[smithoc]

The parent comment, and the series of messages they linked to, are such peak "terminally online" content that I suspect nothing one can write here can help.

The paranoia and distrust is so intense that every statement will be seen as a coded phrase, "dog whistle" or obscure reference to some sinister thing.

Which is particularly unfortunate, because I think Elon's tweet is genuinely wrong and bad. But it kinda feels like these people need to disconnect from the internet and go for a walk. Maybe have a real life conversation with a real life regular person on the other side of the political aisle.

[tastyface]

What are you talking about? This rhetoric isn't a dogwhistle anymore, it's literal neonazi language going back to the David Duke/KKK days. Same for so-called "remigration" which has been coming up with stunning regularity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration. When I was growing up you would become a social pariah for spouting this kind of stuff.

I don't get it. Are you waiting for someone to literally say "I fucking hate brown people and love Hitler" before calling them out? For what it's worth, we're basically already there. See Trump's recent remarks about Somalis. EDIT: and somehow I forgot the time when Young Republicans were LITERALLY PRAISING HITLER, then doubled down when exposed: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-...

You're blind to what you don't care to see, I guess. As for people on the opposite side of the political aisle from me, they're busy dragging Latino children out of schools and abducting people who overstayed their visa to Salvadoran torture camps, or supporting the same, so fuck their inhuman politics very much indeed.

[verdverm]

The social media post you orig linked to has none of that

While I agree with the general problem, you do yourself a disservice by using such a poor example with so many more potent ones out there. You also do a disservice to the movement to fight back by making easy examples for "look at how out of touch they are" (i.e. making mountains out of mole hills when you could point out the actual mountains)

[scarmig]

The dynamic seems to be identifying some phrasing as a secret neo-Nazi dogwhistle and haranguing people who use it. However, that doesn't effect any change, so a new word has to be identified as secretly neo-Nazi. Repeat ad infinitum, until the terminally online exist in such a rarefied universe that 99% of all humans are secret neo-Nazis.

This is bad, because it both 1) waters down actual neo-Naziism (which is fringe and rare) and worse 2) alienates people to the point where they support non-neo-Nazi but bad policy.

(For me personally, my take on "Western Civilization" is along the lines of Gandhi: I think it'd be a wonderful idea.)