Nazis, Nazis, everywhere
Moira Deeming was set to be expelled from the Australian Liberal Party last week. John Pesutto, Leader of the Opposition, and his allies accused her of being “Nazi-adjacent” but were forced to backtrack when they failed to make the label stick.
John Pesutto must have wondered why none of her latent Nazism had appeared during her selection as an MP, or why a Nazi would want to be a member of the Liberal party in the first place. But he didn’t let that stand in his way.
No smoke without fire.
If he didn’t act right away someone might accuse him of being a Nazi. And that would really hurt him like it’s already hurting Moira Deeming. Which was, of course, the point.
Have a listen to Moira Deeming’s speech which was read out on Sky News in Australia. It’s powerful stuff.
The specific Nazi to which Moira Deeming was judged to be adjacent was Kellie-Jay Keen, the woman hated by misogynists and their handmaidens everywhere. She’s definitely a Nazi, right? What do you mean, why? If you have to ask then you’re obviously a Nazi too, and that’s about as deep as the thinking goes.
Look, she must be a Nazi, otherwise all those people wouldn’t have turned out to protest her. She’s *obviously* dangerous. That’s why the Auckland Let Women Speak event had to be cancelled.
Can’t have Nazis speaking in squeaky clean New Zealand.
The trouble is, when you go looking for Nazis it turns out they’re everywhere.
JK Rowling: Nazi. Because? Well mostly because activists on Twitter say so.
Rosa Freedman, Professor of Law and feminist: Nazi
Last Tuesday morning, an angry student shouted at Prof Rosa Freedman outside the students’ union at Reading University. She was a “transphobic Nazi who should get raped”, he yelled.
The Guardian
Julie Bindel, feminist and writer: Nazi
On Tuesday, having given a talk at Edinburgh University about male violence towards women and girls, I was attacked on my way to the taxi that was taking me to the airport. A man, wearing a long skirt and with lots of dark stubble, started screaming and shouting at me, calling me a Nazi and Terf scum (an acronym for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”).
The Times
The women at Speaker’s Corner yesterday and the last Sunday of every month: Nazis.
Any person who does not embrace transactivism: Nazi. Anyone not yet convinced that we’re all Nazis now should watch this astonishing video. (It really is worth watching the whole 50 minutes.)
If you’re not with us, you’re against us is so last year. Now, if you’re not with us, you’re a Nazi.
They’ve been calling us Nazis, bigots and transphobes for a few years now, and foolishly we played their game. We rushed to explain our left-wing credentials as if our evidence mattered in their fact-free world. We felt stung by the accusations. Exactly as intended. And some of us suffered the consequences when others became scared of contamination.
But when everyone is a Nazi, then nobody is, and we lose the ability to name what should be feared. This movement that lives in a world created by the power of language, which believes that naming something brings it into existence, should really understand better that the dilution of their speech-bombs will, ultimately, be their undoing.
Words are not violence and anyway, nobody’s buying the lies any more. Women talking about our right to single-sex spaces are not Nazis. Women who think men should compete in their own sports are not bigots. People who know that nobody has ever changed sex are not transphobic.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but your lies have lost the power to hurt me.
Kellie-Jay Keen - attacked with tomato sauce