Thanks for the even-handed review of the issue k9bfriender (ha! checked the spelling twice this time after a previous screw up). I, not being German or speaking said language, cannot make a fair judgement of how obvious it is/should be, so I’m going to continue to defer to those who are.
But, I still suspect a fair amount of semi-traditional American callousness about other languages and cultures were the primary culprit. And I can bet that those from the aforementioned language and culture are infinitely more sensitive to said nuance than we are.
On the gripping hand, Uber is part of the post-app tech boom, which was . . . rife . . . with people who did not give a flip about evaluating anything past the IPO or venture capitol grinding. So, all signs point to one flavor of stupidity or another.
As a non-German speaking American, the first time I heard of Uber, I had the exact same reaction. I always figured it wasn’t a dog whistle, exactly, so much as internet-style “ironic” racism. Like, the internet car company is engaging in internet edge lord crap. Of course, most of that “ironic” racism turned out to be not-so-ironic after all, but that wasn’t as obvious in 2009 as it is now.
And this is something the Nazis actively encouraged in the Eastern European countries they invaded. They exploited old ethnic tensions between not only Jews but Ukrainians, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Croatians, Serbians, to try to get those people - who they all considered inferior and expendable - to kill as many of each other as possible.
I woud like to put that Uber debate aside, I am sorry I started it, although only on a footnote in subscript, and come back to the subject the OP raised.
The Jews and other oppressed minorities (the already mentioned thing with no papers and no permanent adress was one way to get at the Gypsies, for instance) did not believe that it would come to what it came in the end, they had not enough fear of their fellow citizens. They could not picture the Endlösung (Final Solution) and did not flee when they still could have. Exile is difficult, many people could not. There were so many warning signs, but they were mostly ignored. In the quarter where I live in Berlin they have hung small texts on many streetlamps with laws and decrees the nazis adopted to make life difficult for the Jews and to humiliate them. In 1934, Jews were forbidden to take university exams. In 1936, they were forbidden to use parks or public swimming pools and to own electrical appliances, typewriters or bicycles. Some were seemingly insignificant, like an April 1935 edict banning Jews from flying the German flag or a February 1942 order forbidding Jews from owning pets (I mean, how miserable a person can you be?). Others deprived Jews of the right to vote, their access to education, their ability to own businesses or take on certain jobs. And still many did not flee. And then came the Endlösung.
I believe the OP is asking whether the USA has arrived at a similar point and if so, what should be done. And if the situation is comparable, whether we are in 1933 or in 1942.
I must add to that, not knowing enough of the USA to answer that question, that most of the victims of the concentration camps were not German Jews: they were Polish Jews. They could not flee, the war had already started when they were caught, the borders were closed. And for some of the people who fled the journey ended back in Germany, because the ships with the refugees were not allowed to enter port in many countries, including the USA. People did not want them.
Now, back to the present situation. Here is an incomplete list of the laws and decrees I mentioned. Is it that bad already? If not, is it even conceivable? Oh, and before I forget: The nazis saw the USA as an example, the racial laws in the USA were one of the blueprints for the examples that follow (translated from this German page, I know all this, but not by heart):
Jews are no longer allowed to serve as officers in the Wehrmacht (May 1935)
Jews are not allowed to work as tax consultants or accountants (January 1936)
Jews are not allowed to work as veterinarians (April 1936)
Jewish teachers are no longer allowed to work at state schools (October 1936)
Berlin municipal authorities exclude Jewish children from local state schools (April 1937)
Jews are no longer allowed to change their surname or use an alias (January 1938).
Jews are not allowed to work as auctioneers (February 1938).
Jews are prohibited from owning or dealing in arms (July 1938).
Jews are banned from spas and health resorts (July 1938).
All Jews must add either "Israel" or "Sara" to their first names (August 1938).
Jewish doctors are forbidden by law to treat non-Jewish patients (September 1938).
Jews must have a large red "J" on their passports (October 1938).
Jews are not allowed to move freely in Germany (November 1938).
Jews are no longer allowed to keep or use carrier pigeons (November 1938).
Jews are no longer allowed to own a car or have a driving licence (December 1938).
All Jewish academics, lecturers and students are excluded from universities (December 1938).
Jews must hand in precious metals and stones (February 1939).
Jews are forbidden to buy lottery tickets or claim prizes (August 1939).
Jews are no longer allowed to install, maintain or use telephones (July 1940).
I hope the answer is no to both questions, and I hope too that this is in the sense meant by the OP.
Could you elaborate, with some examples? I only know of the law (is it a law?) excluding gay people from military service. Don’t even know whether it is still in force. Is that what you mean?
There are state laws against ANY transitional hormone therapy for minors; that’s the first one that comes to mind. Homosexuality no longer excludes you from military service in the US.
The bar against homosexuals serving in the US military was lifted during the Obama administration. However, one of the first things Trump did when he got in office was sign an executive order barring trans people from military service. Biden reversed that order when he was elected.
A lot of state legislatures are passing laws criminalizing medical treatment for trans youth. This isn’t just about medical procedures, or even hormones, but stuff like letting them use pronouns different from the ones they were born with. Texas is trying to criminalize parents who have trans children, causing many families to flee the state. Beyond that, there’s a larger culture war effort on the right focused on branding any attempt to recognize that queer people don’t just suddenly turn gay on their 18th birthday as “groomers” who are trying to molest children. Armed, far right militias have also started turning up at family events featuring gay performers.
One of the key differences between Germany in the 1930s and the current sitatuation is that in the USA, it is quite difficult to pass laws: we have a divided government and a tradition of constantly litigating controversial and borderline cases: witness the Roe v Wade issue, or the Civil Rights Act. Consequently, laws barring X from Y would be really difficult to enforce.
What we do very well is institutional X-ism, where we simply bar people from an activity by convention. How many openly gay men do you think teach primary school children?
There is a longstanding trend of using immense social pressure to keep non-white people in the working and service classes, and to promote WASPs into more prestigious roles. Not nearly as much as there used to be, which is good, but my point is that if we were going to start scapegoating people, it would be by making it more difficult for them to do something in ways that were hard to put your finger on (discrimination) rather than using the power of the state to make laws.
For some reason, the point group this time around seems to be Trans people. Their numbers are so low, and their levels of social prominence and power so low, that I wonder if the Conservatives are just looking for a scapegoat that won’t inconvenience their members too much. Or perhaps they’re testing the waters.
I hear disgust from white friends and family, and caution but not alarm from people I know in racialized minorities, and from gay friends. Only a couple of Jewish friends are very alarmed. Since I no longer live in the USA, I don’t know how to read that data, but I suspect it’s tied to “what is our history” and “what are the alternatives.”
As for my opinion on the OP: Authoritarianism has been growing in the US for a while. It will either peak or keep growing. If it keeps growing, yes, fascism is a real alternative. There is now some pushback from the current D president, but the election results round to 50-50, and a lot of would-be authoritarian rhetoric and behaviour over the last six years has received insufficient pushback and condemnation.
So I think maybe “Germany, 1930” is closer than “OMG we are on the eve of the camps,” though the point above is well taken about the camps to detain border crossers.
I can’t help but think we are one bad natural disaster away from fascism: a hurricane that wipes out a major city; the Colorado River dries up; a wildfire that takes out a major city; an earthquake or flood that devastates a wide area of infrastructure which cannot be repaired in time.
Remember that there were only three years between 1930, and three months after the nazis took over, until the first KZ of Dachau was opened on 22 March 1933. Nobody spoke up.
Exactly. I really don’t think anything major will happen in the next two years. A lot depends on (1) what changes in 2024, and (2) if the Republicans take major power on a national level, how hard-done-by they perceive their situation to be after the last four years.
Shouldn’t take long for the Shawano Red Neck and Hat Society to spin up the ol’ abandoned Pick 'n Save into a concentration camp. There’s even a little river in back to dump the bodies in.
The data used to generate the map go down to the precinct level; if you zoom way in you can see the boundaries. At the original level of zoom, mouseover shows county-level statistics.
I suspect that some of the single-person precincts might actually be areas with zero residents; some tribes in Arizona have sovereign territory that no one lives on (though plenty of people work on it - usually a casino resort near a populated area). They may have “borrowed” a voter from some nearby reservation land to make the math work correctly, as percentage calculations tend to go pie-eyed when dividing by zero. Sometimes its easier to massage the data like this than to change your programming to accomodate it.
And, to inject one relevant fact into our Uber-hijack:
Uber was originally named UberCab when founded by a Canadian in 2009. In that context, it would seem to be less objectionable than when the subject is stripped away and only the modifier remains. I suspect the inspiration for the change may have been Nietzsche rather than Naziism, though I would agree that the edgelord types probably went gaga over its association with the latter.
Hope this was relevant and helpful enough to not get dinged for continuing the hijack…
…I think that its important not to look for one-to-one comparisons here because we aren’t examining the present through the lens of history: we are just examining the present. In the year 2052 they might look back on 2022 as the “year everything changed.” Or they might look back on it as “the year everyone pushed back.” We won’t really know until we reach that point.
But on some of your points:
“Jews are no longer allowed to serve as officers in the Wehrmacht (May 1935)”
As mentioned: Trump banned transgender people serving in the military. The current administration overturned this: but it wouldn’t take much to reintroduce it.
“Jews are not allowed to work as tax consultants or accountants (January 1936)
Jews are not allowed to work as veterinarians (April 1936)
Jewish teachers are no longer allowed to work at state schools (October 1936)”
This is where the one-to-one comparisons become less relevant. Because of stuff like this.
Can LGBTQ teachers teach in Mississippi? Sure. Can they be open about it? Not so much. And its that chilling effect that is important, especially in an age where spying on and reporting on somebody is so much easier now than it ever has been in history. You can destroy someone and make them leave the State with an Instagram post and there isn’t anything anyone can really do about it.
“Jews must hand in precious metals and stones (February 1939).”
This is a regular occurance at the borders.
Asylum seekers don’t matter, it seems.
“Jews are no longer allowed to change their surname or use an alias (January 1938).”
In April they were trying to pass this bill.
The bill would "allow the state’s public school staff to refuse to “use a student’s preferred pronoun when referring to the student if the preferred pronoun is not consistent with the student’s biological sex.”
There are a number of other similar bills (similar because they were all drafted from the same “bill factory”) trying to do the same thing in many states. They want to ban youths from choosing a different name to what they were born with. From choosing their own pronouns.
It isn’t exactly the same. But its kinda the same. It’s the same discrimination, the same persecution, all draped in the veil of the “American Flag” and “Freedom.”
CW: discussion of transgender issues
What needs to be made clear here is that the endgame for transgender issues for many (perhaps millions) of people both in America and the rest of the world, is genocide.
They no longer want them to exist. Most would probably be happy with cultural genocide but there are some who would be happy to go all the way.
We know that this is what they want because everything they do tells us so. The laws they want to pass. The constant harrassment of transgender people where-ever they exist. The armed protests at “drag shows”, the bomb threats to childrens hospitals, the passing of laws to stop transaffirming care for youths, the attempts to pass laws to stop transaffirming care for everyone.
It’s all happening right there, right now, all out in the open. The question to you would be: are you seeing it? And if you aren’t, ask yourself why?
And it isn’t just happening in the United States. In Russia they’ve just done this.
In the UK there has been continued attacks on transgender people and rights for a number of years now.
If you are Jewish, or black, or a person of colour, or indigenous, or Palestinian, or a trans person, or a member of the LGBTQ+ community, you are more likely to be seeing the world through a very different lens to others. So to your question “is it that bad already?” For some, yeah, it really is. When maps like this exist:
And underground networks of people helping transgender people and people needing an abortion to literally escape states, then things are that bad.
Many Nietzsche scholars would say the English sense of “Superman” misses out on a lot of nuance. And if it misses the nuance, it’s not a good literal translation.
Nobody has done that.
You do realize you’re arguing with more than one actual German about the connotations of a German word to Germans. Which is peak Yanksplaining, IMO.
