Nazis are just like me except for the part where I don't believe killing everyone who doesn't think, look or act like me will solve my economic situation.
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) November 26, 2017
For all of the alt-right's disdain for "normies," many in the movement want their extremist views to be normalized https://t.co/Uyw0z05bts
— NYT National News (@NYTNational) November 25, 2017
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The sad reality is: The NYTimes has been normalizing actual Nazis for going on eighty years now!
On August 20, 1939, the New York Times wrote an article profiling Hitler's daily life in his mountain chalet, featuring such details as, "Though Hitler is a strict vegetarian and teetotaler, he is not indifferent to meals."
Twelve days later, Hitler invaded Poland. pic.twitter.com/1dZ8DfTt9v
— J.H. Swanson (@jh_swanson) November 25, 2017
Jeffrey Dahmer: I made an altar from the bones and genitalia that I didn't eat from my victims.
NY Times reporter: Meet the Midwestern sex-postive locavore who adds a Goth twist to his arts and crafts!— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) November 25, 2017
Above and beyond anything else about this NYT thing: We already know that Nazis are people. We've covered the fact that Nazis are people.
The people that Nazis want to kill are also people. That's what we seemingly haven't established yet.
— Sady Doyle (@sadydoyle) November 25, 2017
At some level, the people authorizing these stories — sending reporters out to collect “homey” anecdotes for yet another puff-piece — are defending their organizations’ sunk costs. If they admit now that normalizing Nazis always ends up with Nazis trying to murder the people of whom they don’t approve, what would that say about the Hallowed NYT Traditions?!?
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the nyt reporter who profiled the ohio nazi basically confesses he didn't get much. and that the intvws didn't connect any dots for him. sometimes you gotta know when to kill a story. https://t.co/1VyuN0hNal pic.twitter.com/dRbte68N01
— Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) November 25, 2017
Assignment Editors: when you send out a reporter and he doesn't come back with anything Hannah Arendt didn't say better decades ago, that story is dead.
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) November 25, 2017
Also, the premise of these Humanizing Profiles of Nazis is that it's surprising that very normal white people are anti-Semitic and anti-Black. As if dealing with well-dressed, prosperous bigots is new thing and not most of the history of Jewish and Black people in America.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 25, 2017
You can only really write pieces like that if you’re convinced that the violence which these extremists represent, and engineer, will never touch you. Likely because you’re white, wealthy, and mobile and they’ll probably target vulnerable, static “minorities”.
— Jasmin Mujanovic (@JasminMuj) November 26, 2017
Late Night Open Thread: The Sunk Costs of Normalizing NazisPost + Comments (69)