The question is, has the USA taken over the Vatican?

@BohoBabe
Are you inferring that MAGA Republicans are not Catholic?

@BohoBabe Not sure:

@Elessar It was American Leftists that took over the Vatican! Mwahaha!

@BohoBabe

@Elessar I know we're not supposed to call these people Nazis, but when a reactionary and totalitarian movement keeps saying anyone who opposes them is a Marxist, can we call these people Nazis?

@BohoBabe The moment one acts like Nazis or endorse people who act like Nazis they're Nazis.

But you can't go wrong if you use fascist

You are misusing the word Nazi for fascist.

The word "Nazi" is an acronym in the German language. Each letter in the word 'Nazi' represents a specific word in the German language. A Nazi was a member of the far-right National Socialist German Workers' Party who's leader was Adolf Hitler, but which was a political Party that no longer exists today.

Nazi members were largely farmers and all non-skilled, uneducated factory laborers working in Germany during the early 1930's.

@swirlie neo-Nazis aren't uniquely a German thing and "Nazi" when not used in a historical context is used as a contraction for that.

@Elessar
Actually, they are uniquely German because Hitler himself created the Nazi Party of Germany. "Neo-Nazi" is a misused understanding of the word "Nazi" itself. The correct terminology would therefore be "neo-fascists", not neo-Nazis.

@swirlie hmm they're two different things: neofascists actually are a superset (not all neo/fascists are neo/Nazis but all neo/Nazis are also neo/fascist). When you have Nazi ideology, salutes and symbols in a movement, you have neonazis.

@Elessar
You are confusing Nazism with fascism. A Nazi was a member of the far-right German Labor Party which represented the interests of farmers and factory workers.

@swirlie neo-nazism isn't inherently German. Nobody who uses the term "Nazi" in 2025 outside the historical context refers to the NSDAP. Non-German movements that recycle the ideology and symbolism of German Nazis are definitely neo-nazi

@Elessar
The term neo-nazi is an incorrect reference to fascism.

@swirlie
True, but we're obvi talking about Neo-Nazis here. A Neo-Nazi is someone who bases their politics on that of the original Nazis, which were members of the NSDAP.
While that means Neo-Nazism isn't super clearly defined, no political group is, I'd say a modern Nazi is a Fascist who uses the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. So while Putin is a Fascist, but not a Nazi, JD Vance and Ron DeSantis are Nazis.

@BohoBabe
Is your alt account username called "Elessar" by chance? 🤔🙄

@swirlie No, and I don't see how this is surprising, since this is mostly how people talk about Nazis today. If there are a group of people marching with swastika flags, everyone recognizes them as Neo-Nazis. Nobody says that doesn't count because they aren't old enough to have been members of the NSDAP.

@BohoBabe
That's because they don't know what they're talking about. If they knew, then they wouldn't be called "Nazis".

@swirlie So look, if your view is that words and language don't evolve, sure, you can say there are no Neo-Nazis, there was only one group of Nazis and they were the members of a political party that doesn't exist anymore. But my view is that words change and evolve with time based on utility. We have this enormous movement of Conservatives in America and Europe whose politics is basically the NSDAP updated for modern times. To me, it serves a big utilitarian purpose to call these people Nazis or at least Neo-Nazis.

Bee tee dubs, it's the same thing with the term "Fascism." The only major political movement to call themselves Fascists was Mussolini's PNF. The Nazis, the Showa Statists, Franco, Salazar, they never called themselves Fascists. But for the sake of utility, I recognize all of those movements as fascist. Same goes for modern movements like MAGA, parties like the AfD, and dictators like Putin.