The whangdoodles are at it again — raging on X, posting grainy photos of World War II soldiers, and proclaiming, “Grandpa was Antifa!”
Because, you see, Grandpa fought Hitler. Or Hirohito. Or Mussolini. They were fascists, Grandpa was anti-fascist, and since “anti-fascist” shortens to “Antifa,” presto — Grandpa was Antifa.
What these self-styled internet historians are doing is a digital form of stolen valor. … Grandpa would be appalled.
Right.
Before scourging the ignorant cockwombles pounding keyboards across the internet, let’s define what fascism actually meant.
What fascism meant
Beyond the obvious militarism of Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hirohito’s Japan, the fascist regimes of the 20th century shared three defining traits. First, a top-down command economy controlled by a central planning body. Second, an integrated industrial and banking system. Third, a relatively homogeneous population under rigid state control.
Now ask yourself: Does the United States fit that mold? No central economic planning agency, no state-directed industrial-banking complex (ask the Fed and the Securities and Exchange Commission), and certainly no single, homogeneous racial population.
What we do have is an ever-multiplying swarm of willfully obtuse, historically illiterate useful idiots eager to join whatever digital mob happens to be trending this week.
The kind who think “being a furry” is a lifestyle choice worth defending.
You know — morons.
Grandpa fought for the Constitution
Among them are the smug keyboard warriors who post their grandfather’s old war photo without knowing a thing about his unit, his history, or the weapon he lugged across Europe — a Thompson M1A1 submachine gun chambered in .45 ACP.
These same people casually toss Grandpa’s honorable service into the same slime bucket as the modern-day anarcho-communists who call themselves “Antifa.” They hijack his image to dignify an extremist movement that despises everything he swore to defend.
Grandpa honored and fought under the American flag. Antifa burns it. They literally call it a “fascist symbol.”
Grandpa didn’t fight for a slogan. He fought for the Constitution. He raised his right hand and swore an oath — to protect and defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If that meant bombing Tojo’s Japan, invading Hitler’s Germany, or crushing Mussolini’s Italy, so be it.
RELATED: Antifa isn’t ‘anti-fascist’ — it’s anti-freedom and anti-God
Definitely not Antifa.Bettmann/Getty Images
Generations after him have sworn the same oath. Those men fought communism in Korea and Vietnam, and later took the fight to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and, after 9/11, to al-Qaeda and ISIS across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.
Stolen valor for the hashtag age
What these self-styled internet historians are doing is a digital form of stolen valor. They wrap themselves in the virtue of men who actually faced fire, men who earned their medals the hard way — not with a post and a hashtag.
Grandpa would be appalled at his grandkids’ ignorance.
But give it time. Some nimrod, eager for another viral hit, will post a photo of his dad in Afghanistan with the caption: “Dad was intersectional.”
And the whangdoodles will cheer — none the wiser, and none the braver.
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