Normalizing Nazis: How extremism moved from fringe to mainstream

Nazi symbolism and imagery continue to move from the dark corners of the Internet to the political mainstream in the U.S

And we are trying to appeal and reach more people. That's just one of many neo-Nazi rallies we've seen over the last couple of years here in the U.S

Nazi symbolism and imagery continues to move into mainstream U.S. politics. A lot of extremist symbology and rhetoric that, you know, once relegated to kind of the dark corners of the Internet or fringe groups are now becoming mainstream in general

Other recent examples include a young Republicans group chat with messages that included things like, I love Hitler

Members of the Trump administration downplayed that as kids making jokes, even though some of those people were nearly 40 years old

Kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes like that's what kids do

If you go back 10 years ago, you'd have to go into spaces like, you know, 4chan or to Telegram and different forums where you would have the sort of things that are now being joked about in public

So what brought this ideology out of the bowels of the Internet to the mainstream

I think generally the Republican Party has stopped policing its own. It used to be the case that if you disclosed that somebody was an anti-Semite or a racist

or whatever the case might be, that the Republican Party would toss them out

President Trump has publicly denounced Nazis and white supremacists and has been vocal in his ongoing support of Israel I not a Nazi I the opposite of a Nazi Despite that Trump and other leaders in his administration have either embraced far nationalists

or, at the very least, failed to condemn them. That includes Trump's dinner with Holocaust denier and Hitler supporter Nick Fuentes

Earlier this month, Trump's nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel withdrew

after it was found he said he had a, quote, Nazi streak

At this point, the Trump administration doesn't care if it's got extremists in the ranks

Then there's this example from last year's campaign. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in

They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there

That claim started with a neo-Nazi group known as the Blood Tribe

They believe Hitler is a literal god. Their iconography is straight up Nazi stuff, swastikas, blood drops, SS symbols

Professors and organization leaders we spoke with said most Americans are not extremists and they hope it stays that way

You know, the extremes get the loudest, you know, have the loudest voices and they get the most attention

That's not what America is right now. America is not, is mostly people in the middle who don't agree with these things

And to find like minded people who can support you and give you hope

There's all this common ground. And so in this world of social media, algorithms, demagogues

populism, influencers, you know, what's shared is erased from view. But that's there, that exists

and that's also cause for hope. If you want more on this story

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