r/thebulwark • u/FGoobs • 12h ago
Open Authoritarianism Pause
As has been discussed, the cruelty is the point and Bovino is long gone, but I came across this picture today.
It’s just so crazy that this administration trotted out a 5 ft cosplayer in full on Nazi gear to lead our Immigration enforcement. Like… you coulda wore a tactical vest, a North Face jacket, a leather jacket, or a sport coat. ANYTHING but a Nazi trechcoat, storm trooper boots and slacks, and a German trooper buzz cut.
No surprise to anyone in the Bulwark community, but if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck… Just so profound to look back on.
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u/Ok_Victory_231 12h ago
This generation is going to be dragged in the history books. Eighty years to study what happened in Germany just to openly copy it.
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u/Bright-Strength4182 12h ago
I think part of the problem is in the education. It was NEVER alluded to that the Nazis were Christian nationalists.
It was always taught that they were just evil people who were basically born evil and hated Jews.
Religion being so inextricably linked with politics should have been the early red flag that stopped all this but people didn't recognize it.
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u/Secret_Cow_5053 11h ago
They weren’t really Christian tho. There was a HELL of a lot of Nordic occult shit running through the Nazi movement’s upper echelons, and Hitler wasn’t particularly interested in a Christian state religion. They were cooking up their own Nazi themed religion that leveraged some of then Christian traditions because ya know, pretty much the entire German population was Christian at the time, but then leadership saw Christianity as a weak religion with too much Jewish heritage at its core.
So uh. Yeah. But also Not really.
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u/Bright-Strength4182 11h ago
Right, but Trump is also not interested in Christianity but he uses it.
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u/Secret_Cow_5053 11h ago
Yeah? So did Hitler. That was my point. It’s just worth pointing out that the Nazis weren’t Christian in any sense. The actual Nazi leadership anyway, not the average German.
(I would argue the Christian nationalists in the US aren’t either…but they at least think they are. I’m not trying to defend Christianity or anything here either. Just clarifying things. It is in fact possible to be Christian and not terrible. These people just aren’t very good at it).
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u/kahrahtay 8h ago
You could use that same argument to claim that no modern Christians are really Christians
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u/bill-smith Progressive 10h ago
A lot of German Christians did go along. In fact, the Deutsche Christen (German Christians) were a collaborationist pressure group ... kind of like modern right-wing Evangelicals and Catholics. You are correct that Nazism wasn't inherently Christian.
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u/10xray1 4h ago
Gott mit uns, God on our side on every nazi belt
Fuhrer oath: I swear in the name of almighty God
Vatican signed a diplomatic treaty (the Concordat) with Hitler's regime in July 1933
In April 1939, right after Cardinal Pacelli became Pope Pius XII, Nuncio Orsenigo did host a high-profile gala reception in Berlin for Hitler's 50th birthday
German bishops and localized clergy did routinely send birthday greetings, wave national flags
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u/YaBoiFarfour 10h ago
They chose fascism because they don’t like trans ppl and perceptions of the economy.
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u/Jimmy_Twotone 9h ago
Their life was not as good as they thought it should be and it was easier to blame a minority than the people pocketing the difference between their pay and their value.
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u/peteybombay 5h ago
Wonder how things are going for them now?
More importantly for them, who is left to blame?
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u/Jimmy_Twotone 5h ago
There's always a "they." There's will always be a concerted effort from the people with the means to do everything "they" can to make sure it's not them. Keeping poor people fighting other poor people will never not be the goal.
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u/The_Wookalar 11h ago
In retrospect, Ohskosh B'Gosh asking Hugo Boss to do their fall collection was probably a mistake.
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u/joshstrummer 11h ago
They choose their image. They knew what they were doing, and the message they wanted to send.
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u/ThePensiveE FFS 11h ago
Every MAGA has this in their hearts. This is a perfect encapsulation of who they are as people.
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u/Nervous_Tower_4752 JVL is always right 8h ago
Oh wow, I am shocked that people are just discovering this picture today. As a Chicagoan, it is burned into my memory.
For context, this was taken in downtown Chicago during Operation Midway Blitz (the ICE deployment in Chicago). We had just seen ICE use helicopters to raid apartments on the south side to rip black kids out of their bedrooms in the middle of the night, masked ICE agents had started roaming the streets harassing everyone, and federal troops were unconstitutionally being deployed from Texas to patrol the streets. Then, this photo was taken; the most unambiguous framing of the leader of the entire operation and who he truly is.
It was terrifying and, although we pulled together an ad hoc response of 3D-printed whistles and neighborhood patrols to push back on this, the rage has never really gone away. Particularly since these same people were allowed to go off and terrorize another community [Minneapolis] without any accountability.
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u/hip-disguise FFS 10h ago
Crazy? This administration staffs itself with entertainment personalities (d teir), f!ckups, hacks, quacks, straight up evil assholes, zealots and boot lickers. Hell their leader piles on orange makeup everyday and forces people to pretend that is normal. is a pathological liar, drools over buff dudes and rapes kids. Bovino fits right in. to get back to crazy, they are all crazy.
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u/These_Celebration732 JVL is always right 4h ago
The stupidest part is that atleast in the history books these uniforms are captured in static imagery where, in a vacuum, the aesthetic can be seen as commanding and visceral.
Nowadays everyone and their aunt has a video camera in their pocket so all he gets out of this is a photoshoot with CNN and a million clips of him being short and milling about in a Walmart parking surrounded by a bunch of overweight, confused neckbeards.
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u/Bright-Strength4182 12h ago
I live in a very red state but I've actually never met anyone who flirts with Naziism. It's just so bizarre. Maybe it's more common in the south.
Can't believe the morons who elected one. Well I believe it now but jfc