their "values", their priorities. It doesn't mean you endorse or agree with them.

Does anyone remember a Debra Winger/Tom Berrenger movie in the late 80s called Betrayed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayed_(1988_film) It was about an undercover FBI agent going into the American heartland to collect evidence against a RW, white-supremacy group that is suspected of murdering a Jewish radio talkshow host (reminiscent of Alan Berg). http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/talked-to-death-19850131 In the movie, it blends the white supremacist culture with small town frustrations and Christian values. Even Debra Winger got confused and wanted to be released from her assignment.

The Times wasn't "normalizing" Hovater or anyone like him. It was just reporting.

Or are they just being too sensitive?

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Being from a Jewish background, I've spent a lot of time researching the Weimar Republic in Germany (pre-Hitler), the German Depression, the rise of the Third Reich, and the Nazi Years. Some of the most enlightening information came from dissertations that highlighted the ordinary, common Germans who supported Hitler. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer. Here's an excerpt: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

You will see parallels between Germany then and Ohio today.

In order to minimize any spread of influence by people like Tony Hovater, you need to understand what makes them tick and to offer better options to them.

Getting information is not equitable with "normalizing".

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when Obama was President, going out of their way to give a voice to those who said President Obama wasn't a citizen. Is it any wonder why 25% of the populous still believes that President Obama isn't an American?

All through 2016 one needs to ask why the media in general lowered the bar for trump

CNN and others were regularly giving a voice to the extremist views of racists and bigots, which is "legitimizing" those view points. Perhaps the worst example was when CNN had as part of an actual discussion if "Jews were really people":

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a50906/are-jews-people-was-a-real/

It is interesting that CNN and other outlets are now exercising more critique toward trump and his administration that was mostly missing throughout 2016. No doubt some of that is due to trump's characterization of CNN as "fake news", but I think much of it is because they realized they dropped the ball.

It's been a number of years since I researched the subject. What reading would you recommend? I'd really appreciate your recommendation.

Hedda

to go to my library. It's got a variety of books that helped me better understand what happened.

To get you started, I read 1924: The Year That Made Hitler.
https://www.amazon.com/1924-Year-That-Made-Hitler/dp/0316384038
It came out this year or last year. Well worth the read. (If you wait til 1933 to start the story, it's too late.)

See you later!

I'll definitely read it!

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Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power
https://www.amazon.com/Hitlerland-American-Eyewitnesses-Nazi-Power/dp/1439191018


They Thought They Were Free
https://www.amazon.com/They-Thought-Were-Free-Germans/dp/0226511928/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511868978&sr=1-2&keywords=they+thought+they+were+free+the+germans+1933-45+milton+mayer


The Nazi Seizure of Power
https://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Seizure-Power-Experience-1922-1945/dp/1626548722/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511869074&sr=1-1&keywords=Nazi+Seizure+of+Power


The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Third-Reich-History/dp/1451651686/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511869143&sr=1-1&keywords=Rise+and+Fall+of+the+Third+Reich


A Brief History of the Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler
https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Birth-Nazis-Freikorps/dp/0786713429


The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical Modernity
https://www.amazon.com/Weimar-Republic-Crisis-Classical-Modernity/dp/0809015560


1924: The Year That Made Hitler
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_4?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=1924+the+year+that+made+hitler&sprefix=1924%2Cstripbooks%2C166&crid=2PL8DMR2T19P5


Hitler's Willing Executioners
https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Willing-Executioners-Ordinary-Holocaust/dp/0679772685

Great reading list you have there and there are a few books I was unaware of. Understanding what makes Nazis the way they are is becoming increasingly important nowadays. Thanks for the compilation.

Is look at the Retrumplican party.

I recommend this article:

with a capitalist system that initially relied on the commerce of humans. Racism is "normal" because white people are still in charge largely because we have benefitted from it since the inception of this country. Separating ourselves out and defining white supremacists as a separate group ignores the continuum and the pervasiveness. As well as the nature of white supremacy as a system where white people participate when we don't acknowledge the fact that if we are white we are automatically considered superior.

Your neighbor might read white supremacist literature and cheer nazis on, and still let a person of color cut in front of them in the checkout line. The aggressive white supremacists are not the norm, but they are part of a system of white supremacy that is organic because it has been with us from the start. Abolitionists knew where their cotton came from.

I remember there was a lot of controversy over a professor who invited a white supremacist who would eventually commit a mass murder at a Jewish community center. From what I understand it is something you have to see to believe.

but Nazis and Nazi-lites have gotten more than enough soft coverage in 2017...

And never forget the Times gave more fawning coverage of a Nazi than they ever did for Hillary 2016...

Time but with their hiring of conservatives...no sure I will renew.

I don’t give a shit if they grocery shop or have mothers or kids.

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...ummm....the reemergence of racism in America is more apt. Racism never went away. It just feels confident enough now, in a trumpmerica, to come out of the shadows.

In the US, racism is certainly still extant. It exists almost everywhere, more obvious in some places and some people than others, but it is there. Repubs, with their Southern Strategy have been stoking those fires for many years and the result is now in the White House. If you look at the time line, it is pretty inexorable.

The parallel in Nazi Germany is anti-semitism. It had existed in Europe for centuries, usually supported actively by the Catholic Church. It had softened a bit by the 20th Century, but like American racism it was still bubbling just below the surface. Hitler exploited that to seize power and enact the Holocaust, which may have been the most important item in his agenda when you think about it.

ban Nazis after fighting a world war to get rid of them.

Who will defend with their lives the right of Nazis to speak freely about their well known genocidal ideas under the tattered, unprotected banner of free speech?

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And are, even today. And THAT is what people are missing in all this outrage. Maybe the article wasn’t clear. Most people joined the party then because their jobs were at stake or they felt pressured to do so. Only a few were real monsters. Hence, the banality of evil.

90% of Americans THINK they would be part of the Resistance, but they are kidding themselves. They would “go along to get along” to save their own fucking necks. After all, conservative Republicans are very nearly fascists and their are millions of them.

It is dangerous to assume that every neo Nazi fits the stereotype, with swastika tattoos and shaved heads.

You can't assume that fascism can't take route among "normal" people. It isn't "normalizing" the beliefs to describe this phenomenon. The most memorable experience for me on a recent trip to Europe was a video at the Documentation Center in Nuremberg. Several elderly people were interviewed about their teenage years in Nuremberg when Hitler was on the rise. It was clear they don't condone what happened. But when they remembered their youth there were smiles on their faces as they described how everyone felt so "together" (gemeinschaft). One woman talked about how wonderful the music was when the parades passed beneath her window, and how her mother flung open the door and offered lodging to out of towners.

It's insidious. It's scary. And we have to look at it clearly, as this article is trying to do.

Who hold toxic beliefs but haven’t otherwise done anything criminal. Obviously it’s up to everyone else to challenge those beliefs, but most people find it difficult even within their own families. People tend to self-select and hang out likeminded people.

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That's why it can never get anywhere near that point, where you have to make a choice between being a Good German and risking your life.

Not necessarily because they agreed, but because their bosses, coworkers or family members were in it. And they were scared (not that I blame them). A lot of other people, farther away from where this was taking place, just shook their heads, but did nothing. That is probably the closest parallel to Nazi Germany we have- the Jim Crow South. Vast majorities of white people benefited from the system or were too scared to do anything about it.

Protests are useful when these folks decide to demonstrate. And I think pushing back against their beliefs when they dare to voice them in private is important. Beyond that, I'm not sure.