Although the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei certainly wasn’t ‘socialist’ beyond the earliest days before it became the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (and later the NSDAP or “Nazi Party”), it is difficult to classify it as being specifically ‘right wing’, either. It was a populist party that promoted a culturally conservative return of ‘family values’ and conventional gender roles, but it ended up supporting a lot of social welfare programs (both to promote itself and later because of the impacts of isolation and the war). The base were mostly laborers and lower socioeconomic middle classes prior to rising to power within the Weimar National Assembly, when industrialists and investors swooned to Hitler’s inner circle and fěted his every desire, following the lead of a few early advocates like Frederich Flick, one of Weimar’s (and later post-WWII Germany’s) most wealthy industrialists. (Sound familiar?)
Fascism itself isn’t really an ideology in any meaningful way; it is really an advocacy of absolute power behind a cult of personality, driven by largely manufactured fear and resentment, typically toward a foreign ‘other’ or marginalized groups within the society. This allows it to attract wealthy business owners and corporate interests who are largely free of any particular ethical principles by advocating whatever is most likely to improve business conditions, e.g. eliminate regulation, compel government investment, make prison or other forced labor available for low or no cost, provide national resources, apply tariffs and other anti-competition measures, et cetera. (Sound familiar?)
Hitler, of course, recognized early the benefits of populist organizing at a grassroots level, presenting an epic vision of a vast German Reich based upon the purported racial superiority of the Teutonic people (or “Aryan Race”—a meaningless term that nonetheless took hold), the myth of a “Big Lie” that Germany didn’t really lose the Great War (I) and the German people had been undermined by internal forces, and utilizing media outlets into his political movement, first newspapers and later adopting radio as the first broad and immediate communication medium, essentially inventing ‘viral marketing’ and a sort of ‘social media’ precursor of thousands of people publishing pamphlets and holding extemporaneous displays of bigotry and violence, which promoted fear, uncertainty and doubt through the populace, creating a sense that the only options were to join up or be silent. (Sound familiar?)
Fascism and fascist-like movements don’t really fit on the left-right political spectrum; fascismo italiano, Nazism, Peronism, Stalinism, Maoism, and whatever you want to call what belief system Pol Pot and Enver Hoxha advocated were all fascist-like cults of personally, and their support and frameworks were drawn from all over the progressive-conservative sociopolitical spectrum. The only unifying ideals were blaming all problems on a convenient scapegoat class, promotion of an all-knowing, never-wrong charismatic leader, and creating a culture of paranoia and corruption where even basic survival, much less advancement, depended on a willingness to turn against or report your neighbors, friends, and even family to demonstrate loyalty. (Sound familiar?)
I don’t know that everything in that post has been (or can be) verified, but there is enough in there which corresponds to what we do know about the happenings when Elon Musk took over Twitter that there is at least some partial truths in there. For certain, Twitter went from being a general dumpster fire to a platform that specifically promoted right-wing personalities and conspiranoia, and distributed anti-progressive memes and false claims very quickly, and has since become as much of a far-right social media tool as 4Chan and Rumble, and now even nominally ‘independent’ media platforms like Meta and Instagram are now removing protections and rapidly transitioning over to being ‘fascist-friendly’ sites dominated by explicitly ‘conservative’ bogus ‘news’ and conspiracy nutterism instead of just being general misinformation of all shades.
Stranger
