{"id":86032,"date":"2025-09-20T07:10:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T06:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=86032"},"modified":"2025-09-20T15:11:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T14:11:21","slug":"the-1933-nazi-playbook-that-explains-why-abc-cancelled-kimmel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/09\/20\/the-1933-nazi-playbook-that-explains-why-abc-cancelled-kimmel\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1933 Nazi Playbook That Explains Why ABC Cancelled Kimmel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is too important, and frightening, not to share:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/e9NnQt_eQ0I?si=q5Wx28lQ_nHvy26X\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The speaker is Tad Stoermer, an academic historian who suggests he is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Torching lies<\/li>\n<li>Teaching resistance<\/li>\n<li>Explaining revolution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He is the author of 'A Resistance History of the United States' (Steerforth Press, 2026). He is a<br \/>\nlecturer at Johns Hopkins University and a visiting scholar at the University of Southern Denmark.<\/p>\n<p>This is a summary of the transcript, produced by AI:<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Summary \u2014 <\/strong><strong>Trump declared \u201cAntifa\u201d terrorists<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> (video by Todd Sturmer)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\"><b>TL;DR:<\/b><\/span> Todd Stoermer argues that after Trump labelled \u201cAntifa\u201d terrorists, major institutions (media, corporations, universities, unions) rushed to demonstrate loyalty \u2014 voluntarily pre-empting dissent in a pattern he likens to the Nazi-era tactic of coordinated self-submission (Gleichschaltung). That vagueness \u2014 designating an idea rather than an organisation \u2014 creates a chilling, pre-emptive machinery of repression where everyone polices everyone else.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><b>Key points<\/b><b><\/b><\/p>\n<ol start=\"1\">\n<li>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Trigger event:<\/b><\/span> Trump labels anti-fascist activists (\u201cAntifa\u201d) as terrorists; within days ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel and other outlets pre-empted or altered programming, Sinclair even scheduling a tribute special and demanding apologies\/donations.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Corporate race to comply:<\/b><\/span> Media owners (and other institutions) aren\u2019t being ordered \u2014 they\u2019re competing to show loyalty (partly for reasons like pending FCC approvals\/mergers), demonstrating the speed and voluntariness of the response.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Historical analogy \u2014 Nazi playbook:<\/b><\/span> Sturmer invokes the Nazi tactic of making examples and letting the rest of civic life align itself voluntarily. He stresses the mechanism: ambiguity + fear = institutions self-purging to prove loyalty.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Ambiguity weaponised:<\/b><\/span> \u201cAntifa\u201d is, he says, a mentality or way of thinking rather than a formal organisation, so declaring it a terrorist threat lets institutions define the danger loosely and punish or ostracise anyone perceived as connected.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Social enforcement:<\/b><\/span> Celebrities, sports teams, corporate boards and HR departments issue identical statements and policing, while activists launch campaigns to get people fired, producing pre-emptive censure without legal definitions or trials.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Universities and workplaces at risk:<\/b><\/span> Examples of firings\/audits are cited; academic syllabi and social media histories become grounds for punishment if someone is marked \u201cAntifa-adjacent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>A faster, digital danger:<\/b><\/span> Sturmer warns this process is quicker and more absolute than 1933 because digital records, corporate liability, and social media accelerate detection and punishment \u2014 institutions \u201cvolunteer\u201d repression rather than being forced.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><b>Closing warning:<\/b><\/span> The constitution and institutional safeguards are weakened not by a single violent purge but by institutions racing to prove allegiance \u2014 creating the infrastructure of repression through compliance rather than coercion.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s2\"><b>Tone\/intent:<\/b><\/span> The video is a polemical, alarmed warning \u2014 drawing historical parallels to warn that voluntary institutional compliance driven by vague accusations can erode civic freedoms rapidly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is too important, and frightening, not to share: The speaker is Tad Stoermer, an academic historian who suggests he is: Torching lies Teaching resistance<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/09\/20\/the-1933-nazi-playbook-that-explains-why-abc-cancelled-kimmel\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[215,14,203,106,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-age-of-aggression","category-corruption","category-fascism","category-politics","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86032"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86038,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86032\/revisions\/86038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}