But There Are Nazis There

Or, why I still use Substack

Every once in a while someone will directly criticise me for using Substack, on the grounds that there are actual Nazis using Substack and the people who own and run Substack are just fine with those Nazis being here and refuse to kick them off the platform, because they get some of the money those Nazis are collecting here.

But where does this end?

I’m not going to be upset with you if you don’t want to be on Substack. That’s fine. But here on Substack, I follow specific people and read specific newsletters, and none of them are Nazis. I am not confronted by Nazis on the platform. I do not have to interact with Nazis at all. There is no material difference for me between Substack, where I do not see any Nazis, and a platform that verifiably has zero Nazis on it. Either way, I do not see the Nazis, I do not need to interact with them.

I’m not surprised that there are some. Once a platform gets to a certain level, literally every group with any meaningful representation among the world’s population will be there. You can find Nazis on any large social media platform, even if the platform explicitly doesn’t allow Nazis.

You can find children under 12 on any social media platform, even though it’s literally against the law to be on social media until you’re 13. This implies that every group will be on every social media platform, even if it is against the law for them to be there, provided they are at least as cunning and clever as a twelve year old.

Which probably does keep a lot of Nazis off social media, honestly.

What makes me roll my eyes is the number of people who will say something like “Nazis need to be forcibly removed from every aspect of modern society,” and that is just fine, but if the Nazis were to say that some other group… just like, any arbitrary group, no specific group in particular… should be “forcibly removed from every aspect of modern society,” that would be interpreted as a direct threat of violence. Or even a call for genocide.

There’s a lot of rhetoric online that sounds exactly like Nazis, but is supposed to be okay because the people saying it are not Nazis.

The problem is the thing you’re doing, not why you’re doing it. Your bake sale is not automatically evil because these brownies were baked by the children of Nazis, and your fundraiser is not automatically okay because the money is for a refugee who just happens to be in a country you’re not allowed to run fundraisers for on that platform.

We complain about conservatives doing this all the time. They make a law about something, and then just sort of… look the other way, when one of their own does it. Matt Gaetz verifiably paid teenage girls for sex and gave them drugs and bragged about it and showed people pictures that were technically child pornography, and yet nobody ever did a damn thing.

Meanwhile, we have people committing actual wire fraud to collect money for desperate people in war-torn countries, and they’re horrified when their accounts get closed. How could someone do that? Deprive that poor innocent refugee of their much-needed assistance to get out of the country? They’re supposed to look the other way when we have a good reason.

And it is a good reason. Don’t get me wrong on that. If you are trying to collect money to feed starving people whose children are suffering, that is a very very good reason to commit wire fraud and I understand why you are doing it.

But you are still doing it.

Everybody thinks their reasons are good reasons. Nazis may not really believe their bullshit conspiracy theory, but at the very least they think this bullshit conspiracy theory is a good enough reason to do what they’re doing. Maybe the guys you’re fundraising for aren’t really desperate starving refugees, but they really think being desperate starving refugees would be something you see as a good reason to help them, and if you help them it means they were right.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s true. It matters whether it is a good enough reason. Because people are constantly slinging bullshit. All the time. They will say whatever they need to say, make whatever excuse they need to make, so they can do whatever they want to do and you will let them.

Nazis will pretend not to be Nazis so you will let them deliver their totally not-Nazi message. It doesn’t mean they’re suddenly not Nazis. Substack will pretend to be taking a stand on free speech, so you will let them take their cut of every Nazi newsletter subscription on their platform. They are not making an ideological statement. They just want the money.

Most of the Nazis just want the money, too.

It isn’t much of a comfort, really, to know that most people screeching about the evil machinations of Jews do not actually believe their own bullshit. Because what they believe is that screeching about Jews will get them lots of money, and when they do get lots of money… they’re right. They make a bet that so many people really hate Jews, they can make a good living pretending to hate Jews, and pardon me for being a little disturbed - as a Jew - when I see them win that bet.

Nothing changes if you won’t let them make that bet here. It stays a winning bet, because antisemitism remains rampant, and lots of people hate Jews so much they will literally pay you money for hating Jews with them. Making them go place the bet somewhere else doesn’t alter the odds. It doesn’t change the playfield.

It doesn’t change the playfield if I go somewhere else, either. If I switch to a different platform, and move my newsletter somewhere else, it will be the same newsletter and have the same content and there are probably Nazis over there too. It’s a pointless waste of time. It doesn’t send a message to anyone. It just makes dumb people feel better about themselves.

Because even if you go to a different dance club than the Nazis do, the Nazis are still dancing.