the guy but it's clear he could say the most milquetoast thing and you'd have twitter "revolutionaries" screeching at him for the next 2 business days.
Doesnt help that he is the most condescending fuck on the internet who spent 8 months explaining to poor people that the economy was great for him personally (and his trust fund)
Stancil is a honey pot for Leftists who're mainly motivated by rage and lib-owning. They think they can bully him off the Internet but the more they yell SHUT THE FUCK UP the worse his opinions get. This is a feedback loop that will lead to outright insanity on one side or the other sooner or later
Got it but can you now teach me about leftist levels and or labels? I'm newish to the party and am so confused on why we have levels and they don't. Like is this productive? I'm very confused.
That's not even the argument. People have pointed out that Hitler literally cited US eugenicists and praised their thoughts. Twisting it to FDR to post some horseshoe theory bullshit is just a blatant lie to push your weak centrism
So having studied the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and the deep investigation into the Holocaust by Hilberg in the Destruction of the European Jews. I remember how most of America embraced Nazism, they rallied in Madison Square Garden. So the president was involved in not denouncing them
It's amazing to watch history get completely revised in real time. I don't expect the average person to be an expert on US foreign policy in the late 30s (I'm not either) but this "version" of history just has zero resemblance to reality.
I feel that the character limit of tweets restricted thought and attention spans such that we are only able to see things as unambiguous polemics. “So you hate waffles?”
Yeah but how about your ability to conceptualize complex systems of dynamic interdependency that defy the extreme oversimplification of binary reduction?
Oh no! I've been found out! Dang. First, the CIA stiffed me for all the work I did for NAFO. And last week, Soros refused to pay me for going to a protest. And now you're telling me the NSA owes me money? As to academia, I gave up on that Prof. Emeritus from Harvard long ago. Alas. Sigh.
For all the very many things wrong with Patton, I sympathize deeply with his desire to go hard after the tankies immediately after finishing with the Nazis.
"I wish WWII, the war which killed 70 million people, had been followed up immediately with WWIII, because some dweebs online said something that annoyed me." Seriously, wtf is wrong with you?
I didn't know Stancil was so big there was an "anti-Stancil" left, is that like a (pro-)Trotskyist left? I unfollowed Stancil not so much because I disagree with what he says but just because he posts so much. I got connections in Minnesota. Should I watch my back when I go there?
I do not get the leftist rage at this guy. I didn’t know who he was and followed because he was in the mix and posting good posts. Now it seems like he’s retweeting the most spit-flecked I’m-not-mad replies to him 30 times a day.
The guy is a trust fund kiddie who has never had a real job and I don't believe has ever had a working class friend.
He's most famous for his sincere belief that Biden ran a miracle economy that was amazing for everyone and has dumbass graphs to prove it despite so much evidence to the contrary.
The second thing: I doubt this is true in the “amazing for everyone” sense, but a “sincere belief” in economic numbers correlating to reality just doesn’t sound like grounds for abuse. US had an objectively better recovery from COVID than most economies.
If you don't care about someone's economic background then that's that. People who haven't had to struggle and work are not in my honest opinion human in any significant way.
The example he'd be able to show is that Will lost his entire mind at someone saying Hitler admired the US and now Ryan feels the need to Make Up A Guy about it for some reason
I'm sure it's possible to find someone with a 95% bot following saying that FDR not banning IBM from doing business in Germany meant he secretly approved of Hitler, but to generalize that as the argument Stancil is having is just bad faith nonsense
Cooper's just being lazy and incurious about both [the tweets in question] and [the historical record being discussed], then repackaging that laziness as centrist slop for people to slurp up.
his dumbest critics are very dumb indeed but he also baits everyone 24/7 and his response to any kind of counterargument is to accuse everyone of either dishonesty or stupidity so i'm struggling to find any intellectual sympathy for him here
Anti-Stancil leftists should take a look at a more recent post in which he claims a major aviation accident was caused by an "immigrant" who couldn't read instructions.
So what you're saying is, if I wanna become a popular account on Bluesky, I need to start incessantly posting stupid BS about this "Will Stancil" fellow every chance I get and making my whole personality being anti- to him?
Stancil is the black hole of internet discourse, whose gravity pulls in every single leftist with a terrible take to share and an undying desire to get into endless fights
I don’t agree with everything he has to say, but some of the people who pick fights with him have to be trolling
I should have also put “leftist” in quotes, because if I was an alt right weirdo and also hated Stancil I’d absolutely spin up a leftist account and make stupid arguments like that. It’s got to be a healthy mix of both
Not sure why but it seems like the entire Western communist movement has decided that driving Will Stancil off the internet is the first step on the road to global revolution
I agree with him sometimes and disagree with him sometimes, but my disagreements with him don't lead me to post his home address and tell him to kill himself, which is what's under discussion here
He's a guy on this platform, and that's pretty much it. He has 70,000 followers, a lot of them probably hate-follows. Why are you comparing him to Thomas Friedman? He's not even close to the same category but you're acting like he's a New York Times columnist or a primetime cable anchor.
i know they're not the same scale! I didn't claim otherwise, and thought the "if they were on here" was enough to let you know that, but i guess i had to state it outright
Stancil talks about "removing" leftists in the same way that fascists do. Very curious. He's also expressed that any protesters abused by ICE deserved it.
He very obviously meant removing abusive "leftists" from the anti-Trump resistance coalition. Saying that you can't sit with us. No, that's not similar, at all, to the fascist regime disappearing people.
That's because he has a horde of anonymous trolls telling him to kill himself and posting his home address. So don't act all offended when someone else barely mirrors your own praxis in the vaguest possible terms.
"Not sure why, but it seems like the entire Western communist movement has decided that [taking off the pro-Western/US rose tinted glasses, surgically grafted onto our skulls from birth, to try to be honest & cleared eyed about history] is the first step on the road to global revolution."
My theory is that if you are chronically online and you see someone who does it better than you then it will obliterate what shred of sanity you have left.
Maybe but as someone who has been an occasional target of it these people get obsessively deranged in a very personal way and I'm not sure what they think they're accomplishing
They wanted to destroy and humiliate Stancil a few years back. They chose him because he was a left-liberal with a small enough following that his fans wouldn't overwhelm them, but who was large enough that he would be an impressive trophy for them.
At first, Stancil was confused and tried to find common ground, but when he realized they were just a bunch of wannabe bullies, he fought back aggressively, and bullies don't like that.
M. @whstancil.bsky.social, are you at all aware that at no point in your entire #BlueSky career have you ever behaved like someone able to learn lessons?
This is driving me insane, I swear there are plenty of socialists who aren't like this. There's nothing about being a socialist that requires you to be like this! Idiots.
Actually what seems to be happening is libs are completely misrepresenting the arguments of leftists as Stancil said Trump was an abberation which is obviously based on America's fascist history.
The Stancil beef universe is among the most tedious recurring interactions I see with people I am normally happy to be following. Everyone is dunking on Trump until someone mentions their Stancil stance. Then it is Discourse (TM) time
A Stancil thread is like no other place on here to find people it is really a great idea to just block right then and there. I bet 2/3 of my blocks come out of his threads (runner up is Tom Nichols)
This really illustrates the problem tho. They disagree on some minor point and suddenly they all start saying crazy shit. Sugar and wheat y'all. I'm starting to think we are all crazy
Man I’m honestly slightly losing my mind about how for hundreds of people the core game of this site has became “take everything Will says and crow about how it proves he’s the dumbest man alive”
You're a tedious dullard who speaks with unearned confidence on topics he knows nothing about, who has never needed to work to survive.
Go learn how to play the piano or something instead of posting, weirdo.
I had one argue that because I’m “neurotypical” that I don’t see the world correctly and they posted an online quiz revealing proudly they are psychopathic.
Will has no political power either, he couldn’t even win an election for a council race despite being flooded with money from rich libs from out of state
If anything your entire cadre of “allegedly progressive but actually has the same politics as Hakeem Jeffries” freaks have zero power because everyone correctly hates you
wait so you like AOC, but hate the DSA, who have identical politics to AOC? Also you’ve never gotten anyone elected for anything lmao, your own useless friend Will can’t even win an election with your money and help
It's because they know you'll argue with them and they'll get internet points. The day you stop taking those fights is the day they start going through clout withdrawal.
Dude I just had someone w 200k followers quote post me critically for the first time. I'm a tiny account. I was like wow, this must be how Will Stancil feels daily
They say no publicity is bad publicity. There's a certain dumbass in chief who rode that formula to the White House, so maybe it can work for you too 😉
People are like “ignore them, they’re tankies,” but it’s not even really true - I see lots of otherwise respectable people who clearly want to get in on the game too. It’s insane, I can’t make any point about anything
I get that you have a thing about arguing with these people and not disengaging but I think at a certain point you can either converse exclusively with haters or with anyone else. I really think you should start blocking people who are openly abusive.
Long ponderous thread about historical contingency? Nonstop denunciations of my intelligence and character. Noting that Hitler declared war on the US? Nonstop denunciations of my intelligence and character. People are now calling me transphobic, inventing rape accusations, posting my home address?
This is incredibly frustrating, because as someone who is often posting about how wrong Stancil is-- it's a lot in both degree and frequency!-- you neither have to invent ahistorical positions to do so, nor escalate the venom beyond calling him a huge dork.
And like, you can see the effect it has - people won’t retweet me without saying “I know it’s Stancil, but” or “to be clear, he’s an idiot, however.” Like it’s become this consensus viewpoint, something everyone just knows. Maddening
On first pass, dictatorship of the proletariat sounds like democracy and the establishment of a regulatory state; i imagine, especially in the timeframe of Marx, those were both exceptionally rare and he probably would have agreed the US had both of those 20 years ago.
They'd probably say he's unprincipled and trying to be like them because he was always a loser, etc. They just hate him and their posts reflect that hatred and nothing else.
"I know it's Stancil, but he might have a point when he says that workers councils--soviets, to use the Russian term--should have a larger role in government."
Not if the people you "meet" are clearly an anti-fandom full of people who get Internet points from "dunking" on you. Old sayings kind of break down when assholes can "meet" you from the comfort of their bathrooms.
Like if a bunch of “otherwise respectable people” are calling me an ignorant jackass, maybe I would take a step back and wonder whether I actually was being an ignorant jackass.
You literally are. You are denying and downplaying the american influence on the holocaust that we have thousands of sources for and your source is vibes.
You are denying the well recorded admiration the Nazis had for American eugenics movements that predated Nazi Germany. Seems like you are DENYING a significant part of the HOLOCAUST’s origins.
I come from the video games industry, and even with that background I believe you get the craziest amount of online hate from people who seem singlemindedly dedicated to hating you. Like, they have made this their whole personality.
That guy really has issues; there really is this current group of morons that think if they act contrary with a few talking points that they can pass off as intelligent. Then scream you're denying the Holocaust when you correct them
Considering you spent multiple months defending Israel back on Twitter by claiming Hamas was blowing up their own hospitals, I’d say holocaust denial is the next obvious step for how much of a craven nationalist psycho you are
M. @whstancil.bsky.social are you aware that you are far too stupid and ignorant to get away with condescending third-person-plural allusions to your detractors? They are smarter than you, Will. Why don't you stop pretending that you're smart, and answer your accusers *directly* instead of whining?
It's a shame - a lot of the things you're right about are so mundane that those of us who agree aren't really prolific posters. Why would we be? We have mundane opinions on things.
Good maybe you’ll shut up and stop posting moronic shit like “AMERICA IS GREAT BECAUSE WE ARE THE FREEST NATION, BAD THINGS HAPPEN AT RANDOM, HOME PRICES DONT MATTER”
Will called leftists “violent sexual deviants” which is the same type of talk republicans use when they want to say a slur, if anything this crypto Nazi freak should be bullied harder
America is a giant grade school restroom and the bullies loiter in it to smoke and harass.
If someone comes at your position with a counter that isn't defended by DPE, who the fuck cares what they think?
When someone hits me with DPE to show I fucked up, that's when I feel like most shit.
M. @whstancil.bsky.social, are you aware that nonstop denunciations of your intelligence and character are occasioned by your lack of intelligence and character?
Seriously? How can you possibly have any illusions left in this matter, Will?
M. @whstancil.bsky.social, I would advise you to drop the illusion that you're respectable. You aren't. You are a bigot and a bully. Your followers are bigots and bullies.
Do you think your obsession and repetitive posts, reminiscent of clanging, is a sign of mental disturbance? Do you do anything while you're awake beside, eat, go to the bathroom, and post at Stancil? Do you think you're able to see yourself objectively, and how you come across? You appear nuts.
This is part of the mass distortion when everybody is just trading slogans and not actually looking at history with any kind of nuance or complexity. That Hitler loved Ford and found lessons in Jim Crow does not mean he loved the US. Interest convergence is a useful framework here.
Man I shoulda gone with my instinct that you were a worthless lib when you did your whole “who cares about the environment and climate change?!? Degrowth will impact my treats : (“ and now you’re defending a loser moron like Will
I mean if the argument is that Hitler didn’t admire America’s own genocidal campaigns and manifest destiny that simply doesn’t hold water. I’ve not seen this explicit “he liked FDR” claim but it’s not “slinging bullshit” to call a spade a spade.
The US absolutely had eugenics, manifest destiny, the whole nine yards - and continued to commit those wrongs after WWII. That doesn't equate to "FDR was a Hitler fan."
I think you're interpreting this person wrong. We *did* have advance warning of 9/11; Clinton's FBI warned Bush's transition team about it, and through incompetence they let it happen. Big business in the U.S. *did* have ties to the Nazi regime and it did take Japan attacking us for us to enter.
No, they're not alleging incompetence, they're alleging advance warning was intentionally and maliciously ignored to allow the attacks to happen in the hopes the attacks would allow for a specific type of response. This is an ahistorical conspiracy theory.
Are people seriously saying this?
No, FDR did not like Hitler.
Ford did.
So did Lindbergh.
So did many Americans in the German-American Bund and the KKK.
FDR asked Congress for a 2-ocean navy in '37 because he knew. He froze JP assets and cut tin sales because US citizens were against us in WWII.
M. @ryanlcooper.com are you capable of understanding that M. @whstancil.bsky.social is not personally significant?
He is stupid and ignorant, but it's only because he represents a culture of ignorant stupidity, and for THAT reason he is attacked. It's not personal animus. Will Stancil asked for it.
I have never understood in any case, M. @ryanlcooper.com, why you think it matters that someone might have a personal beef with M. @whstancil.bsky.social. When did you ever expect #politics to be rational or unemotional? #Republicans are powered by hatred and it works for them. ~Chara
They went to Choate together, played some big Village venues in a proto ska band. Good luck getting the Deep State to cough that little nugget up though.
Some of it might be ops. On twitter/X that was definitely the case. But here on bsky, I think the correct model is that they're mentally unhinged, a la "they're putting it in the water", rather than dumb/stupid.
Can someone explain how Will Stancil got into this position? I followed him at the other place and here, and he’s always been a decent poaster/overall good guy. Nobodys ever going to agree 💯 but the pile-ons are so excessive. Feels like Ive missed something (but I’m terminally online so doubt it 🤷♀️)
There's this group that just goes around doing pile-ons, basically, and it's a lot like Scientology, when someone's marked as a Suppressive Person they just pile on whatever that person said, with the most abusive things they can think of. To get clout within the group.
At the other place there's a lot more right wingers and elderly people who believe in his wrong vibecession theory.
Here it was mostly young borderline homeless working class leftists, so when Will constantly posted defenses of Biden's economy as miraculous and great it just made everyone hate him.
Somehow the true idea that 1920s American eugenicists were influential on Nazism has morphed into the very wrong idea that the US and the Nazis were BFFs until Pearl Harbor.
Comments
I'm about 50% sure that belief is purely because of the name of the Deutsche Zentrumspartei, which of course proves they were liberal centrists.
I once had German Xchange students; they apologized to my classes for what Reich 3 had done, said they were ashamed--this is 80s and 90s. That's called being mature and oping with shame. US not quite there yet.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/roosevelt-s-prewar-attitude-toward-hitler
is it ai slop
Do you have examples of a trend or is this just one or two guys?
Why did Stalin have a nazi turncoat who fled to try to warn Stalin of the nazi invasion, shot? Stalin did not believe that the Nazis were going to invade them and could keep them appeased by supplying them.
You fucking fools know nothing about history
Why did Stalin ignore his own intelligence agents telling him of the troop buildup?
You tankies are sub-human.
It took most of the war for the Soviets to build up their own military production capacity, they fought German tank divisions by digging holes in the ground and putting magnetic bombs on the underside
But no Stalin had to pull a Chuck Schumer and give Germany everything it wanted
Why did he ignore his intelligence agents telling him about the growing troop presence?
Why did he remove all Jewish government officials in a sign of good will to Hitler?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/stalin-first-tried-to-resist-hitler-with-great-britain-11589838192
That theory is ahistorical nonsense spread by Gore Vidal (among others), who hated FDR for entirely personal reasons.
I am, however, going to come out as radical "stop getting yelled at"-ist
Weak, tbh.
Can also be found as a podcast.
They're moots
Another fun fact
Hitler didn't get a chance to go after POC Because political opposition, Slavic Poles and Jewish people were top priority
but they were still on the list
Because he lived down the street from Howard Zinn.
What you might not know is that the wealthy wielded significant political power even in the 1930’s. And many of the American ones were Nazi supporters
What I saw people saying, which is true, is that Hitler admired and cribbed from American eugenics programs. Not sure where the argument above is being made
/s
also I think he made some Mickey Mouse fanart
"my feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance. I feel myself more akin to any European country, no matter which. Everything about the behavior of American society reveals it's half Judaised, and the other half negrified."
Tankies can be wrong about FDR’s feelings for the Nazis.
Stancil can be wrong about the role the American Genocide and eugenics programs played in shaping and inspiring how the Holocaust developed.
Cooper's just lazy.
https://bsky.app/profile/wittywebhandle.bsky.social/post/3lnb7njamwc2k
And, if one stops hyperventilating long enough to realize that [what the US did in time period XYZ] is not fully characterized by [some of the President's goals], his point on #1 stands.
Why?
Because there was enough pro-Nazi / anti-anti-Nazi (the same thing) sentiment to prevent them.
is really something to behold. watching people insist that contingency is fake and all of history is a mechanical unfolding almost predetermined sequences just to disagree with him
It works on you when they do it, so you think it will work for you?
You are the deranged one.
why can't leftists see the wisdom of stancils 'stuff just happens' theory
I agree, I do think that Will Stancil is deranged. and there's proof. he regularly threatens to violently destroy people on here, just for disagreeing with him. are you aware of that?
I have some significant disagreements with some of your positions - or I think I do, but I can’t be sure because the discussion is swamped by refugees from the worst parts of middle school.
You can make these people just *go away* and then have an actual discussion with the reasonable people who remain.
The nuclear block is one of the best things about Bluesky.
Anticommunism is a defining aspect of Nazi ideology
The one doesn't erase the other.
https://news.nd.edu/news/historian-offers-first-deep-dive-into-secret-german-soviet-alliance-that-laid-groundwork-for-wwii/
Hitler supported no one but Hitler. Stalin supported no one but Stalin.
I am sorry.
https://bsky.app/profile/righteoushazard.bsky.social/post/3lnbe5r5oes23
Even if that story was an excuse and the company had flaws that made the mechanical failure more likely... Which plane fails, and who is on it, is an essentially random event that can shape history
She's like you, Will: bad at politics. ~Chara
i get that you lean more in the direction that the future is not as determined by economic forces as a marxist may think, but who is saying that there is no randomness at all?
People can dislike multiple things at once.
Your personal sensibilities?
I dont think anyone would throttle Stancil to death the way they would a nazi.
Strong words are still just words.
Id fucking murder a nazi.
But yeah, I think he's managed to get himself on someone's mailing list or something.
Will could compliment the sunrise and he'd be inundated with people claiming he loves skin cancer.
Made a comment in a thread, so I get notifications
He's still engaging with some teen tankie like 5 days later
In a more pragmatic sense, politics is a popularity contest, and people spreading dishonest ideas does actual harm.
I agreed with him on principle that if we use data to say crime isn’t that big an issue, the economy is the same.
Especially coming from a guy who has never worked in his life
Is he important?
My first read was "I see anti-stencil leftists on here" and thought I missed some juicy protest sign drama.
Okay, this is actually true, but the rest of your "Hitler and FDR were buddies" statement is false. That part isnt true.
https://bsky.app/profile/ethanjacobs.bsky.social/post/3kerxiwq2wm2q
He's most famous for his sincere belief that Biden ran a miracle economy that was amazing for everyone and has dumbass graphs to prove it despite so much evidence to the contrary.
The first thing about trust funds and working class friends - I couldn’t care less because I’m an adult.
Cooper's just being lazy and incurious about both [the tweets in question] and [the historical record being discussed], then repackaging that laziness as centrist slop for people to slurp up.
https://bsky.app/profile/wittywebhandle.bsky.social/post/3lnb7njamwc2k
And *that* is what you quote to say “lots of people?” You couldn’t find a more reasonable example?
I frankly had liked him at first. But that seems a bit underhanded.
https://bsky.app/profile/whstancil.bsky.social/post/3lnbcu23nv22f
Understood! Will become insufferable posthaste!
I don’t agree with everything he has to say, but some of the people who pick fights with him have to be trolling
Stancil begins his trolls like this:
Stancil is one of the most prolific posters on any site. We know his opinions and values. He won't shut the fuck about them.
But what if Stancil was actually Matt Iglesias is a new one. Yay, you've uncracked the code.
Stancil is NOT a good faith actor
Q-Stanon?
Idk maybe you have suggestions?
i think most of us would be saying the same to, for instance, john kass or thomas friedman, if they were on here
Seems like negatively polarizing people, then crying about it, is his special talent.
Go learn how to play the piano or something instead of posting, weirdo.
Just remember: these folks have no political power and howl into the wind.
Go outside, enjoy the sun, touch some grass, reconnect.
2) "everyone" doing a lot of work there. How big is DSA's membership again? How are justice dems doing in recent elections again?
The usual dynamic is that the target either gets fed up and starts blocking/stops responding or has an actual breakdown. You don't do either
Maybe that applies to online spaces too. Food for thought.
https://www.si.edu/object/hitlers-ostkrieg-and-indian-wars-comparing-genocide-and-conquest-edward-b-westermann%3Asiris_sil_1093304
People have decided that the character of the Democratic party is bad, so even when Democrats do good it has to come with a caveat.
It's hard when people start with a conclusion in mind, a lot of folks a drinking from poisoned wells.
If someone comes at your position with a counter that isn't defended by DPE, who the fuck cares what they think?
When someone hits me with DPE to show I fucked up, that's when I feel like most shit.
Seriously? How can you possibly have any illusions left in this matter, Will?
~Chara
You're not.
Is that so hard to understand?
You. are. not. a. good. person.
~Chara of Pnictogen
The point you are fighting against isn't a point anyone made, and was completely made up by OP.
Weird decision.
No, FDR did not like Hitler.
Ford did.
So did Lindbergh.
So did many Americans in the German-American Bund and the KKK.
FDR asked Congress for a 2-ocean navy in '37 because he knew. He froze JP assets and cut tin sales because US citizens were against us in WWII.
Or am I behind on his new bad take
He is stupid and ignorant, but it's only because he represents a culture of ignorant stupidity, and for THAT reason he is attacked. It's not personal animus. Will Stancil asked for it.
Here it was mostly young borderline homeless working class leftists, so when Will constantly posted defenses of Biden's economy as miraculous and great it just made everyone hate him.