Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Nazi propaganda dehumanized Jews in order to facilitate the Holocaust.

In the book 'Unhumans', right-wing conspiracy theorists Jack Posobiec &Joshua Lisec claim that Progressive-minded Americans are bloodthirsty Communist "unhumans" hellbent on destrying civilization.

This 🧵quotes this article by Gil Duran of @GeorgeLakoff's #FrameLab. George is a cognitive linguist & philosopher, best known for his thesis that our lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors used use to explain complex phenomena.

theframelab.org/jd-vances-raci…

Trump's VP pick, JD Vance, endorses the tactic of dehumanization most infamously deployed by Hitler's Nazis against Germany's Jewish population.

Vance has promotes a new book that uses genocidal language to stoke hatred toward liberals.

Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, Ted Cruz and the entire Republican Party recently launched an ugly new racist strategy

Their latest dangerously irresponsible, false, and inflammatory conspiracy theory targets the Haitian migrant community in Ohio.

theguardian.com/us-news/articl…

The false rumors – alleging that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating the cats of their neighbors in Ohio – are entirely made up. News sources report that the rumor started with a viral social media post. Officials in Ohio say the claims are false.

https://x.com/docrussjackson/status/1833514182752321879

Despite the fact that this conspiracy theory has been debunked, Trump & his allies are making a full-on effort to spread it.

The anti-Haitian conspiracy theory is part of a strategy to inflame racial hatred & fear of immigrants during the 2024 election.

https://x.com/docrussjackson/status/1835981093196997065

Trump's attacks on Haitians appeared to come out of nowhere. Suddenly, he & @X/Twitter owner Elon Musk were tweeting non-stop attacks on Haitian immigrants. It's part of an effort by Republicans to demonize immigrant communities & terrorize white voters into supporting Trump.

In another excellent #Framelab article, Gil Duran wrote about "Unhumans," a book by right-wing conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, with an enthusiastic foreward by Steve Bannon & promotional blurb by JD Vance, Trump's nominee for VP, who wrote:
thenerdreich.com/unhumans-jd-va…

The dangerously inflammatory book 'Unhumans' depicts Democratic voters as demon-possessed monsters on a mission to massacre everyone else in society.

https://x.com/docrussjackson/status/1835981149929193713

Duran says 'Unhumans is not a scholarly work, but a twisted political incantation designed to inspire hatred & terror, & to influence weak minds by framing the political stakes in horrifying & violent terms. It grooms Republicans for civil war &, possibly, something far worse.'

The book roots its thesis in the language of genocide. It strips its targets of their humanity, framing them as evil monsters with an unquenchable thirst for murder and mayhem. The supposed motivation for this alleged villainy is never clearly stated.

According to the authors bizarre claims, it stems from a basic desire 'to create widespread unhappiness'. The possibility of 'demonic possession' is also raised.

That last line, about "demonic possession," is important. The authors go out of their way to dehumanize Democrats.

Unhumans creates a stark “us” vs. “them” mentality. It then incites action against its targets. Writing in Current Affairs, Nathan J. Robinson described the book as no less than "a fascist manifesto":

currentaffairs.org/news/the-horri…

Rebranding liberals and/or progressives as unhumans is the main goal of the book, and we know from history - not just from the Nazi regime but some of it recent - that such dehumanizing language has often preceded genocidal behaviour.

In Rwanda, the Hutus systematically stripped the Tutsis of their human identity by calling them “cockroaches” and “snakes” long before the massacres began. Most people know that the Nazis used the same rhetorical techniques in Germany, depicting Jews as demons and vultures.

"Students of 20th century history will also recognize this pattern of dehumanizing language in the lead-up to the genocide committed by the Turks against Armenians, where Armenians were 'dangerous microbes,'" wrote William A. Donohue in 2019.

msutoday.msu.edu/news/2019/ther…

During the the Holocaust, Germans described Jews as 'Untermenschen,' or subhumans.

Name-calling is hardly a new trend in American politics. But the adoption of Nazi rhetoric & overtly genocidal language is an extremely dangerous escalation. But Trump, Musk, & Vance don't care.

To be clear: creating an "out" group to persecute and punish is also a hallmark of fascism. And when you strip your opponents of their very humanity, you can justify any action taken against them.

It's happening in the UK too.

https://x.com/docrussjackson/status/1619700278948937729

"When we see people as less than human, as monsters, it feels less wrong to do horrible things to them," wrote Robinson, who interviewed philosopher David Livingstone Smith, an expert on dehumanization.

currentaffairs.org/news/the-extre…

"This is a seemingly obvious point, but Smith argues that it’s not obvious, because perfectly normal, moral people don’t notice themselves doing it.

Dehumanization is, Smith argues, one of the most dangerous tendencies there is, because of what it implicitly licenses."

By endorsing Unhumans, J.D. Vance – who could soon be a heartbeat away from the presidency – explicitly promotes the tactic of dehumanization.

Lisec, who co-authored the book, appears to be crumbling in the face of criticism.

In a statement, Lisec accused "non-conservative media" of twisting the book's meaning, falsely denied Vance endorsed the book, & faslely claimed that the book takes aim only at communists & "dehumanizers on the Far Left", saying "Nowhere does anyone call progressives unhuman."

#Gaslighting is a common far-right tactic. They deny what they are saying even as they plainly say it. Often, they add a conscious layer of irony or sarcasm to their ideas. This allows them to claim that their critics have simply misinterpreted a “joke.”

https://x.com/docrussjackson/status/1835672006500474901

But Unhumans is devoid of humor. It uses a different mechanism to create 'pretend deniability': it summarizes bloody revolutions of the past (including the French, Haitian, Bolshevik, & China’s Communist revolution) to builds a false equation: Communists = liberals/progressives.

The inclusion of the Haitian revolution - the only successful slave revolt in human history - in the 'Unhumans' book is particularly ironic/interesting given the current political US context involving the dehumanisation of the US Haitian community:

https://x.com/docrussjackson/status/1835293022373708118

'Unhumans' is one long, drawn-out syllogism: Communists talked about creating equality and improving society. Communists were bloodthirsty killers. Liberals talk about creating equality and improving society. Therefore, liberals/progressives are bloodthirsty communist killers.

The authors drive home the point by repeating one short phrase: “This is what they do.”

Using guillotines to turn the streets of Paris into rivers of aristocrat blood? 'This is what they do'. Killing millions of political enemies as the Soviets did? 'This is what they do'.

Stripping land and property away from citizens and then shipping them off to death camps? Using lawsuits to challenge discrimination, engaging in protests against police abuse, or supporting immigrant rights? 'This is what they do'.

The infantile & banal phrase 'This is what they do' appears in the 272 page 'Unhumans' book at least 48 times (averaging an appearance every 5 - 6 pages) - its constant repetition establishing the basic (false) claim:

Communist = Liberal/Progressive = Unhuman.

In this way, the Starbucks-sipping, NPR-listening Biden voter who supports diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) initiatives & equal rights somehow becomes the moral equivalent of a Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot.

It's childish, absurd - and dangerously irresponsible.

The #MeToo movement and George Floyd protests become not-so-distant relatives of Soviet massacres and Khmer Rouge killing fields.

“Communist” has long been a scare word used by the far-right to attack everyone from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Kamala Harris.

politifact.com/factchecks/200…

"Kamala is quite literally a communist," Elon Musk has falsely & provocatively declared.

But 'Unhumans' escalates this tactic in a disturbing way. It suggests that millions of Americans are in danger of being massacred by sub-human monsters.

https://x.com/docrussjackson/status/1830902100777206094

And the book urges them to act accordingly.

This goes beyond mere speech. 'Unhumans' is a speech act designed to convince right-wingers that their political opponents are a dangerous other species, one that poses a deadly threat.

Strangely, after ramping up the paranoia, hate & dehumanization to feverish levels, Unhumans suddenly appears to de-escalate. Having created a scenario in which civilization is threatened by holocaust-hungry unhumans, the authors offer an uncharacteristically toned-down solution.

They encourage readers to 'resist unhuman wherever they findthem: they're urged to infiltrate organizations & work actively to thwart unhuman goals; they're implored to separate themselves from unhumans, but also to engage in public ridicule & shame & lawsuits against them:

The bootlicking authors also implore “great men" (like Elon Musk) to fund the fight against the unhuman threat. In fact, they lick Musk’s boots so often that Duran wonders whether he is already funding their efforts, or whether this screed is just one long pitch to him.

Early on, the authors state that the only solution for unhumans is to treat them with exact reciprocity. They specifically cite the “eye for an eye” doctrine of Hammurabi’s code.

The violent implications seem clear.

Logically speaking, exact reciprocity against an enemy depicted as a demonic murder machine would entail demonically murdering said enemy.

Much of the book uses war metaphors to describe the necessary response, as in this section from its final pages:

But the authors then hedge their language in a weird but also necessary disclaimer. Most of the book terrifies readers into believing their lives are imminently at risk & at the end do they suggest ridicule & lawfare, not revolution & warfare, are the remedy for demonic unhumans.

In an earlier era, Vance’s decision to blurb this book might have ended his political career. But his extremism is a feature, not a bug, of his political rise.

Gil Duran recently I wrote about Vance's connection to Curtis Yarvin.

newrepublic.com/article/183971…

Yavin is an extremist who has suggested turning the underclass into “biodiesel” and who believes dictatorships should replace democracy.

Duran has also written about Balaji Srinivasan.

newrepublic.com/article/180487…

Balaji Srinivasan is the former chief technology officer of Coinbase who has called for Democrats (“Blues”) to be purged from San Francisco in a process he likens to “De-Nazification” or “De-Baathification” - terms which JD Vance has also used.

Vance uses them to describe what should happen to the government under a second Trump administration.

Vance is part of an extremist authoritarian vanguard that deliberately uses the language of dehumanization, ethnic cleansing and genocide to describe its political beliefs.

Of course, Trump has been using familiar rhetoric for years.

“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists & the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal & cheat on elections,” he said last year.

“They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream…Our threat is from within” - Trump.

How far would Trump-Vance go to destroy their opponents and seize power?

For everyone's sake, let's not find out.

Before he decided to become Trump's biggest supporter, JD Vance infamously compared him to Adolf Hitler.

After reading 'Unhumans', anyone even vaguely familiar with Nazi rhetoric & propaganda would be left wondering whether he meant this as a compliment.

reuters.com/world/us/jd-va…