It just dawned on me watching a speech where a guy was removed for not being excited enough to support Trump, and the vociferous, crazy and raging reactions of those sporting MAGA hats that this is the same thing now as those who wore armbands in Nazi Germany. Kids being sent to school with MAGA hats on, it’s intimidation. Everyone knows MAGA stands for hate, racism, intolerance, kidnapping minority children and tossing them in cages. Nazi stuff.
Unlike shirts, hats are extra articles of clothing (same as armbands) and since eyes are drawn to the face by the very nature of our genetic instincts, it is an effective means of throwing ones weight around. At this point it feels like we should call it what it is.
This was the declared intention of the armbands, this isn’t the declared attention of the hats, so the hats are subjective to the motivations of the people wearing them.
Though removing people for not being fanatical enough is certainly heading and a step in the direction you are talking about
We can’t assume that everyone wearing a MAGA hat is doing so to promote racism. Most of his followers are just tribal republicans, rural/ suburban white christians who have been republicans their whole lives and consider that core to their identity. Some of them are racists. More of them are “I’m not a racist, but…” racists. But most of them are just people in a tribe viewing everything through tribe-colored glasses on Fox.
Ignorance and various cognitive biases allow racism to fester. That’s clear. But that isn’t the same as saying everyone who wears a red hat consciously wants to strike fear in the hearts of minorities. “I just hated Hillary” may be self-deception, but it’s not in the same category as “Blood and soil.”
The MAGA hat is an edgelord meme, much like the OK symbol. These asshats are doing this to get a reaction out of people. They are bad people because they are being assholes, but I think that most people doing stuff like this is because it is a stunt that gets attention. It is stupid as hell.
There are also definitely racist people that wear those hats too, but I suspect the majority of that shit is baiting “triggered libz” to react with hand-wringing and op-ed writing. It is trolling, and it is stupid, anyone wearing that hat is basically someone I wouldn’t ever want to talk to. Makes it easier to point out awful people I guess.
And some people have indeed reacted to the hats. In a violent manner. And that makes them the bad guys. So the hat wearers can say, see how violent the libs are. And that sucks. Punching Nazis is one thing. But assualting assholes with MAGA hats is a bad move.
I don’t know. If you like wearing MAGA hats and don’t have enough racial sensitivity to understand what the hat represents at this point, you’re probably a racist. It comes with the uniform.
If you’re still wearing the symbol of hardline anti-immigration that celebrated kidnapping children, even babies, and throwing them in cages - keeping them from their parents indefinitely. Isn’t that a Nazi move? The only reason it isn’t happening any more is because they got caught doing it and the uproar against it was massive.
Celebrating, the hate and intolerance towards anyone who isn’t a white Christian (the general irony of some black people wearing them) also seems to fit the trend. While yes it most definitely is a troll move in many respects, it is also a power and intimidation move. I have more to say on this as I’ve been doing some work and have had to interact with hat wearing Republicans vs. non hat wearing Republicans, and the difference is striking… and somewhat scary.
In my view, people who empower racism are not distinct from actual racists. If you’re empowering racists as a way to say ‘fuck you’ or to own the libs, as a practical matter you’re a racist. If you’re empowering racists as a way to get tax cuts, as a practical matter you’re a racist.
You see, I can’t read anyone’s mind, so I have to judge what someone thinks by what they do, and contributing to and arguing for and promoting and voting for actual racists, and defending and celebrating their racist achievements — those are racist acts. So they’re racists, all of them, and the good news is that they choose to wear a symbol that makes it easy for us to identify them. Fuck them and their racism.
I appreciate you’re trying to be fair, and I want so much to agree with you that it’s largely an issue of ignorance. But Republican identity these days is based on racism. As you say, not necessarily naked “I hate black people/Jews” racism. But political priorities and opinions that exist as a socially acceptable expression of racism. When you hear people on the right talk about immigration, welfare reform, multiculturalism, or terrorism, 99% of the time you can unpack their arguments down to some form of bigotry. There is no legitimate conservative movement left in the GOP talking about these issues, no one expressing any sort of intellectual integrity in their approach to these issues, no fact-based policies regarding immigration, welfare reform, multiculturalism, or terrorism. The GOP perspective on these issues is racism all the way down.
So to my mind, anyone who aligns himself with the Republican party – MAGA hats are synonymous with GOP – might not be specifically wearing it to promote racism, but that’s what they’re doing. And I don’t believe it’s simple ignorance. I believe it’s a lack of integrity and intellectual honesty.
The Nazi armband didn’t represent genocide at first either.
The comparison makes complete sense to me. Especially because MAGA hats now literally represent kidnapping children, separating families, deporting non-violent people who have lived here for decades, and making immigrants feel completely unwanted.
Can we all just take a moment to pour one out for the red hat, a specimen that we’ll never be able to wear again without worrying what people might think of us from a distance.
A lot of people watch Fox. But the source of ideas has really moved onto the Internet at this point (in the sense that Fox now lags behind the movement by some degree). And the Internet is a lot less civilized and well-behaved than TV.
Maybe Google and Facebook cracking down on extremists will change this. Dunno.
