one more time: the lesson of the Holocaust is not that if someone criticizes you on twitter, genocide will follow. 1

the unique thing about the Nazis was not even suppression of free speech. like suppressing free speech is bad, but it was hardly unique to Nazis. no serious definition of fascism includes suppression of speech as a chief characteristic.

the scapegoating of marginalized people, the targeting of the left, the evocation of a pure volk from which foreign elements need to be cleansed...those are things that are central to Nazi ideology.

that's why, "being criticized on twitter is like the Holocaust" is offensive, while, "putting immigrants in concentration camps evokes the Nazis" is correct.

the way the right uses fascism is similar to the way they use MLK.

it's issues where there's a consensus that right-wing racists were in fact on the wrong side of history. the Nazis were evil; MLK was in the right.

so right wing racist now just blatantly lie about which side they'd have been on. "MLK would have fought reverse racism!" "Hitler would have been the one persecuting people for being transphobic!"

the point isn't really to fool anyone; it's just to maintain their own sense of righteousness, so they can feel justified in harming marginalized people, the way their ideological predecessors did.

also misusing these histories is supposed to be a painful in itself. may of the people who do this know that having one's fears and trauma mocked in this deliberate way is itself damaging, and even frightening.

it's saying they dont' care about the history and plan to hurt you anyway, if they can.