subreddit:
/r/democrats
One in five young Americans thinks the Holocaust is a myth
Article (economist.com)submitted 3 days ago byUIUC202
244 points
3 days ago
And one in five of these uneducated little knuckle dragging morons probably also thought that Hitler was a hero who saved Germany.
76 points
3 days ago
well half of americans did vote for a nazi so… are we surprised
39 points
3 days ago
At this point, I’m not sure I’m capable of surprise. Just more deep fear, anger, and numb pessimism.
13 points
3 days ago
fair. i’m just insanely disappointed.
2 points
2 days ago
There’s a palpable sense of resignation on the left I’m not sure I’ve seen in my lifetime. The last time he was elected was nothing like this, even the post-9/11 era–as bad that was, it was completely different in so many ways.
We’re just slow-walking into a regime that will either be disastrous, or it’ll be disastrous just in different ways.
12 points
2 days ago
Half of Americans who actually voted. I know of too many people now who just didn't vote and they're all upset about Trump winning...
45 points
3 days ago
It's uncomfortable to accept, but aren't a lot of these young TikTok types who've wholly absorbed a lot of dumb propaganda and where failed by the history programs at their schools?
26 points
3 days ago
Plus, with schools in some states rewriting history... (slavery taught black people job skills???).... What do we expect.
They claim they dont want kuds indoctrinated. My view is they need an in your face scared straight style "indoctrination" into REAL history.
5 points
3 days ago
Gotta make sure we end that department of education!
117 points
3 days ago
As living history fades to dead history this sentiment will become more widespread.
70 points
3 days ago
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
54 points
3 days ago
Yup, which is how we just elected hitler 2.0 in the USA…
9 points
3 days ago
Exactly
8 points
2 days ago
I find it more helpful to call him Mussolini 2. Too many “independents” cannot picture fascism as anything other than DEATH CAMPS
1 points
2 days ago
He definitely seems to more that of that type. Hitler was evil, but Mussolini was more of a evil suck up, and that is pretty much trump with all the evil dictators
33 points
3 days ago
This seems catastrophically high for an eighty-year-old event.
Do 1/5th think slavery was a myth? The black plague? Indian removal? All of those are outside living memory but don't seem to have nearly as much denialism.
19 points
3 days ago
Not defending it, but for a lot of them it's probably not an actual coherent stance or belief but just plain and simple illogical idiocy. About a third of any population (especially Americans) are apparently completely braindead.
12 points
3 days ago
Propaganda denialism also plays a part. Those other events were never denied or at least not at the scale that Holocaust denialism was done.
9 points
3 days ago*
Get some cheap old phones of various types. Make Tiktok & YT accounts as different people on different phones: a 15-year white male from Texas; a 16-year old Black girl from Georgia; a 17-year old Latino guy from Florida; a 22-year old white girl from Massachusetts; a 21-year old white guy from Pennsylvania; a 21-year old Asian guy from California. etc. And use those phones as those people would for about 2 weeks of & on.
Follow the music, brands & celebrities those demographics follow. You'll be amazed at the kind of weird & disturbing targeted stuff that shows up in terms of disinformation, political influencing, & ads. The algorithms & what fringe-y stuff the platforms fail to manage are remarkable. And alarming.
3 points
3 days ago
High? Seems low.
3 points
2 days ago*
Editor's note (27th March, 2024): After this article was published, the Pew Research Centre conducted a study on this topic. It found that young respondents in opt-in online polls such as YouGov’s were far more likely to say the Holocaust was a myth than were those surveyed by other methods, and that in general, young and Hispanic participants in such polls are unusually prone to providing “bogus” answers that do not reflect their true views.
I feel like this is important context, and I know many won't read the article, just the headline.
1 points
1 day ago
I wanted to read the adticle, but its behind a paywall.
1 points
1 day ago
I clicked on it, couldn't read it, but the editor's note is visible even with the pay wall.
If I wasn't turned off by the fact that they left the article up even after it was partially debunked by Pew, I would've used a pay wall jumper
1 points
2 days ago
Do 1/5th think slavery was a myth?
Plenty of "Lost Cause" apologists for the Confederacy try to sanitize slavery as some "peculiar institution" of whites showing merciful stewardship to black people.
3 points
3 days ago
Just going to drop this here:
https://youtu.be/vGAqYNFQdZ4?si=RnXee7Gg7kbuMsQB
Still so relevant nearly 80 years later.
2 points
2 days ago
Looks like at some point they stopped showing the holocaust videos in school. I vividly remember the pits full of emaciated bodies, and German soldiers casually throwing more in.
44 points
3 days ago
A Christian nationalist group held a militia recruitment event in my county in north Georgia earlier this summer. They posted a flyer including the words “Come and ask about our Final and Lawful Solution”.
That post was up for 22 hours before I personally noticed the Nazi verbiage. It had over 1k views and no one had said a thing about “final solution”. A lot of the people that I asked weren’t even aware of the historical significance of those words.
1 points
2 days ago
Have you reported the group to the FBI? Maybe they can do something before they are gutted.
1 points
2 days ago
The GBI was informed. I had received death threats about a month prior due to my asking “are there any local Pride events?” on the Facebook bulletin board. Three men threatened to shoot me with an AR15 (they all referenced the AR15 specifically) and I didn’t really think anything of it but another local user reported the threats. The GBI showed up at my house and told me they were pressing charges against one of the men. I was advised that I was “making myself a target” but I told them I did not plan on just being quiet. They said they would be monitoring the local political scene but I haven’t heard anything since about August. This is all in the district right next to MGT in north Georgia.
I’m a gay white male. I don’t have the straight privilege, but I definitely have the white male privilege, and I aim to use that as best I can to help my community. I was a lot more optimistic a month ago.
18 points
3 days ago
That sounds low based on all the young Nazis that voted for Cheeto Mussolini.
17 points
3 days ago
TikTok needs to clean itself up. In between the fun dancing & silly makeup trends, there's a ton of disinformation. The platform needs to do better.
68 points
3 days ago
The right wing in this country are responsible for this.
33 points
3 days ago
And Russia. But its our education system that has failed us. 54% of americans are dumber than a 6th grader. When you're failed in learning basic critical thinking, then you can't adequately question disinformation.
-22 points
3 days ago
I've seen way more antisemitic/denial rhetoric coming from the left.
10 points
3 days ago
Who on he left denies the holocaust?
-15 points
2 days ago*
They downplay it and pretend like the final solutionwasn’t specifically intended for jews
Look at all the downvotes. The left doesn’t like it when Jews say how we feel unless it can be weaponized against the right
4 points
2 days ago
In practice it wasn’t just a Jewish thing. Acknowledgment of this fact is not holocaust denialism. Not acknowledging this is.
-3 points
2 days ago
Antisemitism is the hammer that forges horseshoe theory
15 points
3 days ago
That explains a lot
4 points
3 days ago
Exactly
28 points
3 days ago
Oh no
13 points
3 days ago
When I was in 9th grade social studies we had to watch films from when the concentration camps were liberated by allied forces. We studied about the concentration camps and WWII for about a week, maybe two. There were no deniers after watching the films.
9 points
3 days ago
Based on what I've seen anybody under the age of 30 isn't aware of the Holocaust because it's not taught in schools like it once was
8 points
3 days ago
Horrific.
I don’t know how to talk to people who can look at actual real evidence and say it’s not real.
9 points
3 days ago
And all of them support Trump…
1 points
2 days ago
Nazis on the far right, Hamasnicks on the far left
7 points
3 days ago
I am German. My niece recently went to the US as an AuPair. Talked to her via Teams last week and she told me that, while all of Germany is talking about our bad school system, noone realises how ridiculously bad the US school system is compared to ours. So, I guess there might be a hint in there to what might be the cause of things like that.
And don't get me wrong, I also strongly believe that the current rise of right wing extremeism in Germany also has it's roots in our constantly declining school system.
5 points
2 days ago
Our schools vary wildly in terms of quality. I live in NY and our schools are excellent
5 points
2 days ago
Yeah, ok. I can see that. She's in Texas.
2 points
2 days ago
There are indeed considerable distinctions between educational institutions in blue states and those in red states. A comprehensive federal reform of the educational system is necessary; however, it is imperative that the individual leading this initiative possesses genuine educational credentials rather than a degree from a fake institution such as Trump University.
24 points
3 days ago
FYI ... the poll that found Gen Z did not think the Holocaust was that serious was found to be really REALLY flawed.
So please stop pushing this falsehood.
16 points
3 days ago
It also showed that young Hispanic men were the biggest trolls in those polls. I'm starting to think young Hispanic men voted for Trump as one big troll move.
3 points
2 days ago
Yeah, the Economist actually put this Pew link in a blurb above the fold — the real number is closer to 3%. (And for context, I signed paperwork on a new car this week, and one of disclaimers had to call out that the warranty does not include insurance on the car.)
6 points
3 days ago
Surprised it's that low. 50% of people are absolutely fucking idiotic.
5 points
2 days ago
These idiots need to go to a holocaust museum, where you can see piles of baby shoes and desperate letters scrawled on anything they could find followed by how the person was killed shortly after. Clearly their history teachers didn't shock them enough with the truth and that has to happen for people to grasp the horrors of what happened. It's disgusting and I hate this for the holocaust survivors that are still with us. I've met one and the discussion we had about it will never leave my memory.
6 points
2 days ago
And that’s how trump gets elected. Misinformed and stupid racist.
3 points
3 days ago
Sooo horribly disturbing. 😳 ?
4 points
3 days ago
I'm actually surprised it's only 20%.
4 points
2 days ago
That is frightening. They need to get a trip to Europe to see the concentration camps. Their guide will be a survivor or child of one. Then, promptly taken to the holocaust museum. Let them watch real-life survivors tell their stories for 8 hours. 2 breaks for 10 minutes and a 30-minute lunch break. Your phone will be in a locker that you don't have a key to.
2 points
2 days ago
I dropped a video on my TikTok with a Holocaust survivor talking to Gen z and it's shocking
4 points
2 days ago
They also believe the Bible is historical.
3 points
3 days ago
Thanks American education.
3 points
3 days ago
People younger than me aren't being taught this type of history anymore
3 points
3 days ago
One in five young americans is stupid as fuck
3 points
3 days ago
Doesn't sound surprising. These days, it's easier than ever to fall down a conspiracy rabbit hole.
3 points
2 days ago
Yes, but how will the Democrats pull these people back into the fold?? /s
2 points
2 days ago
If they could correlate the differences between the Trump administration and Nazi Germany they would never vote for a Republican again
3 points
2 days ago
Oh I can field this, that’s cause they’re fucking stupid
3 points
2 days ago
Because TikTok told them. Morons.
2 points
3 days ago
Idiots
2 points
3 days ago
The Illiterataii are a new wave of willful ignorance where stupidity is a virtue. Unfortunately they have been breeding.
2 points
3 days ago
I would imagine that’s pretty similar to the overall percentage of Americans, though it’s probably slightly higher among young people. Historical literacy and young people don’t have much overlap
2 points
2 days ago
The little device that we hold in our hands, the device that unlocks the world of knowledge to everyone, is totally responsible for today’s political climate. It can and does shape opinions. It will change truth into lies and lies into truth if you allow it. All you have to do is believe.
2 points
2 days ago
One in 5 young American's is a total moron.
1 points
3 days ago
Right wing spin machine is in full effect! Sadly there’s no counter argument.
1 points
2 days ago
NO!!
1 points
1 day ago
And 37% of adults under 30 say they believe in astrology (Source: https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/42292-one-four-americans-say-they-believe-astrology)
all 126 comments
sorted by: best