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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 2024

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Hitler is in heaven

Cooper didn't say this, he made this joke:

If you're having a bad day, just remember that the Trump shooter is currently wandering around Hell looking for Hitler while the two guys Kyle Rittenhouse dropped figure out how to break the news to him.

This is pretty ambiguous!

One interpretation is that Hitler can't be found because he's not in Hell, he's in heaven.

Another is that the shooter believes himself to be in heaven along with Hitler, but is mistaken, they're both in Hell.

Another is that the shooter is looking for "Hitler" who is actually Trump, who he mistakenly believes he sent to Hell.

Nazi Germany was infinitely preferable in virtually every way to modern France

The actual quote here is:

This may be putting it too crudely for some, but the picture on the left was infinitely preferable in virtually every way than the one on the right.

Where the picture on the left is Hitler and his officers with the Eiffel Tower in the background, and the one on the right is the drag Last Supper from this year's Olympic opening ceremonies. You can see it here: https://x.com/jessesingal/status/1830983770826047711

This one is harder to defend, but I think there are two possible angles.

One, he's literally talking about the pictures. The aesthetics here do, in my opinion, favor the Nazi picture. The drag last supper is gross, it features an obese man pretending to be a woman in the role of Jesus, the colors are garish, everyone is unattractive. If you were a time traveler who didn't know what the Nazis had done, you'd have no reason to think the Nazi photo to be repellant. A person in our time objects to the Nazi photo because of what the Nazis did, not how they were dressed.

Or, two, he's comparing the totalitarian endpoints of each ideology. Communism verus fascism. I wouldn't want to live in either Hitler's Germany or Stalin's USSR, but I don't think saying one is worse than the other is all that offensive.

If you were a time traveler who didn't know what the Nazis had done

Or an alien.

Or, two, he's comparing the totalitarian endpoints of each ideology. Communism verus fascism.

The picture on the right, however, is not the endpoint of Communism, but a waypoint. In the endpoint, most of the people in the picture on the right are dead or in prison, because it was never going to turn out the way they thought it would and it's always worst for the non-conformists. Honestly, the endpoints of Fascism and Communism look pretty much the same: A corrupt political hierarchy eating each other for power while stealing from the people and murdering as many witnesses as possible.

I'd choose Hitler's Germany over Stalin's USSR if those are my only choices.