Hanne Nabintu Herland used Kanye West’s anti-Semitism to try to reinforce a right-wing narrative in her Dec. 7 WorldNetDaily column:
The famous musician Kanye West recently declared his admiration for Adolf Hitler in an interview with Alex Jones. West said he sees “redeeming qualities” in the Nazi dictator. And of late, the entertainer has expressed anger toward Jewish Hollywood leaders and Jews in general.
So, what did Hitler stand for? Elitist nationalism coupled with socialism was the national socialism ideology that dominated the German democracy prior to World War II. NAZI is the abbreviation for “Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,” namely the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The name itself declares it a socialist movement.
The Nazi party stood for strong centralization of government, a rigid culture of consensus, few individual liberties, strict media censorship and propaganda. Simply by observing the old photographs of the multitudes greeting Hitler with Nazi salutes, one gets a glimpse into the immense group-think social pressure. You were not allowed to keep your hand down. Everyone was to have the same political opinion; the only accepted view was that of the ruling Nazi elites.
Today, few seem to recall that the Nazi party was left-wing socialism. Among many, author Jonah Goldberg has pointed this out in his book “Liberal Fascism.”
Yeah, no. Even though right-wingers insisting on portraying the Nazi movement as socialist as a way to own the libs, that’s not even close to being historically accurate. As researcher Ronald Granieri pointed out:
Although the Nazis did pursue a level of government intervention in the economy that would shock doctrinaire free marketeers, their “socialism” was at best a secondary element in their appeal. Indeed, most supporters of Nazism embraced the party precisely because they saw it as an enemy of and an alternative to the political left. A closer look at the connection between Nazism and socialism can help us better understand both ideologies in their historical contexts and their significance for contemporary politics.
The Nazi regime had little to do with socialism, despite it being prominently included in the name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The NSDAP, from Hitler on down, struggled with the political implications of having socialism in the party name. Some early Nazi leaders, such as Gregor and Otto Strasser, appealed to working-class resentments, hoping to wean German workers away from their attachment to existing socialist and communist parties. The NSDAP’s 1920 party program, the 25 points, included passages denouncing banks, department stores and “interest slavery,” which suggested a quasi-Marxist rejection of free markets. But these were also typical criticisms in the anti-Semitic playbook, which provided a clue that the party’s overriding ideological goal wasn’t a fundamental challenge to private property.
Instead of controlling the means of production or redistributing wealth to build a utopian society, the Nazis focused on safeguarding a social and racial hierarchy. They promised solidarity for members of the Volksgemeinschaft (“racial community”) even as they denied rights to those outside the charmed circle.
Granieri went on to describe what Herland and others are doing in perpetuating this false claim “historical ‘gotcha'” as well as “historical and political sophistry that attempts to turn effect into cause and victim into victimizer.”
(Also, contrary to Goldberg’s book title, fascism is not liberal.)
Oddly, even though West’s anti-Semitism was the jumping-off point for her column, Herland never actually criticizes West, referencing him again only at the end while trying to reinforce her bogus narrative: “It has been quite an accomplishment by the left to hide the fact that Hitler was socialist. Therefore, what exactly Kanye West means by offering his admiration for this man remains to be explained.”