Apparently our old friend Andrea “JudgyBitch” Hardie — oft-banned antifeminist Twitter “activist” and alt-right hanger-on — was once again feeling a bit ignored by the internet, so she bought herself a Nazi t-shirt and made a lovely video.
Despite the video’s deliberately provocative title (“Hello Fourth Reich!”), this is one of the duller “provocative” videos you’re likely to encounter on the YouTubes — at least until Hardie puts on her swastika t-shirt roughly three-quarters of the way in.
Hardie begins the video wearing a different t-shirt entirely — one adorned with the Rising Sun flag of Imperial Japan. Over the course of the first half of the video she offers a rambling, ignorant and often nonsensical take on the issue of populism — or at least the oversimplified and completely ahistorical caricature of populism she’s got bouncing around in her head.
Her main point, insofar as she has one, seems to be that anyone who’s critical of the current outbreak of “populism” is “sneering at the idea that common, ordinary, everyday people are the best people to identify what the problems in their own lives are.”
Well, no. Demagogues like Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen may claim the label of populism, but they are in fact racist right-wing autocrats who really aren’t much interested in democracy at all. “Populism” has, historically, always had a dark nativist streak to it, suffused with anti-Semitism and what historian Richard Hofstadter called the “paranoid style” of politics.
But let’s not linger too long on the history of actual populism, because we haven’t even gotten to the real point of the video, which is that Nazi t-shirt.
Hardie starts the t-shirt portion of the video by pretending to be shocked that the Rising Sun t-shirt she’s wearing isn’t likely to elicit the same outrage as a t-shirt festooned with a swastika — even though the Japanese military forces flying that flag did all sorts of truly horrible shit over the course of many years, from the Rape of Nanking to Pearl Harbor.
But those who wear Rising Sun t-shirts in public aren’t generally going to get accused of supporting any of these terrible things. To most people, Hardie declares, the Rising Sun is nothing more than a “fun meme,” and it turns out that’s just fine with her.
“What i want to know,” she asks, “why is this shirt ok, why is the Rising Sun ok, but” — she dons her Nazi t-shirt — “this shirt is not?”
This is a question that could actually lead to an interesting discussion. Why is the Rising Sun, at least here in North America, seen by most though definitely not all people as a rather innocent cultural symbol — much as the Confederate flag was back in the day when it flew unprotested from every southern state capital and adorned the top of the Dukes of Hazzard’s beloved creek-jumping car? Will perceptions of the Rising Sun change, much as they have for the Confederate flag?
But instead Hardie offers a rambling rant even more incoherent than the rant on populism in the first chunk of her video.
After informing us that the Nazis “were socialists; hey Bernie Sanders, hi” she indignantly asks why it’s considered “not ok” for people to wear Nazi shirts, so much so that YouTube probably “won’t let me monetize this video because of this shirt.”
Maybe because most people rightly connect Nazi symbolism with the Nazis and their hateful history? Maybe because virtually everyone who adorns themselves with Nazi symbols is either an actual Nazi or some other related kind of hateful shit? (Or perhaps the ghost of Sid Vicious.)
But Hardie has another theory, albeit one that makes no fucking sense whatsoever: Apparently people get mad about swastikas because they want to demonize true populists who stand up for the people! By “weaponizing the swastika” these evil liberal lefty anti-populists try to make ordinary people look bad!
I’m not even going to try to transcribe this portion of Hardie’s rant; I’m afraid it might damage my brain. Just watch. The video below should start at the beginning of her, er, explanation, a little more than 15 minutes in. Watch for the next two minutes or so, if you can manage it. Feel free to stop when she starts talking about Pepe the frog. Or if your head literally explodes.
https://youtu.be/A3Qi8VKb_dI?t=15m17s
Shortly after her Pepe digression, Hardie informs her viewers that
everyone, at the end of the day, is a stupid violent brute. Everyone. Violence is the only truth.
Huh. That sounds an awful lot like something a Nazi would say.
The only question to her is who controls this violence — evil leftists who actually hate the people, or
the common ordinary people who think, you know what, some of us is dumb assholes and, you know what, those are the first ones we’re gonna shoot. The people have a unique way of taking care of business.
That’s human history. That’s all of human history.
Er, there are are forms of government that don’t involve whatever group is in power just going out and shooting everyone they don’t like.
And all the swastikas in the world aren’t going to change that.
No. They’re going to make that sort of thing more likely. That’s why most people FUCKING HATE NAZIS. That’s why people tend to get mad when idiots put on Nazi shirts and make videos defending other idiots who put on Nazi shirts.
If you need to clear your head a little after watching that video, this might help.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/sam.gif
Truly “Look at MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!”
I honestly feel more sorry for the Buddhists (?) whom the Nazis stole that symbol from.
That symbol rightfully belongs to them, as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks for the Illinois Nazi vid. It does sort of cleanse the pallet doesn’t it.
Speak for yourself.
Why does this woman inspire me to very strongly urge her to go and put a bunch of fluffy fluffy pillows over her face (moderately tightly…but not that much!) so she’ll take a lovely long nap – unless the violent people show up at her place while she’s snoozing and think she’s waiting for them to reinact some true crime doc storyline…
That would be bad. I mean, if they did show up. Not her taking a nap, that would be something she could really benefit from – looks like she needs it. A loooooooooooooooooong nap, during which the internet and connections to the outside world snipping elves/magical winged dragon-ponies/Mike from the cable-phone-internet-dsl-satellite-landline-whatever company could drop in and help out (our peace of mind & general well being depends on seeing/hearing less of her! ) to improve life for the rest of us!
@Paradoxical Intention: Resident Cheeseburger Slut
The Buddhist Temples I’ve visited in my lifetime still have that symbol. It’s just a tad smaller and out of sight on the statues and other forms of decorations. Fortunately we never had the misfortune of neonazis making a fuss or harassing monks and nuns. It’d be pretty out there if all of a sudden a shit ton of prominent bigots start targeting Buddhists and Asians b/c of whatever the fuck. Hopefully it stays that way.
David, this is an especially well-written and well-argued post. You have done a good job here integrating historical explanation with humor in the way that’s uniquely yours. I really liked reading this post.
I made it 43 seconds. 43 seconds that I should spent petting my old chihuahua (who’s a good girl, kittendoge?)
Wonder what our old friend That_Susan thinks of this shit?
Thanks for taking one for the team, David.
If she really wanted that video to go viral she’d have punched herself in the face after putting on the swastika shirt. I’d have watched that a few dozen times.
Judas Peckerwood: *Snerk*
Not in the States or Canada, but try wearing it in Beijing or Mindanao and see how popular you are.
Same reason. Most Imperial Japanese atrocities weren’t perpetrated against white people.
My personal hypothesis is that since the Rising Sun was also used by the post-WW2 Japan Self Defense Forces and by several American units stationed in Japan, the impact has been lessened. And that the average America probably knows jack about Japanese atrocities during the war.
Check out the Tian Tan Buddha, aka “the big Buddha,” in Hong Kong. He looms above like a vision from a dream, but once I climbed all those steps and saw him up close, the prominent swastika on his chest really pulled focus. Also, he was constructed in the early 1990s, so maybe this was a pointed effort to reappropriate the symbol from the Nazis?
Nothing like a racist telling me that I shouldn’t be offended by hate symbols they’re appropriating /s
@Serebrianyi Golub
If the Tian Tan Buddha was built with the idea of reappropriating the swastika the travel guides and other sites seem to not mention it at all.
@Sebrianyi Golub
I doubt they thought about it one way or another. AFAICT hardly anyone in Asia associates the symbol with Nazis, or cares much about them. Certainly the folks who gave my dad a lovely tapestry with a swastika border weren’t thinking of it. (He doesn’t display it much at home…)
Want to make Trump supporters and neo-Nazis uncomfortable?
First, read this article.
Then, if you want your very own “No Nazis” button, they’re easy enough to get. Google Image Search “no nazis” and download one you like. Google “custom pin back buttons” and check out the links until you find a company you like. I found one where I could order 100 1″ buttons for $0.28 each plus shipping, with a $25 first-time setup fee that drops to $5 on subsequent orders of the same design.
I’ve been wearing one since getting my first order. I keep a few more in my change purse, and a small bag of them in my car. If someone says, “I like your pin,” I ask if they’d like to have one. Most of them will say yes; some will say they can’t, and I don’t ask their reasons.
So far I haven’t had anyone try to engage me negatively about the pin. But IMO it serves one very important purpose: it punctures the right-wing bubble. It says, silently but unmistakably, “I AM NOT ONE OF YOU.” And it also serves some of the same purposes as the safety pin — it lets someone who’s afraid or in trouble know that I’m a safe ally, and it reminds ME that if I see something going down, I should not just pass on and ignore, nor yet stand by and watch. Silence is assent. Silence is death.
@KindaSortaHarmless
Yes, the Rising Sun was associated with Japan both before and after the war (through the JMSDF), so it’s not quite the same. Even Japan’s current flag is a sun (although of a different pattern.)
And I think fewer people are offended by the rising sun because while neo-Nazi groups are many in the United States, neo-Imperial Japan groups aren’t really found outside Japan. So it’s less likely someone using that symbol intends to endorse Japan’s wartime government.
Andrea! You’re drunk, go home!
Cool, story, JB. Needs more dragons. /sarcasm
*moves on*
This is great example of fractal wrongness,
people who are likely to wear the swastika with out being bigots (Buddhists) are probably offended by the raising sun (non-Japanese Buddhists).
Swastika’s were found in many cultures across the world, often with varying designs, but it’s remarkable how many separate cultures came upon the same basic design to symbolize “the ultimate.” Of course, most of these cultures abandoned it after the Nazi use of it. Mostly it’s Asian cultures that continue using it since the Nazis weren’t prominent there in WWII, what with Japan being the big threat. Speaking of which, Japanese culture is one area where the Nazi association is better known and some efforts have been made to downplay it since a lot of manga, anime, and video games get exported around the world, and featuring swastikas in a positive or even neutral sense can be awkward outside of Asia.
Yeah, she can fuck right the hell off with the idea that goddamned NAZIS should somehow be considered acceptable in any society. She can consider herself lucky that she lives in Canada and not over here in Germany, where we take a dim view of Nazis.
Apart from anything else, the whole “sneering at the idea that common, ordinary, everyday people are the best people to identify what the problems in their own lives are.” is just classic anti-science
Like, there’s half a point here but there’s ALSO the mindset that antivax is okay because mothers know better than doctors and anti-climate is okay because oil tycoons know better than scientists.
In reality, some problems are just too large in scope for an unexperienced individual, even one directly affected by the problem, to identify and solve it. That’s why we HAVE experts.
Ha, ha, ha!
I’m really enjoying the fact that right behind Andrea Hardie, who’s wearing a charming Nazi T-shirt in her picture-perfect kitchen, is a graphic that says
Live. Love. Laugh.
So many personas. So little time.