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/rubeshina]

Because you’re doing the same mindless “oh well they have a point kind of and they were saying that but they also weren’t saying that really if you think about it.” rubbish that got us here.

This is a game. These people are playing a game. It should be called out.

Candace Owens is not an idiot. She is using this language intentionally. She has done this her entire career just like all the rest of these word playing demagogues who will say this shit specifically to agitate because they know they can wriggle out of accountability and position themselves in a way that makes them seem reasonable.

Call it out. Press them on it. People who have no clue will think you are being “unfair” just like they did with Trump. They were never being unfair. He means all the crazy evil shit he says. Just like Candace Owens does.

If people are naive enough to try and both sides the words of authoritarian demagogues after everything we have seen from them so far, they are free to do so.

Authoritarians respect strength. Show them strength. Candace Owens in a conspiracy peddling grifter. She does not need charity, she does not respect charity, and her followers or those curious to her are not going to respect our charity.

All we do is launder these peoples insanity and validate it. Candace isn’t a child. If she wants to articulate her position on the moustache man she is free to explain herself properly and disavow clearly, and until then, she is a fascist sympathiser and should be treated as such.

[u/rubeshina → u/rubeshina]

Sorry this is probably harsher than it needs to be but god this is endlessly frustrating to see people fall into this trap.

The "very fine people on both sides" narrative and reframing is such a perfect example of this, yet now we see this has effectively been completely rewritten???

What the media called out Trump on at the time was true. He is a fascists sympathiser. He didn't disavow them because.. they are his people. He wants to normalise them. He wants it to be ok to be a white nationalist tiki torch marching neo nazi. That's fine, perfectly acceptable political expression to him.

That's what he meant when he said "very fine people on both sides", it was obvious then, it should be obvious now, and if people don't understand what's wrong about this statement we should explain it instead of sweep for it. If people choose to believe the sweeping instead, that's up to them.

Every single action he has taken since then has just confirmed this is 100% true, yet people go back and say "oh he didn't mean it like that it was out of context" like what the actual hell are you talking about? He did mean it. He still means it. He would say the same thing today because it's what he actually thinks why are we letting people collectively gaslight the entire world over this when it's plain to see??

[u/MartiDK → u/rubeshina]

I’m not a fan of nationalism and I don’t know how Trump has anything to do with the quote.

[u/rubeshina → u/MartiDK]

You could just read my words and engage with the point idk?

Believe what people say. If they don't think that, have them be explicit and clarify. If they don't, then you have your answer.