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Stephen Fry released a statement: "Elon Musk is not a Nazi. Nazis make really good cars."
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
What's great about this, and Stephen Fry is brilliant, is not that he's absolving Musk, or that he's criticizing Tesla, but that it is an argument likely leading to Elon Musk protesting,
'No, my cars are good enough that I can be a Nazi!'
A small country took on the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD (TWICE) and very nearly won. The second time with a lunatic at the helm.
What does it take to impress you? To what would you assign their disturbing success?
Nazis took on world in one war, and lost.
"WE ARE THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD! THE PUREST OF THE PURE! STRONGEST OF THE STRONG!"
[Fights one (1) war]
"Guess we'll shoot ourselves in a bunker and lose in a big lopsided defeat."
Germany didn't really have much wealth after WW1 due to the restrictions placed on them from the western powers.
Most of the reason the Nazi party was popular early on was them championing a number of socialist policies designed to bring the country out an economic morass.
This is a really good book on the subject (and part of a really good trilogy of books about understanding Nazi Germany): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319473.The_Coming_of_the_Third_Reich
That's just ignoring history. There are plenty of good reasons to hate the Nazis without needing to do that.
In the similar way, it's not necessary to dismiss Soviet Union's early modernization successes in order to blame them for their crimes against humanity.
Honestly, this shit needs to stop. Acknowledging that some fascists have been good at something at some point does not detract in any way from being anti-fascist.
If you claim that fascist are dumb, stupid and can achieve nothing, what do you think the masses will think about your message when the fascists turn out to be competent? They will wonder what other things you are wrong about.
So I say to you: stop being a fascist enabler.