By Erez Levin
When did it become socially acceptable to call everyday people Nazis?
There was a time, perhaps only 20 years ago, when if someone earnestly called a political opponent "Hitler," they wouldn’t have been scolded — they would have been laughed at. The response was usually a dismissive roll of the eyes: "Oh wow, you’re being dramatic." The consequence for the speaker was subtle but real: a minor loss of credibility in their ability to assess character and impact.
Parallel to this, the casual use of "bigot," "racist," and "sexist" has risen. What were once heavy, career-ending accusations reserved for clear acts of discrimination or hateful intent became common shorthand for any disagreement involving identity or social policy. The erosion of these taboos started with nuance. It began with comparisons — "slippery slope" arguments (á la Godwin's Law) that were easy to backpedal. Eventually, the slope gave way to a cliff; the "basically" dropped, the comparisons became identities, and the hyperbolic became the mundane.
My own experience with this trend began following the attacks on October 7th, 2023, and the reactions that celebrated or defended them in the U.S. Like many others, I felt a deep, moral disgust to those reactions, though I didn’t immediately understand it. It was only after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the subsequent celebrations of his murder, that I realized we were witnessing the collapse of our most essential taboos, and that society by and large was willing to hold the line when sufficient pressure was applied.
When I began arguing for a principled restoration of a "red line" against overt, hateful bigotry, I was often met with "whataboutism" regarding the "bigotry" of various politicians. It was through these conversations that I realized we have a structural problem: We have so over-inflated and cheapened our moral language that we can no longer distinguish between a crude provocation and a genuine existential threat.
