Bystanders, Language, and Rallies

Disclaimer: I’ve said, many times before, don’t punch right. And I’ve mostly kept quiet, as people to my right (I guess? I’m not sure how monarchism and national socialism interact on the ol’ spectrum) make what I believe to be unforced errors. I’ve spoken to a few of these people privately, but I feel like I’m obscure enough and this is an apolitical enough point that I can get away with it, just this once. Alright, enough disclaimers. On to the main event.

Middle America, even white, right wing middle America, doesn’t like Hitler.

Shocking, I know, but it’s true.

The broad American public has ideological antibodies that, when you talk about Hitler, pop up and replace “Hitler” with “Bad Guy!”

This may be the most powerful example of these ideological antibodies, but there are many of these triggers. “Antisemite” = “Nazi” = “Hitler” = “Bad Guy!” I’m not going to list all of them. You know what they are.

Absolutely ruined Ol’ Charlie’s brand.

You need to avoid hitting those ideological antibody triggers. Outside of very odd circumstances (like talking to teenagers on 4chan), you’re going to get the “Bad Guy!” label, and the person you’re talking to will discount everything else you have to say.

I’m not sure if this was intentional or accidental, but during Trump’s campaign, the Alt-Right learned how to short circuit this immune response. I’m going to use Pepe in August 2016 as my example. If you use a cartoon frog as a stand-in for Nazism, no one will believe you are being serious, and whatever else you say will be able to slip by with it. Crucially, though, this does not work forever.

There are three groups that you need to think about when you choose your language. There is your Ingroup (The people who are on your side), your Outgroup (Journalists, politicians, rootless cosmopolitans, whoever your enemies that will never join your cause are), and the Bystanders (Everyone who does not fall into the other two categories).

The Outgroup, personified.

If you want to say things that would normally trigger ideological antibodies, it needs to be understandable to the Ingroup and non-threatening or unintelligible to Bystanders. Whether the Outgroup understands or not doesn’t really matter.

Pepe, in August 2016, was understandable to the Ingroup (The Alt-Right). Pepe, by that time, was also understandable to the Outgroup. But Pepe was a mystery to the vast majority of Bystanders. So when Hillary Clinton got up on stage and claimed that a cartoon frog was a symbol of evil racism, the Outgroup nodded along, the bystanders thought she was having a stroke or something, and the Ingroup laughed hysterically, because they knew how crazy she would sound to the Bystanders.

Fast-forward to today. By now, many of the bystanders know that Pepe is, in fact, used by the Alt-Right. And the Alt-Right is racist = Nazis = Hitler = Bad! So someone coming out today and saying that Pepe is a symbol of racism would get far fewer confused looks from the Bystanders than Hillary’s speech did.

Think about this in relation to the Alt-Right’s “operations” since Trump’s inauguration. Before Trump’s election, if someone called the Alt-Right “Nazis,” the bystanders would mostly be confused. “The old Nazis are gone. The Neo-Nazis are trailer trash types with tattoos on their faces. These guys don’t look or act like the old or new Nazis. Yeah, they say some similar things, but it seems to be mostly in jest.”

Then, after Trump got elected, some people decided it would be a good idea to start looking and acting MORE like Nazis. I’m not just talking about Richard Spencer saying “Hail Victory” in a speech. One weird incident does not make a movement Nazi-like. The problem was the rallies.

You know who has rallies? Nazis.

SEEMS TO BE MOSTLY IN JEST

I do not care if that’s stupid. That’s the way the mind works. You check off too many “Nazi” boxes, you will activate those mental antibodies, and anything else you say or do will be ignored.

Side note: Do you guys understand the purpose of rallies? Rallies, and any large and loud public gathering, are useful only in a couple of ways.

1. They let the powerful know which side the people are on. If more people come to the counter-rally, your rally is pointless.
2. If the powerful are not secretly already on your side, even if you have a fair number of people at your rally, the rally will do nothing. A rally is a way of subtly saying “We all would vote for your side, or fight for your side, if this came down to a fight.” If you don’t have enough people for that to be impressive, your rally is not doing anything.

“But what about convincing normal people of our righteous cause!”

1. Rallies themselves don’t convince normal people of the thing being rallied for. Rallies let people who already agree with the rally-ers know how many people are on their side. Again, if more people show up to the counter-rally, your rally was pointless.
2. What does convince normal people of the righteousness of a rally’s cause is the press coverage of the rally. Glowing reviews of the righteousness of the Civil Rights Marches made many people believers. How many glowing reviews do Alt-Right rallies get? Yes, it’s not fair. But you need to play the hand you’re dealt.

“But Hitler was right wing and had rallies!”

So were all the German judges and civil servants and police officers and a good portion of the press at the time, which is certainly not true today.

“But the March for Life…”

Is an abject failure, despite being absolutely massive.

Anyway, back to the main point.

Stop ticking off Nazi boxes.

Don’t rail against “THA JOOS” if “Rootless Cosmopolitans” captures the people you are railing against and doesn’t (yet) make Bystanders immediately think of Nazis.

Pictured: Not a Nazi

Don’t say you’re a white nationalist, just say you’re an American Nationalist, and, later in the conversation, make the argument for why American Nationalism is implicitly or explicitly white.

Don’t hold rallies with chanting and torches. Clean up a beach instead.

If you need other ideas for things to do that don’t tick off Nazi boxes, I wrote up some that definitely won’t work. (Wink wink).

This article is mostly intended for those people who say “They’re gonna think we’re Nazis anyway, so we might as well embrace it.” No. That’s dumb. And I’ll tell you exactly why it’s dumb.

Who is “they”?

Joe Sixpack in Alabama won’t have heard of you, and certainly won’t be calling you a Nazi. The “they” that will think you are a Nazi no matter what is… The Outgroup! As I mentioned earlier, it does not matter what the Outgroup thinks! You will never convince the Outgroup to your side, that’s what makes them the Outgroup!

So, yes, you are correct, the Outgroup will always think you’re Nazis. But the Bystanders certainly won’t. And if you don’t look or act in a way that easily ticks off Nazi boxes in the Bystanders’ heads, the Outgroup will just look dumb for calling you that! Unless, of course, you wear swastikas, speak German, goosestep, rally in large numbers, and yell about Jews. Then the Bystanders will think that maybe the Outgroup has a point.

But what do I know? I don’t even believe in any of this “democracy” nonsense.