I agree and understand, but people here will read into the worst interpretation, both because reactionary feelings are easier to justify and because you have .ml

This is why the right-wing state media keeps pressing Mamdani and other politicians on their condemnation of particular terms, words and media personalities.

It’s not because they actually care about promotion or condemnation of particular aesthetic symbols, slogans or phrases, it’s because they desperately want to normalize policing these things. They want a country built on performative “crackdowns” against any kind of speech that they don’t like. This is why we have freedom of expression held so sacred, because it goes both ways.

Yes, it is “at first they came for the swastika” because by itself a swastika is nothing, it’s the way it’s used and what the intention of its use means that’s more important, but the right is learning that they can leverage reactionaries on both sides into promoting a culture of blanket censorship.

This whole thing with the Coast Guard and whoever else flip-flopping is just the outcome of a system that has been built to resist aesthetic politics feeling pulled in different directions. It has less to do with actual nazis and more to do with “are we political entities or do we serve the constitution.”

The fact that it’s now making a LOT of people on the left scream for greater policing of symbols is exactly what they wanted from this.