The hypocrisy of many calling Trump a Nazi is mind boggling.
As far as I can tell Trump can only be deemed a Nazi by association - he’s not been going around spouting stuff about people’s races making them superior or inferior to others like an ethno-Fascist and instead he’s been mostly using traditional Fascist dog whistles (I.e. about the superiority of the Nation), but since he has indeed cultivated the support of neo-nazis and other ethno-Fascists in the US, he’s associating with Nazis.
The hypocrisy comes because the most Nazi ideology around right now is Zionism - they’re ethno-Fascists, claiming to represent a race, going on and on about the superiority of their race (calling it “the chose people”) whilst being overtly racist about Arabs in general and even more so Palestinians who they call “human animals”, i.e. subhumans whis is literally untermenschen - and, even more extreme, they’re mass murdering them right now by the hundreds of thousands.
Anybody who here and now calls Trump a Nazi due to his association with ethno-Fascists but has previously been defending Biden, Harris and most of the Democrat party as not being Nazis all the while they were actively supporting with weapons the present day Nazis who were actively engaged in a genocide along racial lines, is a hypocrite.
Ditto anybody going around criticizing people who chose to neither vote Democrat nor Republican: it is absolutely understandable that when people only have the choice between two sets of Nazis, many chose “neither”. After all, if one is a Nazi by supporting Nazis, then the Republicans supporting of Nazis makes them Nazis and giving support to the Nazis-Republicans (for example by voting for them) makes one a Nazi and exactly in the same way the Democrats supporting the present day Nazis makes them Nazis, so supporting Nazi-Democrats makes one a Nazi - anybody who does indeed believe people can become “Nazi by association” land does not want to be a Nazi, would refuse to vote for either Nazi-by-association party.
I truly respect those with the genuine principles and ideological consistency of calling both main American parties Nazis (as I said, if one thinks associated with Nazi = Nazi, then logically they are both Nazis) or at least Nazi-supporting, because they are.
It’s only the political tribalists for whom one group of Nazi-supporters are Nazis but the other group of Nazi-supporters are not Nazis because the former is “them” and the other is “us” who are despicable hypocrites.
Trump is a fascist bro
TrUmP iS a NaZi
As swiss person I have to meet and talk to this guy, he can not be that stupid!
We definitely have something like the republicans party, it is called SVP (Schweizerische Volkspartei). SVP uses exactly the same tactics as republicans, like anti “woke”, anti regulation, anti common media, pro hate-speech(“anti censorship”), etc.
We just not have a single party to counter it, like democrats, but like 10 parties with little nuances.
We have some small parties besides SVP “on the republican site” but those tend to be irrelevant. Maybe, the anti corona party has a some relevance, still, but I guess their power is sinking.
I personally support the pirate party, which mainly stands for privacy, no matter if left or right, but the party it self is leading to the left (democratic) side.
At least, that is how I understand our situation here.
Andy out here shooting straight through his foot and putting holes in his boat’s hull.
A wise man once told me, don’t mess with politics. The moment you show stance (which usually isn’t beneficial), you cut off options from yourself and endanger customer relationship.
Proton should just do business as usual, without that single post things would probably be just fine.
The fight for privacy and digital freedom is inherently political.
They showed political stances all the time when it comes to privacy and antitrust, just look at their blog. Why wouldn’t they? What they do is also political, as a company.
I think that’s a different thing. That is a political stance but it’s not picking sides. People who want to organise Nazi rallys and people who need to communicate without getting attacked by Nazis both have reasons to use encrypted email. When you pick one over the other, you’ve cut the size of your userbase.
I would be perfectly happy with a VPN that was openly anti-nazi.
That’s not the point. A neutral stance VPN has all the anti-Nazis as customers, and all the Nazis. I would prefer anti-Nazi as well but I get that that a neutral stance means they can have more customers, something they need for economy of scale.
If they had stated their anti-trump stance then the freeze peach lemmy instances would probably have all their Nazis cancelling their proton subscriptions.
Honestly I hope all the cancellations on our side aren’t balanced by a bunch of Nazis signing up after seeing the comments.
He’s trying to have it both ways though. He wants to support trump and then be like “nooooo! What are you talking about? We’re *neutral!”
Yeah, with the same Swiss neutrality that doesn’t care whose teeth the gold came from.
I don’t think I quite get what the benefit is to them of supporting Trump’s pick. What was it he was hoping to gain, not from the pick but from his comment?
What benefit do all those who have kissed trump’s ring thus far get? All I know is that I’m not about to trust my privacy to someone with 88 in their username. I only signed up for proton last month because of trump. I’ll be leaving for another service for the same reason.
I don’t think they picked in this case either. Like they didn’t when they cooperated with dem senators in the past. They are cooperating or praising whichever side advances policies that can ultimately help privacy.
That was probably their thought too. However, they have misjudged the Lemmy (and I think reddit) population on this, and I would argue that worse than the initial comment is the absolute lack of recognition (in follow up comments) that what they said could be taken as an endorsement of a government that is trying to actively harm a significant portion of the US Proton users.
I think he actually acknowledged that fact in later comments. Anyway, this is a far smaller sin than all the stuff people are creatively accusing him of.
Apparently now he is a Nazi, and I think this case was the last nail in the coffin for me to think that political discourse can exist.
This needs to be pinned at the top: only a Nazi goes out of their way to put an 88 in their username. He thinks he’s clever by putting it in binary so people don’t immediately call him out. Nazis get off on that kind of “clever” dogwhistle.
This is at the same time:
- a novax level conspiracy
- a completely idotic assumption that not only doesn’t stand Occam’s razor, but not even basic common sense.
- racist and showing a colonial mindset, clearly prioritising what is relevant in YOUR culture (superior, more important), compared to what is relevant in that person’s culture.
Please can someone tell me how this attitude is fundamentally different from people who are in other cults (maga, novax, etc.)?
For limited people, maybe.
88 is:
-
important for people born in 1988
-
amateur radio romantic message (apparently older than Nazis, don’t ask me how I know, but it has to do with being used in that, and not HH, meaning in one Nazi song ; felt strange for me, until I’ve just read that it was a telegraph thing before radio)
-
two eternity symbols turned (not those wheely ones)
-
as people have mentioned, common as a lucky number in certain parts of the globe
-
people can also be born on 8 August
-
had that number on some item memorable for him (I had 72 in plenty of my nicknames, I can promise you it’s not about 72 virgins or 72 names of god and I’m not Muslim, I just had a yellow t-shirt with that number when I was a kid).
The funny part is that points #2 and #4 are probably known to him, tech company and all.
Why are you so knowledgeable of plausible deniabilities for a Nazi symbology?
-
Keep in mind that the number 8 is auspicious and lucky in many parts of Asia. Any time I see a bunch of 8s in a username I think it’s for luck.
I promise you this restaurant (and the hundreds of others with 88 in the name) are not dogwhistling for anything other than luck.
Can’t speak for how this reflects on Andy Yen as I’m not familiar with him, but I just want y’all to know you can’t assume 88 = HH in every case.
But he is swiss, and here we know that 88 is for prising Hitler
He is from Taiwan, studies in US and then moved to Switzerland.
But that’s how dogwhistles work: they can hide behind a veil of plausible deniability.
If it’s really plausible, then you’ve got no way to tell it’s a dogwhistle.
Your comment is equivalent to “I can’t prove that Jews rule the world, but that’s because they’ve worked for plausible deniability, I know they do”.
When was he born? Not everyone knows all the “secret” signs for stuff. How 18 is A.H or how 81 is H.A (Hells Angels) 1% biker clubs have surprisingly much of such codes. 8 is also the number of Khorne in the Warhammer fantasy/sci-fi setting. And before we start with that there are surprisingly few Nazis who play, but the few are very vocal.
Years ago I saw a guy in a crocery store in Norway wearing a “Combat18 Böhmen” hoodie. Buying ingredients for tex-mex taco incidentally. And when I pointed him out to my wife, she said that you are probably the only one in here to know this, and spot him for what he is.
So if Andy was born in 1988 I hope it’s why he has 88 in his username.
He’s apparently said he was born in 1988. In another thread others mentioned that would make him 21 when he started his PhD, which checks out.
So he can dogwhistle with impunity. Lucky guy.
Here’s all I could find about his age in a few minutes:
He was actually born in 1988, according to the author’s article. If anyone can find a more reliable resource, please, post it here🙏
When was he born? Not everyone knows all the “secret” signs for stuff.
I don’t care when he was born. Who puts their birth year in their username? “Here, internet. Here’s one less piece of information you need to steal my identity!”
No. “ItS mY bIrF YeEr” is just what nazi shit says when they get called out on being nazi shit.
Yes, a public figure, whose data can be discovered in few minutes, considers his birth year a secret. Also nobody ever used the birth year in their username on the internet.
Also ANDY = 1 + 14 + 4 + 25 = 44, which is half of 88 and contains 14, another nazy symbol. He is trying to pass it off as his name, but who uses their name on the internet? I will check the cabala now, because I am sure there is more.
God, I hope Nick Fury is already grouping the avengers, because Hydra is really making a move here.
If you don’t want people to think you’re a nazi, don’t say good things about trump with 88 sitting right there for everyone to see in your username.
The account is 2 days old. He knew what he was doing.
If trump did a good thing in a very narrow context you can’t say it, otherwise you are a Nazi? OK, this is madness. Also, it’s not “sitting there for everyone to see” because it’s binary. You also realize that people have different cultural references right? Maybe it’s not your responsibility to compute the cabala horoscope for everything you do, and assume that people will be able to use at least the 2% of the brain and for example distinguish from a bold Nazi supporter with 88 tattooed and a guy born in 88 who appends 88 to his username (in a nerd way). But apparently not.
He created an account to speak personally and not from the proton account he uses before. Anyway, “he knew what he was doing” is conspiracy theory again.
Also, it’s not “sitting there for everyone to see” because it’s binary.
Yes, obfuscating it makes it better!
Maybe it’s not your responsibility to compute the cabala horoscope for everything you do, and assume that people will be able to use at least the 2% of the brain and for example distinguish from a bold Nazi supporter with 88 tattooed and a guy born in 88 who appends 88 to his username (in a nerd way). But apparently not.
He supported trump with 88 in his username.
He created an account to speak personally and not from the proton account he uses before.
And he didn’t need to put 88 in there, or obfuscate it. And I’m increasingly certain that you’re freaking out and defending him for it because you’re happy that your political party is represented.
He supported Trump’s pick. I know reality makes little difference for you, but still. Also yes, he put 88 in his username, which is not a crime, especially for a Taiwanese guy born in 88 lmao.
The sole fact we are even discussing this is just absurd. Absurd. It’s 5g gives cancer absurd. It’s vaccine give autism absurd.
And I’m increasingly certain that you’re freaking out and defending him for it because you’re happy that your political party is represented.
Correct, because as non US citizen communist republicans are my party. In fact, anybody who disagrees with you is secretly a republican, and even more secret a Nazi, there is no other reason to disagree with you, absolutely. In fact, sudneo has “south” in it, and “o” at the end, what do you get it you put “o” south of “o”? 8, and that’s half of 88. Considering there is also “n” in it, and that’s 14, I think it’s quite clear that I am also a Nazi, trying to cover my Nazi colleague Andy. Heil Hydra.
You are just a maga with slightly different moral values. Still a cultist fanatic on a witch hunt that threw reason and reality out of the window.
Who puts their birth year in their username?
You are not very old, right?
Maybe now, in our stupid time, folks use phone numbers for identity, some stupid handle (or just their actual name) and then post a lot of text, photos and such, totally less harmful for their privacy than their birth year. And no birth year
But in the olden days it was the main solution to “such user already exists” problem, combined with things like ‘xXx’ and ‘+0+’ on both sides or something.
You are not very old, right?
You’re not getting my birth year this way, either.
But in the olden days it was the main solution to “such user already exists” problem,
The account in question is two days old. And it’s from the CEO of a VPN service. This isn’t him signing up for baby’s first AOL account back in 1994.
Look, I can’t comment on the significance of binary 88 in this instance with any confidence, but a lot of people use their birth year in their username.
Is it stupid? Absolutely, alongside demonstrating a total lack of any creativity whatsoever. But it’s 100% a thing.
Edit: Lol, will also note the first ‘people also search’ suggestion coming up when Googling Andy Yen is “When was Andy Yen born”, and in the 5 seconds of drunken searching I still haven’t seen a birth date.
Look, I can’t comment on the significance of binary 88 in this instance with any confidence, but a lot of people use their birth year in their username.
A lot of people who like trump were coincidentally totally born in 1988.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that people don’t put 88 as a clear dog whistle to white supremacists/general Nazi bullshit. This is more to the comment “who puts their birth year in their username?” bit specifically. The answer is a lot of people.
I also am not excusing Yen for his pro-Trump comments - that was fucking bullshit and I’m deeply disappointed - I’m just saying the YOB thing is a thing, but also coincidentally I also can’t seem to find a source to prove if he’s also doing the YOB thing or something else.
Note to self: Limit Lemmy to 3 beers max, particularly where Trumpian bullshit is involved. And thank god for autocorrect. Apologies, I really should not be interneting right now.
If I were born in 1988 I would not put an encoded “88” in my username. I wouldn’t want people to think I was dogwhistling.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that people don’t put 88 as a clear dog whistle to white supremacists/general Nazi bullshit.
To be clear, anyone who supports trump is already nazi-adjacent enough to get no benefit of the doubt, and I don’t buy the “It’s my birth year” shit from any of them. Even if they were born in 1988, that’s not the reason 88 is in their username.
I also don’t believe that someone whose entire personality centers around cannabis has “420” in their username because they were born on April 20th. I don’t believe that some fratboy who is constantly making horny comments has “69” in his username because he was born on June 9th, either.
88 is so much worse that I wouldn’t even compare then to the anodyne 420 & 69 examples.
Holy shit. That is indeed 88 in binary…
He was born in 1988…
How did we all miss that 😮
Wait, the proton ceo is a trump supporter? What the fuck, he’s the last person I thought would do that
No, I would not describe him as a trump supporter. I would say that he’s a right-wing “Libertarian” tech-bro that has no clue about American politics, just spewing his uneducated bs because he thinks he’s some genius. He might be a CERN scientist, but he’s a dumbass when it comes to American politics.
(But it is concerning to have such an idiot on the board of the Proton Foundation)
No he had plenty of time to educate himself but instead doubled and tripled down. Also his username ends in 88 which has been the most unsubtle Nazi dog whistle since the invention of usernames and the internet.
If you look a bit around in this thread, someone linked an article that mentions he was born in 1988.
Isn’t 88 considered extremely lucky in Chinese culture?
You honestly think that’s what he was going for? Someone who grew up in a culture pretty heavily insulated from that but steeped in “former” Nazi ties?
Not only is 88 considered suspicious in his native culture, he was also born in 1988. Normally, yes, be wary of the 88 dog whistle, but without further evidence it looks like a nothing-burger in this case.
I think he’s more likely fascist than a Nazi, given the differentiator being the racial purity part. He lives and works in Switzerland, but was born in Taiwan and educated in the US.
Where’s the 88?
1011000 is binary for 88
Ohhhh. Drag thought it was the ASCII code for X
Considering how he runs a business whose goal is to capture the privacy crowd and how a large portion of the privacy crowd is made up of those “Libertarian” tech-bro types, it might be more than just “no clue about American politics”, especially since he’s also doing stuff like promoting Bitcoin through Proton Wallet which is also popular among “Libertarian” tech-bro types, and the article used for marketing that both-sidesed the problems the “left” vs “right” experience and equated the Democrats with the “left”, which is popular among “Libertarian” tech-bro types as well. The 88 in his Reddit username is also suspect regardless of him claiming that it’s there because it’s his birth year. People who know how to operate a business usually aren’t doing it out of stupidity, so I’m not going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this, especially since the entire platform depends on trusting that they aren’t doing anything shady.
How do you explain the 88 in his username? That’s not an American thing.
My guess is that it’s a neo-Nazi thing, so his promoting right-wing American politics (his largest userbase) is probably intentional and not just him being stupid
the comments in that thread is such a reddit moment
Sounds like the CEO of proton doesnt understand the basic privacy concerns for the US VPN market. He should really look that up someday-- theres money to be made in the Us market if he cared enough.
Americans just now finding out what has always been in place.
Vpn from Switzerland won’t save you - they will share our data if it comes to us needing access to it. And if proton refuses - it would have been shut down already like tiktok
I seem to remember that Switzerland has a history of profiting from their relationships with Nazi’s. Thus they might not be a good source of advice as to what to do about Nazi’s.
It’s dumb to call Trump a nazi and the populist wing of the Republican party nazis.
It’s not even clever at this point, maybe it was edgy and transgressive like 7 years ago.
The reason it’s dumb is that you are wasting all of your powerful language and you will have no more if things get worse. Boy who cried wolf. Just like people did to racist which used to carry great power and now is basically meaningless as a powerful descriptor.
I’m sorry but what? This is really weird logic as language and words aren’t required to follow some linear path of severity. People call the GOP, Trump and the like Nazis because… they fit the definition of Nazis, actual card carrying Nazis support them by a significant majority. (Yeah yeah I know there is the odd one here or there that doesn’t)
If it walks like a Nazi, talks like a Nazi and engages in Nazi tactics, behaviors etc. Then it can be called a Nazi. You don’t reserve your language so that you have some end point to progress to.
It’s also very weird to use the boy who cried wolf when the whole point of that story is that you don’t call something that which it isn’t for fear that when the real thing comes along no one will believe you as that would imply that they are in fact not Nazis. Which would only be true in the most technical of sense (As in they are not of the Nazi party of Germany) but by most dictionary definition the word fits.
Lastly, what the hell are you even talking about “edgy”? Do you think people are calling them Nazis to be edgy? Because that’s ridiculous and quite frankly your entire comment screams of someone trying to defend them through deflection.
Gee. Which side has all the people marching with nazi flags?
Which side never kicks them out when they do?
Wasting your time explaining nuance and facts to literal retards, which are the majority of lemmings.
Now now. Many MAGA are in fact documented nazis, and Trump’s record is bad but it quite as explicit as that. If you’re afraid of the term being bandied about, I recommend therapy.
Far right is not mutually exclusive to Nazism
They don’t kick their nazi buddies out of their events.
I recommend therapy.
Poe’s law detector fail
It’s not even clever at this point, maybe it was edgy and transgressive like 7 years ago.
Are you really this childish that you genuinely think the only reason people might suggest Trump is a fascist is because it was “edgy and transgressive”? Not the fascist rhetoric, increasingly fascist policy and the various fascists he’s willing to work with and support?
Nazism is a very small subset of fascism, they are not equivalent. Nazi also carries VERY heavy baggage which is inapplicable to Trump. Use the right terms.
Nazism is a very small subset of fascism, they are not equivalent. Nazi also carries VERY heavy baggage which is inapplicable to Trump. Use the right terms.
Can’t tell if you’re defending trump or gatekeeping nazism.
Hey guys, look at this dipshit, drawing irrelevant distinctions and pointlessly trying to police other peoples language because they think the only reason others would use those terms is because they’re “edgy and transgressive”.
Tell me, where on the fascism to nazism meter is mass deportations, muslim bans, endorsing far right militias, supporting running over protestors, palling around with white supremacists, and seeking to eradicate trans people from public life? Are we at .49? or is it more like .76? My readings seems to be off. Just so I know I’m not using the incorrect terms so some moron from .world doesn’t get mad and try to incessantly police terms on the internet.
chill
“Chill, I was just drawing a meaningless distinction between my party and another part of my party with identical views!”
The term “Nazi” has been overused so much, especially in US [identity] politics, that it’s losing (or has already lost) its meaning. When are we going to start calling elevator farts “genocide” and “nazism”? 🤷🏻♂️
If the outrage is based on the screenshot of the comment above, I’d say that this is a typical example of “Swiss neutrality” with a touch of “I don’t give a flying f*ck about US politics because I don’t live in the US.” I don’t see how that makes you a nazi??
I suspect I may be missing something here…
You missed the start of all this: https://lemmy.ml/post/24811284
The motherfucker lives in Switzerland and he supports Putin’s Sock Puppet. Fuck Andy. The USA will regress further away from the Swiss standard of living, which is what the USA should be striving for.
Americans are not flirting with Nazism. They dated it, married it and had many children with it.
Dont post pictures of text without links to the source
Sorry. I’ve already added it.
All he had to do was keep his mouth shut & show his support on another account
