I re-read this - written by Dorothy Thompson in 1941 - every so often, and it holds astonishingly true: Who Goes Nazi?
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"Mr. L has just come in. Mr. L is a lion these days. My hostess was all of a dither when she told me on the telephone, “ . . . and L is coming. You know it’s dreadfully hard to get him.” L is a very powerful labor leader. “My dear, he is a man of the people, but really fascinating.“ L is a man of the people and just exactly as fascinating as my horsy, bank vice-president, on-the-make acquaintance over there, and for the same reasons and in the same way. L makes speeches about the “third of the nation,” and L has made a darned good thing for himself out of championing the oppressed. He has the best car of anyone in this room; salary means nothing to him because he lives on an expense account. He agrees with the very largest and most powerful industrialists in the country that it is the business of the strong to boss the weak, and he has made collective bargaining into a legal compulsion to appoint him or his henchmen as “labor’s” agents, with the power to tax pay envelopes and do what they please with the money. L is the strongest natural-born Nazi in this room. Mr. B regards him with contempt tempered by hatred. Mr. B will use him. L is already parroting B’s speeches. He has the brains of Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible instinct for power. In private conversation he denounces the Jews as “parasites.” No one has ever asked him what are the creative functions of a highly paid agent, who takes a percentage off the labor of millions of men, and distributes it where and as it may add to his own political power."
(8/?)
"It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to."
(9/9)
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"It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to."
(9/9)
@mothninja An excellent read!
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"It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to."
(9/9)
Prof. Timothy Snyder Yale U.
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I re-read this - written by Dorothy Thompson in 1941 - every so often, and it holds astonishingly true: Who Goes Nazi?
https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
(1/?)
@mothninja Thank you, Anna, for posting this. I had read it a few years ago and thought about it recently, but couldn't find it!
Now bookmarked! -
"I think young D over there is the only born Nazi in the room. Young D is the spoiled only son of a doting mother. He has never been crossed in his life. He spends his time at the game of seeing what he can get away with. He is constantly arrested for speeding and his mother pays the fines. He has been ruthless toward two wives and his mother pays the alimony. His life is spent in sensation-seeking and theatricality. He is utterly inconsiderate of everybody. He is very good-looking, in a vacuous, cavalier way, and inordinately vain. He would certainly fancy himself in a uniform that gave him a chance to swagger and lord it over others."
(5/?)
@mothninja Mr D reminds me of someone.
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@mothninja Mr D reminds me of someone.
@mothninja Drumpf.
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@mothninja
As much as I'm tempted to also imagine that there's just two kinds of people, and that the people who gradually say "yes" to maga, and to remigration, and to the wonderful new opportunities offered by ai, and to the "obvious need to defend the nation", - that would be precisely the " fascist" thing to say. That there are inherently good people, and inherently bad people.@mothninja
...and my eyes keep telling me otherwise. At least in my modest experience, encountering, in Academia and in FLOSS, people who are not so many handshakes away from the money printer, and who sometimes indeed have the bad ideas, they were all of them... not evil. Just weak. Even when strong in abstract, not strong enough for this. -
"It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to."
(9/9)
@mothninja
As much as I'm tempted to also imagine that there's just two kinds of people, and that the people who gradually say "yes" to maga, and to remigration, and to the wonderful new opportunities offered by ai, and to the "obvious need to defend the nation", - that would be precisely the " fascist" thing to say. That there are inherently good people, and inherently bad people. -
"It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to."
(9/9)
@mothninja "He has the brains of Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible instinct for power." 1941.... Plus ça change...
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"It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to."
(9/9)
@mothninja yes. Spot on
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I re-read this - written by Dorothy Thompson in 1941 - every so often, and it holds astonishingly true: Who Goes Nazi?
https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
(1/?)
@mothninja
Excellent, and still (very) relevant in 2026. -
"It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to."
(9/9)
@mothninja Such a good article.
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@mothninja "He has the brains of Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible instinct for power." 1941.... Plus ça change...
@littlemouse @mothninja This was the part that seemed particularly applicable to today's oligarchs:
"His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected."
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"It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.
Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to."
(9/9)
@mothninja Bertolucci's "The Conformist" is about one of these. A disquieting watch.
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I re-read this - written by Dorothy Thompson in 1941 - every so often, and it holds astonishingly true: Who Goes Nazi?
https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
(1/?)
@mothninja A former boss of mine German by birth, was reflecting about his youth and growing up during WWII and said, "You know, I would have been a good Nazi." I imagine many of his generation played a version of Who Goes Nazi. It was chilling.
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@mothninja A former boss of mine German by birth, was reflecting about his youth and growing up during WWII and said, "You know, I would have been a good Nazi." I imagine many of his generation played a version of Who Goes Nazi. It was chilling.
@timcurry holy cow. Yes, chilling indeed.
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@mothninja Thank you, Anna, for posting this. I had read it a few years ago and thought about it recently, but couldn't find it!
Now bookmarked!@jayflo glad it found its way back to you!
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I re-read this - written by Dorothy Thompson in 1941 - every so often, and it holds astonishingly true: Who Goes Nazi?
https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
(1/?)
@mothninja who goes Nazi is the resentful. People nursing a grudge. People with privilege who believe themselves aggrieved. Who want to "set things right".
My God, that is the entire MAGA movement. The King among them is Trump. The richest man who constantly believes he is taken advantage of, so that resentment gives him permission to do anything.
But everyone of them, no matter how small, has been told he is justified in holding onto his grudge, the problem is other people who must be purged.
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@mothninja who goes Nazi is the resentful. People nursing a grudge. People with privilege who believe themselves aggrieved. Who want to "set things right".
My God, that is the entire MAGA movement. The King among them is Trump. The richest man who constantly believes he is taken advantage of, so that resentment gives him permission to do anything.
But everyone of them, no matter how small, has been told he is justified in holding onto his grudge, the problem is other people who must be purged.
@Urban_Hermit @mothninja Egged on by Elon, who actually is the richest man, and yes, he too bears many grudges. One of them seems to be that not enough people in the world think he should play god.
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@Urban_Hermit @mothninja Egged on by Elon, who actually is the richest man, and yes, he too bears many grudges. One of them seems to be that not enough people in the world think he should play god.
@grammasaurus @Urban_Hermit @mothninja a lot of "world owes me something."
Trump is the big puzzle. He has this massive revenge complex. I have no idea who did what to him, ever, other than let him grow up a rich entitled shithead without blowing his balls off with a pistol in military school.
I sense he wants to dig up his dead father just so he can yell at him.
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