By SUZANNE DOWNING
June 6, 2026 – Eighty-two years ago today, young American men stepped off landing crafts and into hell. On June 6, 1944, the Allied Expeditionary Force launched Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious invasion in history. More than 156,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. Thousands would never return home.
They did not land on Omaha Beach to win an argument online or score political points.
They did not drown in the surf so future generations could throw around the word “Nazi” as a casual insult on social media.
Those Americans and Canadians fought and died to defeat actual Nazis. They fought to liberate Europe from one of the most evil regimes humanity has ever produced. Perhaps the MOST evil regime in the history of humanity. They fought to end a government built on racial supremacy, political terror, concentration camps, and industrialized murder. They stopped a machine that had turned into an exterminator of Jews, political dissidents, disabled people, gays, queers, and gypsies.
That reality should make us pause every time we hear the word “Nazi” tossed around in today’s political debates, as it so often is.
For decades, the American Left has increasingly relied on Nazi comparisons whenever conservatives become politically successful.
The leftist habit of yelling “Nazi!!!” is older than many people realize.
In 1964, conservative-libertarian Republican Barry Goldwater was portrayed by critics as flirting with fascism. Journalists and political opponents made dark parallels to Nazi Germany. Martin Luther King Jr. warned of “dangerous signs of Hitlerism.” California Democrat Gov. Pat Brown spoke of Goldwater and “the stench of fascism.” The message was clear: Conservatives were not merely wrong. They were dangerous.
It worked so well on the public that even in Alaska, 1964 was the only year Alaskans voted for a Democrat for president, with all three electoral votes going for Lyndon B. Johnson.
The pattern repeated itself with Richard Nixon. Incredibly, it resurfaced during the Ronald Reagan years, when the Left labeled Reagan’s anti-communist policies and domestic budget cuts as “fascist.”
It intensified dramatically during the George W. Bush Administration, particularly after 9/11 and the Iraq War, when Hitler comparisons became commonplace at protests and in political commentary.
Then came Donald Trump.
Since 2015, the language has escalated beyond anything seen in modern American politics. “MAGA Republicans are Nazis.” Conservatives are “fascists.” Border enforcement is compared to the Third Reich. Ordinary voters are accused of supporting authoritarianism simply because they disagree with so-called progressives.
The accusation has become so routine that many people barely notice it anymore.
But they should. Every casual Nazi comparison diminishes the magnitude of what Nazi Germany actually was — a totalitarian state that murdered millions of people and plunged the world into war.
When every political opponent becomes Hitler, eventually Hitler means nothing.
The Left thinks its rhetoric is justified because extremist groups sometimes attempt to link themselves with conservative causes. Fair enough. Every political movement has fringe elements. The Democrat Party itself has Antifa. They’re running a guy for US Senate in Maine who has a Nazi-theme tattoo.
But fringe extremists do not define millions of ordinary Americans who support constitutional government, free speech, free markets, religious liberty, secure borders, and limited federal power.
Indeed, many of the core features of Nazism stand in direct opposition to traditional American conservative principles.
Nazism was collectivist, while American conservatism is rooted in individual rights and self-determination.
Nazis concentrated power in the state, while conservatives generally argue for states’ rights (10th Amendment).
Nazis squashed dissent, while conservatives defend free speech, even speech they dislike.
The real danger of these wild comparisons of conservatives to Nazis is what they do to our civic life.
If your political opponents are literally Nazis, then compromise becomes immoral and anything goes. This is how the Democratic Party has developed an assassination culture. If your neighbors are “fascists,” then silencing them becomes justified by any means. They’ve shot at Trump, they killed Charlie Kirk, and nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise.
The rhetoric is intended to make all that acceptable. It seeks to place conservatives outside the boundaries of legitimate political debate. It is designed to make people afraid to speak, afraid to dissent, and afraid to challenge fashionable opinion. And it’s designed to give cover to political assassins.
And that is why it should concern Americans of every political persuasion.
As we remember D-Day, we should remember the men who actually faced fascism. We remember the soldiers who stormed the machine gun nests above Omaha Beach, and the paratroopers who landed behind enemy lines. The airmen who filled the skies of Normandy. All the men who fought to liberate Europe, many of whom never came home.
Their sacrifice deserves more than being reduced to a political metaphor. They fought real Nazis. They defeated real fascism.
The least we can do is remember the difference.
Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.
23 thoughts on “Suzanne Downing: D-Day and the dangerous habit of calling everyone you don’t like a Nazi”
The National Socialists were birthed on the left and remained true to their principles. Their hate for the Soviets (and vice versa) was an internecine conflict based on who ought to have ultimate legitimacy to carry the socialist/leftist banner.
Many throw historical terms around without understanding their use or history. It’s tiresome, but an easy tell of someones ignorance -and/or base maliciousness.
Remember that Fascism FounderMussolini was a, disgruntled socialist. The socialist party wasn’t going far enough for him
Thank you for the reminder and celebration of D-Day. The lives lost are not forgotten. Each man/woman that was in that war was and remains our heroes. Thank God for their service. The youth of today have no idea what we fought for and died for. The others that know but ignore these truths are lost in selfishness and deliberate ignorance. God bless us all. God forgive us all. Choose to be faithful to Christ first. Blessings, W.
Only the Democrats call everyone else a Nazi. Their intelligence level fails to rise.
Fascism and National Socialism (Nazi) are by their very nature left wing ideologies, that the left tries to call them a rightwing ideology goes beyond ignorance.
So Hitler was a leftie? That’s a new one…
Hans,
Are you not familiar with Hitlers beliefs? Or how Fascism and National Socialism (Nazi) came to be?
Well I’ve fairly recently completed Volker Ullrich’s 1200-page bio of him, along with many other associated volumes. So I’d say I’m much better informed than the average person. Demonization of immigrants, Aryan superiority, suppression of free speech, and military aggression in violation of international law are hardly hallmarks of leftist, woke ideology. They are much more akin to, say, modern-day MAGA/Conservative dogma.
You do a wonderful job of showcasing the point of this article.
Seeing as Fascism is a left wing ideology, most closely aligned with socialism, and Nazism is a form of Fascism I’m surprised that the 1,200 page bio you read didn’t explain any of that…or maybe you missed it because you found the page count to be more important than what was written?
You are aware that Fascism is a left wing ideology and closely aligned with Socialism right? Don’t take my word for it. Giovanni Gentile who along with Benito Mussolini wrote The Doctrine of Fascism declared “Fascism is a form of socialism, in fact, it is its most viable form.” Six days before Mussolini was shot he said “Our programs are definitely equal to our revolutionary ideas and they belong to what in democratic regime is called “left”; our institutions are a direct result of our programs and our ideal is the Labor State. In this case there can be no doubt: we are the working class in struggle for life and death, against capitalism. We are the revolutionaries in search of a new order. If this is so, to invoke help from the bourgeoisie by waving the red peril is an absurdity. The real scarecrow, the real danger, the threat against which we fight relentlessly, comes from the right. It is not at all in our interest to have the capitalist bourgeoisie as an ally against the threat of the red peril, even at best it would be an unfaithful ally, which is trying to make us serve its ends, as it has done more than once with some success. I will spare words as it is totally superfluous. In fact, it is harmful, because it makes us confuse the types of genuine revolutionaries of whatever hue, with the man of reaction who sometimes uses our very language.”
Steve-O, you are wrong. Fascism and Nazism are not “left-wing”. Every serious historian of the subject says so. Kershaw, Evans, Paxton, Payne, Griffin: the consensus is Nazism was a far-right, ultranationalist, anti-Marxist, ideology at its core. Hitler didn’t debate socialists, he jailed and killed them and crushed their unions—while leaving capitalist private property intact.
The whole counterargument is “socialist is in the name.” By that logic North Korea—the “Democratic People’s Republic”—is a democracy. The Nazis used the label to poach workers, then governed in direct opposition to it. The first people into the camps were communists and Social Democrats.
Criticize the left for overusing “Nazi” as a slur — I 100% agree they use it too often and without proper context (for the record, people on the right also throw around the Nazi slur inaccurately, just not as often). You don’t win by rewriting history so the people Hitler murdered were conservatives, they weren’t. Nazi persecution targeted leftist ideologies and Jews from the start, before it escalated to the systematic murder of Jews, homosexuals, Roma, and others.
Here are some points of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) platform:
“We demand that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens.”
“It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the general interest, but must proceed within the framework of the community and be for the general good.”
“We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).”
“We demand profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises.”
“We demand the extensive development of insurance for old age.”
“We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, the immediate communalizing of big department stores, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders, and that the utmost consideration shall be shown to all small traders in the placing of State and municipal orders.”
“We demand a land reform suitable to our national requirements, the passing of a law for the expropriation of land for communal purposes without compensation; the abolition of ground rent, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.”
“The State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education (with the aim of opening up to every able and hard-working German the possibility of higher education and of thus obtaining advancement). The curricula of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the notion of the State (through the study of civic affairs). We demand the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.”
“The State must ensure that the nation’s health standards are raised by protecting mothers and infants, by prohibiting child labor, by promoting physical strength through legislation providing for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by the extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of youth.”
“We demand legal warfare on deliberate political mendacity and its dissemination in the press. To facilitate the creation of a German national press we demand:
that all editors of, and contributors to newspapers appearing in the German language must be members of the nation;
that no non-German newspapers may appear without the express permission of the State…
The publishing of papers which are not conducive to the national welfare must be forbidden.”
The ultra-nationalistic trend is the only rightwing ideology that Fascism and Nazism hold, the rest is just more socialism, communism or whatever leftwing ideology you want to call it.
Okay, thanks for posting the 1920 Nazi party platform. Those quotes are real, but they’re from a 1920 recruitment pamphlet written when the party was tiny and trying to attract everyone and anyone to become a real party: workers, shopkeepers, racists, even rich people scared of communists – despite some of their decidedly socialist/Marxist rhetoric. But that campaign brochure isn’t how the Nazi regime governed.
Test it against what they actually did when they took power:
Point 13 demanded nationalizing the trusts. It never happened. The regime did the opposite, it privatized state-owned firms in the mid-1930s, against the global trend. Hitler courted big industrialists to bankroll the party. And the Nazis who genuinely believed the anti-capitalist planks—the Strasser wing—were sidelined and then purged. Ernst Rohm, head of the SA and one of Hitler’s most senior thugs, was openly gay, and Hitler tolerated it for years, until Rohm became a liability. It didn’t end well for Rohm: he was shot in that same 1934 purge that killed Gregor Strasser. Otto Strasser quit in 1930 calling it a betrayal. Hitler killed his own party’s “left.”
“National Socialism” never meant class economics. It meant the racial “national community” citizenship defined by blood, Jews explicitly excluded in Point 4. The organizing principle is race, not class. That’s the whole difference between this and actual socialism, which is about class and collective ownership.
And half your list, old-age pensions, public schools for poor kids, banning child labor, public health, exists in every capitalist democracy alive. Social Security didn’t make America socialist in 1935. Reciting a 1920 campaign list while ignoring twelve years of governing isn’t the flex you’re looking for.
Not looking for a flex Bill, just trying to help people who have been misled about some pretty basic information. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) platform didn’t change from the 1920’s until the end of WWII. That Hitler killed his own party’s left does not place Fascism or Nazism on the political right, yeah they were right of communism or on the right of the socialist scale.
Unlike Communism, Fascism and Nazism started by trying to convince the people instead of taking over the government and making the people follow their ideology. They learned some things from the Communist take over of Russia and like all leftwing ideology they were destined to fail so they never achieved their ultimate goals.
Steave-O, your history here is just wrong.
“They tried to convince people instead of taking over the government”, just no. The Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 was an armed coup attempt. Hitler tried to seize power by force, it failed, and he went to prison for treason. Mussolini took power by force, when his Blackshirts marched on Rome in 1922. Once Hitler was chancellor, he used the Reichstag Fire and the Enabling Act in 1933 to dismantle German democracy from the inside in a matter of weeks. That’s the opposite of patiently winning hearts and minds.
And the idea that communists didn’t try to convince people is not supported by history at all. Agitation and propaganda were core Bolshevik tactics. Both movements did both: persuasion and force. There’s no clean split where one side only persuaded and the other only seized. They operated in much the same way.
“Destined to fail like all left-wing ideology” – Nazism didn’t collapse from within. It was destroyed in a world war by an alliance of capitalist democracies and the communist USSR fighting on the same side.
I really can’t tell if you’re pulling my leg or not.
Mussolini started preaching Fascism in 1918, he assembled a force and “took” Rome in 1922, then he was appointed PM, elections were held in 1924. The later 20’s and 1930’s saw further movement towards socialistic Fascism. It took until 1934 for Mussolini to claim that three-quarters of Italian businesses were under state control. He had apparently planned to nationalize all property by 1940 but was never able to get there because of the war. However, by 1939 Fascist Italy had achieved the highest rate of state ownership of an economy in the world other than the Soviet Union. Clearly not the virtually overnight overthrow and wholesale replacement of government seen in the Russian Revolution.
Hitler took power in 1933 and continued many of the economic policies that were in place before he became Chancellor, it took him years to gather support and influence to be appointed…after his failed attempt at overthrowing the government in 1923. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party recieved around 20% of the vote in 1930 and nearly 40% in 1932 parliamentary elections. Once again, clearly not the virtually overnight overthrow and wholesale replacement of government seen in the Russian Revolution.
So, like I said “Unlike Communism, Fascism and Nazism started by trying to convince the people instead of taking over the government and making the people follow their ideology.” On a side note, the next time you quote what I said, actually quote what I said, don’t write words that you make up.
I do appreciate the fact that you have abandoned the argument that Fascism and Nazism aren’t a form of Socialism and aren’t leftwing ideology.
Steve-o, let’s go back to what you actually claimed: that fascism and Nazism are “by their very nature left wing,” and that calling them right-wing “goes beyond ignorance.”
Look at how they actually governed. Mussolini was expelled from the Socialist Party and built fascism by sending squads to beat and kill socialists. Hitler’s first prisoners were communists, Social Democrats, and trade unionists. Both movements were funded by industrialists who wanted the left crushed. Both kept private property and corporate profit intact while banning independent unions and outlawing strikes. Both defined the nation by blood and hierarchy, not class and equality.
Every defining feature of Nazism/Fascism points right. So no, calling Nazism right-wing isn’t “beyond ignorance”, it’s the consensus of every serious historian who’s ever studied it. Insisting otherwise because “socialist” is in the party name is like calling communism right-wing because the Khmer Rouge ran “Democratic Kampuchea.” The label isn’t the ideology.
None of this changes the point SD made in her article: calling all Republicans “Nazis” is a stupid and inaccurate descriptor of modern Republicans. It’s just as destructive, and just as inaccurate, as trying to staple the evils of Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot onto modern Democrats.
And for the record, I’m not defending the Democrats or left-wing ideology — I am firmly in the conservative camp. I just call out historical nonsense when I see it, and your original comment simply isn’t true.
Bill,
Your continued appeal to authority and incorrect insistence that “consensus of every serious historian” and “Every serious historian of the subject says so” shows how weak the argument you are making truly is. You disregard the very words of the founding fathers of Fascism, because they prove you wrong. There are countless serious historians who disagree with you, because they objectively study the subject.
A quick refresher on left vs right ideology…
Leftwing ideology prioritizes collectivism, social and economic equality through regulation and government control, and collective action to solve societal problems.
Rightwing ideology prioritizes individualism, liberty, personal responsibility, social and economic freedom with limited regulation and limited government control, and individual action to solve societal problems.
Fascism is defined as relying on dictatorial leadership, centralized state control of society and the economy, strict social hierarchy, militarism, and characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition with subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation.
While there are certain aspects of Fascism that can be found in right wing ideology, by and large it is a left wing ideology. It was founded by Socialists who were disillusioned with socialism, as I noted above Giovanni Gentile who along with Benito Mussolini wrote The Doctrine of Fascism declared “Fascism is a form of socialism, in fact, it is its most viable form.” Mussolini himself said “Our programs are definitely equal to our revolutionary ideas and they belong to what in democratic regime is called “left”; our institutions are a direct result of our programs and our ideal is the Labor State. In this case there can be no doubt: we are the working class in struggle for life and death, against capitalism. We are the revolutionaries in search of a new order. If this is so, to invoke help from the bourgeoisie by waving the red peril is an absurdity. The real scarecrow, the real danger, the threat against which we fight relentlessly, comes from the right. It is not at all in our interest to have the capitalist bourgeoisie as an ally against the threat of the red peril, even at best it would be an unfaithful ally, which is trying to make us serve its ends, as it has done more than once with some success. I will spare words as it is totally superfluous. In fact, it is harmful, because it makes us confuse the types of genuine revolutionaries of whatever hue, with the man of reaction who sometimes uses our very language.” Why do you disregard the very words of the founding fathers of Fascism?
Steve-O, you may want to check the context of your quotes.
The Gentile line, “fascism is a form of socialism,” is unsourced and has never once been tied to an actual Gentile text, and even the sites pushing it call the attribution unverified. In fact, it’s flatly contradicted by the document Gentile actually co-wrote with Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism. It has sections titled “Rejection of Marxism” and “Rejection of Egalitarianism.” It says fascism is “opposed to Socialism,” “opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon,” and rejects “the absurd conventional lie of political equalitarianism” in favor of “the beneficent inequality of men.” And Mussolini flatly calls it “a century tending to the ‘right,’ a Fascist century.” (https://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm).
The corporatism quote, “a merger of state and corporate power”, is a documented forgery. Researchers spent months unable to find any original and concluded Mussolini never said it: (https://politicalresearch.org/2005/01/12/mussolini-corporate-state).
You do have one real quote which is from Mussolini’s Milan speech in late April 1945, the final week of his life. He was leading a powerless German puppet state after the industrialists who’d bankrolled him for twenty years had dropped him and the allies were steadily making their way up Italy. That quote does not define 21 years of rule, when fascism privatized industry, banned unions, and jailed and killed the left. That record is the actual historical consensus supported by Kershaw’s Hitler, Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism, Evans’s Third Reich Trilogy, and on the privatization specifically, economist Germà Bel, “Against the Mainstream: Nazi Privatization in 1930s Germany” (Economic History Review, 2010).
Source your quotes. I’m still not convinced of your core thesis that Nazism and fascism are left-wing constructs akin to Marxism and communism, but I’m open to new evidence. This whole exchange has actually been a lot of fun and got me to do some real research (I didn’t know most of this off the top of my head).
Here are a few additional citations for you:
On fascism as a right-wing phenomenon:
• Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (2004). The standard modern synthesis; fascists took power by allying with conservative elites to crush the left.
• Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 (1995). Comprehensive and comparative — and notably, Payne takes the Salò socialization seriously, so it isn’t a cherry-picked source.
• Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (1991).
• Ian Kershaw, Hitler (1998–2000). Anti-Marxism sits at the core of Nazi ideology.
• Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich Trilogy (2003–2008).
• R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini (2002). Covers his 1914 expulsion from the Italian Socialist Party over the war.
On the economics, specifically private property preserved, not abolished:
• Germà Bel, “Against the Mainstream: Nazi Privatization in 1930s Germany,” Economic History Review 63, no. 1 (2010): 34–55. The regime privatized state-owned industry against the global trend.
• Christoph Buchheim & Jonas Scherner, “The Role of Private Property in the Nazi Economy,” Journal of Economic History 66, no. 2 (2006).
Only Government dependents would think a Conservative is a Nazi.
Nazi’s were All supporting for Government leaders controlling the people’s lives. While Conservatives are for personal responsibility and accountability and each rewarded what effort they put in.
Nazi’s supporters were subservient to their Totalitarian leaders and believing their government has their best interests at heart and know best.
“……..we hear the word “Nazi” tossed around in today’s political debates, as it so often is………”
Godwin’s Law. Reductio ad Hitlerum. They lose, even if they’re too stupid to know it.
Suzanne, many thanks for your remembrance of this important day in history and acknowledgement of the veterans who served, were maimed or died on it. Also appreciated your showing us the left’s playbook has essentially remained unchanged in the decades since. It goes right along with Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals Rule 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Your column will be shared and saved for future reference.
Amen, Suzanne. How can we return our education institutions to the truth? When college professors leading leftist protests call Israel and anyone who dares agree with Israel or disagrees with this professor “fascists” how do we defeat this? The term is rapidly losing its meaning and revulsion. Confronting evil with truth is hard.
Best Hegseth could do to commemorate the day:
“Sadly, today different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not.”
This guy is afraid of anyone who does not look like him. What a jerk.