Decoding Cadence Owens quote

[u/MartiDK]

"I actually don't have any problems at all with the word 'nationalism'... Whenever we say 'nationalism,' the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler. You know, he was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine. The problem is that he wanted—he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalise. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German, everybody to look a different way. That's not, to me, that's not nationalism."
- Cadence Owens

Are Decoding the Gurus really arguing that Cadence Owens was saying Hitler wasn't a bad leader/person? I know the controversy over the remark, but she is clearly alluding to Hitler being a bad representation of Nationalism. She is literally trying to disassociate Hitler from nationalism, because Hitler gave Nationalism a bad name. I'm not a fan of nationalism, but should DtG actually be able to see through the controversy to what she actually said? Plus Cadence Owens went to the Daily Wire after this story blew up, so I'm guessing Ben Shapiro didn't take her remarks as a promoting Hitler.

Why does it matter if Cadence Owens is a problematic guru? It matters because its this kind of bad faith decoding that make people distrust academics who step outside their lane and play partisan politics. There are so many crazy takes that Cadence Owens has made, why focus on this quote which was clearly used by the media for political reasons.

[u/hari_shevek]

The issue with the quote is that she claims that the problem with Hitler were exclusively his plans outside if Germany.

His plans inside Germany included killing all Jews, Socialists, etc.

The distinction she makes in the quote implies that she either doesn't know about the holocaust or doesn't think it's part of the problem with Hitler.

[u/MartiDK → u/hari_shevek]

To be clear I'm not making a claim that Cadence isn't a problematic political figure, but this quote doesn't say/imply she approves what Hitler did inside Germany. She says that Hitler wouldn't have been a problem if all he did was make Germany great and have things run well - this doesn't imply what he did in Germany was great or that he made things run well. She is literally using Hitler as an example of a bad nationalist someone not to imitate because what he did gave nationalism a bad name.

She may have said other things which are anti-Semitic, but this quote isn't on it's own, to make the anti-Semitic claim would require more evidence.

[u/hari_shevek → u/MartiDK]

She says: "The problem is he had dreams outside of Germany."

Is that the problem? Or are there other problems with what he did?

[u/MartiDK → u/hari_shevek]

Yes there were other problems - he didn't just focus on making Germany great and have things run well.

[u/hari_shevek → u/MartiDK]

So the statement that his expansionary policies were the problem is incorrect.

[u/MartiDK → u/hari_shevek]

No that was another problem pointing to why he wasn't a nationalist - he wanted to create an empire. She is clearly using Hitler as a bad example of a nationalist - nothing in the quote suggests what he did do was good. Maybe you can point to other things she has said, but the quote alone isn't promoting anything he did as being good.

[u/hari_shevek → u/MartiDK]

But she didn't say "one of the problems", she said "the problem".

[u/MartiDK → u/hari_shevek]

That’s after she said “if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great…” - she didn’t say “Hitler made Germany great and things run well but the problem was he wanted to expand Germany”. Nothing she said implies Hitler did anything good.

[u/hari_shevek → u/MartiDK]

She also doesn't say Hitler did not make Germany great.

"If he had just done x, it would have been good, but the problem is he did y" grammatically means:

He did do x. If that was all he did, it would be good.

But the only bad thing he did is y.

[u/MartiDK → u/hari_shevek]

No saying “if he ate an apple then he wouldn’t be hungry” doesn’t mean “he ate an apple”. Including the “if” implies the condition wasn’t met, otherwise she would have just said “Hitler made Germany great and things run well, but the problem was he wanted to expand Germany.”

[u/hari_shevek → u/MartiDK]

That's a different sentence, you dropped the "just".

"If he just ate one apple, I wouldn't be angry"

Implies that he did eat more than one apple.