People who believe awful stuff look just like you and me.
Yeah, it would be convenient if they had a Mark of Cain on their forehead.
Yeah, it would be convenient if they consistently spouted horrifying ideology, or wore convenient armbands to show that they are terrible people, or clearly and obviously looked different from the nice couple across the street who keep their yard tidy and who don’t have any objectionable bumper stickers on their cars.
How do we deal with people whose awfulness is not obvious, until they actually say awful things?
Nazis Are Just Like You and Me, Except They’re Nazis – The Atlantic
Despite what you may have read in The New York Times
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The New York Times disagrees and think NAZI’s are just normal white folks with fun website that enjoy the Olive Garden.
+Stan Pedzick I disagree with that characterization of the NYT article I assume you're referencing. [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/ohio-hovater-white-nationalist.html]. Like the Atlantic article, the NYT one makes it very clear that these folk hold awful beliefs, while at the same time looking and acting a lot like "normal" people. That mundanity of evil is not a new observation, but a reminder that Nazis (et al.) are not all shrieking guys with 1930s-style uniforms and "white power" tattoos. That doesn't make their ideology any less awful (and neither article suggests that, to my view); indeed, it makes it more so.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/ohio-hovater-white-nationalist.html
+Dave Hill it is that vary one.
+Stan Pedzick The point is that Nazis are normal, at least as they show up down at the local Olive Garden and plan their wedding.
It's like that joke in the Addams Family — "And what's your costume, sweetie?" "I'm a homicidal maniac — I look just like everyone else."
The NYT has acknowledged that linking to the website in question was bad judgment, and has taken the link down.
https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/934875769850998790 has a list if things the article could have done to go more in depth (interestingly, it's linked at the NYT editor article about the article itself, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/26/reader-center/readers-accuse-us-of-normalizing-a-nazi-sympathizer-we-respond.html). I agree that all of those would have made deeper and more clearly-opposed-to-Nazis article, but I still think the original fulfilled it's role: it didn't normalize Nazis, it made it clear that Nazis are already (or still) normalized.
+Dave Hill yep, read the Mangy Jay, as well as other threads yesterday.