Who Went COVID Nazi?

Ever Wondered Who Would Have Worn a Black or Brown Shirt?

In 1941, Dorothy Thompson wrote an essay for Harper’s: “Who Goes Nazi?” Based on her recent experience in Europe, Thompson cited a series of fictional people representing different “types” and weighed up whether they would “go Nazi”; that is, whether they would support an authoritarian political movement despite not subscribing to its ideology.

Well, here in Australia, we don't have to play a parlor game: we have seen for ourselves repeatedly over the last five years. Most especially during the Covid pandemic.

As Thompson wrote, we “have come to know the types”, and they have nothing to do with race and nationality. Authoritarianism, instead, “appeals to a certain type of mind”.

Here they are, in descending order…

The Opportunistic Dictator

For political leaders, the Wuhan pandemic was variously a blessing or a curse, depending on their natural inclination. The more dictatorial a leader’s natural bent, the greater a blessing the pandemic has proven. The born dictators rose with alacrity to the pandemic opportunity.

“Dictator Dan” Andrews, Victorian state premier, was the most obvious example of the Opportunistic Dictator. Even watching the sunset was verboten, the premier sternly finger-wagged. His counterparts in WA and Queensland were no better. Mark McGowan in WA used the pandemic to exempt himself from either parliamentary scrutiny or legal liability. Annastacia Palaszczuk ruled Queensland’s borders with an iron grip that would make the Stasi blush. Even pregnant women just across the border were forced to travel hours to Sydney for emergency treatment because, Palaszczuk ruled, “Queensland hospitals are for Queenslanders”.

But not all dictators were so obviously brutal. Running a cult of personality that would make Stalin green with envy, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern wielded “kindness” as a crushing boot-heel. New Zealanders came under stifling lockdowns, with Ardern cheer-squadded by go-to “expert advisers”.

Which brings us to…

The Public Health Trougher

Public health has long been the remit of those who lack the personality to be a practicing doctor or the superficial charm necessary to a politician, and who possess the soul of an Excel spreadsheet. For a long time these miserable bureaucrats were confined to building their little empires, squirreled away in the troughacracies of the public service.

But Covid gifted them power beyond their wildest dreams. From the grey anonymity of lobbying for “sugar taxes” or expanding non-smoking areas, the Public Health Trougher suddenly found him or her-self virtually a rock-star-cum-god. Not only did they get to tell us ordinary plebs when we could work, shop, exercise, or even talk to our neighbors, they got to wag their fingers at us from a daily, televised bully-pulpit.

All in all, the Public Health Trougher combines the charm and warmth of Heinrich Himmler with the ego of Kanye West.

The Boot-Boy-in-Blue

Where the Opportunistic Dictator and the Public Health Trougher rose to the occasion of Covid to maximise their power, the Boot-Boy-in-Blue simultaneously bore them up and yapped at their heels. We’re all familiar with the type. C. S. Lewis described them perfectly: “not one of Them…but one of their hangers-on and tale-bearers”. He might have added, “and enablers”.

After all, the Little Hitlers of the pandemic would have been nothing without their enforcers. They could pass all the mask mandates they like, but without the Boot-Boy-in-Blue to slam dissenters’ heads on the pavement, they would have been nothing.

It’s a symbiosis, of course. The more the Boot-Boys enabled the Little Hitlers, the more state muscle they got to flex themselves. Under a lockdown or “state of emergency”, we must respect their authoritah, show our papers and keep our masks firmly in place — or else.

The Mask Karen

Just as the Boot-Boy enabled the Dictator and the Trougher while simultaneously basking in the shadow of their power, the Mask Karen was the enabler-cum-shadow of the Boot-Boys.

The classic Karen is, of course, the middle-aged, bourgeois woman who demands to “see your manager”. The Mask Karen possesses all the busy-bodying, bullying nature of the Classic Karen, but can come in any form or sex. From the burly halfwit in a high-vis vest to the nosey-parker clutching her shopping trolley and speed-dialling the government’s dedicated snitch-line.

Because the defining characteristic above all others of the Mask Karen is that they are a born snitch. The Mask Karen can no more mind their own business than a Boot-Boy can refrain from flexing their power.

The Vaxhole

If you felt compelled to update your social media profile pic with a little badge declaring that you are “fully vaccinated”, or worse, if you felt compelled to post of photo of yourself “getting my jab!”, then you are a Vaxhole. Extra Vaxhole points if you were giving the thumbs-up in said “jab” photo.

A Vaxhole is the passive-aggressive version of the previous Covid Nazis. Lacking the guts to snitch on others, or the power to cuff them on a whim, the Vaxhole settled for intentionally bragging about their vaccination status in order to signal to others their moral superiority. The Vaxhole craved a “vaccine passport”, less for the “freedoms” that the Opportunistic Dictators and their minions patted them on the head with, than for the simple fact that they could gloat about how they had one.

The Self-Righteous Anti-Anti-Vaxxer

The Self-Righteous Anti-Anti-Vaxxer is a singularly odious offspring of the Mask Karen and the Vaxhole, with a soupçon of the Porch Atheist.

Like the Internet Atheist and the Anti-Flat-Earther, the Anti-Anti-Vaxxer takes what might be an otherwise reasonable proposition — that anti-vaxxers (genuine anti-vaxxers, as opposed to those merely cautious about the still-experimental Covid vaccines) are a bit silly — and ramped it up to a vicious crusade.

The Anti-Anti-Vaxxer is essentially a Witch-Hunter with an internet connection. Most mediaeval villagers would have agreed that witches were bad sorts, but it took a Witch-Hunter to whip up a mob and strap Old Mother Ploppy to the ducking-stool.

Similarly, the Self-Righteous Anti-Anti-Vaxxer couldn’t stop at just agreeing that anti-vaxxers are silly. There they were, whipping themselves into a frenzy of self-righteous condemnation in the Comments section, or telling anyone who’d listen on social media how anti-vaxxers are vermin, scum, plague rats who endanger the whole of society.

Which, incidentally, is exactly the violent, dehumanising language that preceded nearly every genocide and lynch-mob.

The Obedient Memer

Finally, we arrive at perhaps the most innocuous, though no less annoying, Covid Nazi: the Obedient Memer.

The Obedient Memer flooded your social media feed with garish injunctions to “Stay Home — It Might Save Lives!” and declarations that “It’s not ‘curfew’, it’s ‘Care-For-You’!”

But, while the Obedient Memer may be more innocuous than the Opportunistic Dictator, in their own small, petty way, they were just as dangerous. Because the latter could not exist without the sheep-like obedience of the former. The Obedient Memer might not have carried a torch at the Party rally, but they would certainly have told anyone who listened about how Il Duce made the trains run on time.

So, if you’ve ever wondered which of your friends or neighbors would have been the ones to don a brown or black shirt in the 1920s, watch how they reacted to the Wuhan pandemic.