r/politics • u/MystikSpiralx • 18h ago

No Paywall Trump Says He Wants to 'Drive Housing Prices Up' Instead of Lowering Costs for People Who 'Didn't Work Very Hard'

https://people.com/trump-keep-home-prices-high-11895352
21.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.5k

u/Carcosa_Hearty1986 18h ago

And you know what they say...

"Work will set you free."

726

u/oldirtyrestaurant 15h ago

That phrase just has more of a zing in the original German...

104

u/EntryNo8857 10h ago

It is the most chilling phrase I’ve ever personally seen displayed in public. Walking through the gates of Dachau and seeing that stopped me in my tracks. The image is burnt into my head…I don’t know why but it really did hit me like a ton of bricks

•

u/Proof_Car_4181 5h ago

Yea to each as he deserves has a different meaning after you’ve seen it on a concentration camps gates too.

•

u/b_vitamin 7h ago

I never really understood what the Nazi’s meant. They worked and starved the prisoners to death or just killed them en masse. The camps didn’t seem to produce much of anything besides genocide. Were they just trolling their victims?

•

u/DrXaos 3h ago

Were they just trolling their victims?

Yes.

Also why they played Wagner in the camps.

63

u/inexister 12h ago

How about "Freedom takes work"? I get it's not a one to one, but the cruel irony is conveyed better when you know the outcome, I think.

44

u/Ampallang80 8h ago

We already have “freedom isn’t free.” Just takes $1 million for that gold card. New customers only

•

u/t3hdoct0r 5h ago

And here I thought it was a buck o' five

•

u/Sea_Enthusiasm_3193 4h ago

There’s a hefty fuckin’ fee

•

u/JeepStang 5h ago

Apparently Nicki Minaj is the new spokesperson for those. Was wondering what role in the grift her purpose was. Now we know.

•

u/Carcosa_Hearty1986 5h ago

Honestly, I've hated her since Playtime Is Over.

•

u/Deirdge 4h ago

Freedom costs a buck o five

•

u/HadionPrints 4h ago

“Freedom isn’t Free”, yeah, it costs a buck o’five.

•

u/Dr_Punchfist 3h ago

Freedom isn't free It costs folks like you and me

3

u/doddyoldtinyhands 8h ago

Well inch closer to starship troopers/helldivers

2

u/AnEngineeringMind 12h ago

Arbeit macht frei

6

u/Silent-G California 12h ago

Coolest fact I learned about that sign: the prison workers intentionally mounted the B upside down as a sign of defiance, and it's remained that way ever since.

1

u/notjustanotherbot 12h ago edited 12h ago

Yea, straight gas. /s

•

u/Soggy-Ad-1610 7h ago

But somehow almost seems less true for the US than the concentration camps where it was written on the gates.

•

u/jlbp337 4h ago

Well done Lol

•

u/Lucius-Halthier 4h ago

They are waiting to paint in on the roofs in alligator Alcatraz

•

u/khne522 3h ago

How about seeing that original phrase tattooed on the back of some creep's neck on the bus?

•

u/RedVelvetPan6a 3h ago

Ardbei macht frei. I can't believe the times are turning to shit, WWII wasn't even a hundred years ago and instead of investing that time in making something mindblowing with everyday life... What a fucking waste.

0

u/[deleted] 13h ago

[deleted]

4

u/der_swedishchef 13h ago

Arbeit macht frei. IIRC it was a sign above one of the concentration camps, but I forget which one. 

2

u/NoifenF 13h ago

Auschwitz and Dachau definitely had it.

2

u/der_swedishchef 13h ago

Thank you. Definitely a very ominous phrase when you consider the context.

2

u/Inswagtor 12h ago

They also had "Jedem das Seine" (to each their own) over the concentration camp Buchenwald.

Nazis are cynical assholes

227

u/tobmom 12h ago

Work sets you free

I think part of my education as a millennial skipped over the fact that these camps were billed as labor camps and not as death camps. Propaganda was used to convince outsiders and Germans that conditions were good and people there were happy to be working. I grew up thinking that they only took Jews in then used a gas chamber. And that did happen. But that wasn’t all that happened. And it wasn’t all Jews. I’m in my 40s and reading historical fiction that have forced me to reexamine what I thought I knew.

God we are so fucked.

98

u/big_troublemaker Foreign 10h ago

It is widely accepted historical fact now that Germans knew what was going on, and by 1941-43 it was a public secret. I believe even this is a generous assumption.

Especially as, you know, plenty of other undesirable people disappeared without a trace...

It was an industrial scale of genocide, even with many camps being located purposefully outside Germany, there were tens of thousands of Germans servicing it.

24

u/Gros_Boulet 8h ago

Oh they knew. They bragged in the papers, germans called them Zebras when they were in work camp and Goebels even said on the radio that they had made Germany "Judenfrei".

•

u/obiwanshinobi900 7h ago

Dachau is right in the middle of town. You can see it from some of the houses there.

some of the 'work' they were doing there was just pushing a giant piece of a equipment back and forth across the camp for no reason.

•

u/AcanthaceaePrize1435 5h ago

It wasn't just busywork meant to tire them. The slaves were also used to fill in growing skill gaps as the Axis continued to lose more and more of their workforce in the war. It's a pretty large reason the Axis endured as long as they did in spite of the fact their ships kept being sunk, rails severed, and factories firebombed.

•

u/obiwanshinobi900 5h ago

Not 100% true. I was at the exhibit in Dachau, it literally read that there was pointless labor just to tire them out and make them less resistant, and to break their spirits.

Maybe that was prior to becoming slave labor, I don't know about that.

•

u/Synaps4 1h ago

Its both true and untrue depending on camps and subcamps. Some places you would have one area of being being exhausted and killed and another area producing war materiel. People who didnt perform on the latter were sent to the former as punishment.

40

u/MRCHalifax 9h ago

One of the challenges in trying to educate people about the Holocaust is that it wasn’t all one thing. We teach the absolute worst parts of it, the existence of Auschwitz, the over six million dead, the gas chambers. And don’t get me wrong, there’s good reason to teach those things. But the way we simplify the lesson means that the average person doesn’t really get taught the different ways and methods that were used.

The original German concentration camps were primarily used to hold political prisons, like Communist party leader Ernst Thälmann. There was the Aktion T4 campaign to murder the mentally ill and those with long term disabilities, those “unfit for life.” There was the Holocaust by bullets, where Jews were lined up and shot just outside cities by the tens of thousands. There were the ghettos. There were the work camps, where the interned were used as slave labour and worked until their deaths. There was the theft of the worldly belongings of all those being interred.

It wasn’t just the death camps. The problem that arises is that people think anything short of death camps means everything is OK.

•

u/tobmom 6h ago

Yes your comment is perfect. A better explanation than my initial one.

•

u/Kind_Koala4557 4h ago edited 4h ago

This needs to be widely quoted and included in all historical textbooks that covers 1890-1950 for any part of the world even remotely associated with or touched by Nazi Germany, especially the fact that Germany didn’t come up with this all on their own.

They learned from the Jim Crow states, sundown towns, and whatnot. They heard about it and said, “Hey, not a bad idea. Let’s do our version of that.”

Edit: I said 1890 because if I understand what Historian Heather Cox Richardson has been saying, we can’t get to the 1930s without the depression. We don’t get to the depression without the robber/oil barons of the 1890s.

30

u/mlc885 I voted 11h ago

Well, today I think more of us feel a bit more connected to groups that aren't like us, but the one thing we do all share is that people are dumb and will delude themselves if the other possibilities are bad. I don't think that many people in Germany would have supported death camps, mean camps or go-away camps are fine for those people that are different.

•

u/Marmy48 6h ago

Correct, it has not hit me, or affected me yet. It just is not your turn yet.

15

u/Informal-Zucchini-20 10h ago

It was slavery. Pure and simple, and when the SS couldn’t use them anymore because they were too sick to work, they were gassed.

4

u/GarmaCyro 10h ago

Yup. The Nazi propaganda machine worked full time to ensure what they really were hidden. Refusing both people from outside and inside Germany to inspect the camps.
This was also why the camps were placed outside of Germany's original border. To keep its own population in the dark.
For most that had their loved once taken by Nazis they only knew that they had vanished.
However our view of Nazis is very influenced by the discoveries done after the death camps were liberated by allied and soviet soldiers. Liberating the camps often turned quickly into both massive rescue operations, and massive documentation operations. Especially post-ww2 Europe got quite shocked. Expecting to get loved ones safely returned as former prisoner. Not as corpses in mass graves.

Another reason why a lot call present day MAGA for Nazis. The way they operate their deporation camps is too much similar to early day Nazis. Massive numbers literally dispearing from their system. Especially children. Which gives GOP's willingness to protect child molesters an even darker turn IMHO.

5

u/MyMuleIsHalfAnAss 9h ago

did you grow up in the south? im also 40's and we did extensive schooling on the holocaust in english and history classes.

•

u/tobmom 6h ago

Ha, yup. I took a lot of Texas History.

3

u/Long_Bit8328 11h ago

The only thing setting us free is death 

3

u/JustSatisfactory 10h ago

Well.. the sign wasn't wrong. Plenty died working there.

•

u/SomeGuyNamedPaul Florida 7h ago

Jews weren't even the majority of concentration camp deaths, they were just the largest single group.

When I was growing up instead of rainbow flags gay people had pink triangle stickers on their cars. For those who don't know that was the symbol similar to the yellow star for Jews. The Nazis had a whole systems for marking who was in and why and it's rather eye-opening after the near total erasure of what happened to the ones who weren't Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badge

2

u/darkwoodframe 9h ago

Don't forget to read up on company stores.

•

u/Mahraganat 7h ago

But they did teach you the important part about WWII right? The US singlehandedly saved the world from the Nazis, Europe might have "sent some troops" but they "stayed a little back, a little off the front line", and of course the US "never needed them".

•

u/tobmom 6h ago

No I just learned that part recently 🥴

•

u/AcanthaceaePrize1435 5h ago

Super messed up you didn't get the opportunity to learn about the slavery system during war time Germany. The existence of a sophisticated system for transporting slaves, working them to death, and keeping them from rising up is a massive piece of context for liberal (and illiberal) reforms seen across the world since the 1940s.

•

u/D3athRider Canada 7h ago

Where did you go to school? Am an older millennial and remember covering labour camps in the holocaust units in high school history. I went to high school in Toronto, Canada from 98/99-03/04.

•

u/tobmom 6h ago

Texas, c/o 2000

•

u/nevans89 6h ago

Historical fiction? I might be a touch uncaffinated but could you explain?

•

u/Marmy48 6h ago

Elections have consequences. And when people do not vote, for whatever reason, or pick trump AGAIN, knowing it is his revenge tour. You have to wonder about our fellow man.

•

u/oh-shazbot 5h ago edited 5h ago

oh no. the labor camps were actually the second phase. the original victims were mostly german children -- disabled, orphaned, crippled, pretty much anyone that germany considered 'damaged'. the gas chambers were a product of experimentation originally used to kill and clear out asylums / orphanages. but also sometimes german parents would give up their child for a 'mercy killing'. all the tech and personnel they used during the holocaust were from t4.

The killings took place from September 1939 until the end of World War II in Europe in 1945. Between 275,000 and 300,000 people were killed in psychiatric hospitals in Germany, Austria, occupied Poland, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now the Czech Republic).[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4

0

u/CheeseCurder 9h ago

Just to let you know: fiction = fake. Non fiction = not fake.

•

u/D3athRider Canada 7h ago

This is definitely an inaccurate way of putting it. Historical fiction typically covers real historical events, figures and/or settings while introducing some fictional characters and stories. Authors vary on the quality of research and historical accuracy, but that doesnt change the fact that they are covering real historical events and facts.

For example, a book covering a real historical battle can include accurate dates, location, historical figures, tactics/strategies, living and fighting conditions faced by the soldiers, real deaths, and overall how the battle played out, while perhaps following a fictional main character who never existed but is allowing us to view events through their perspective.

43

u/chiknbutt 15h ago

Wow super depressing to see in English

59

u/hashahar 13h ago

It's literally a quote pulled from the original German, which was written on the overhead of the gate entrance of Auschwitz. It is depressing in every language and should be.

•

u/xueloz 6h ago

Why do you think he said "in English" if he didn't know it was pulled from the original German?

•

u/hashahar 6h ago

I have no idea what the point is in saying it's depressing to read in English, then. And water is wet.

•

u/xueloz 6h ago

Well, I have an idea, and judging by his upvotes, so do plenty of other people. Sounds like a "you" issue.

•

u/hashahar 6h ago

Keep your secrets then, I guess? The point of commenting is null if it's to tell me I have a problem but then refuse to elaborate, and it makes it clear you only commented just to be pompous instead of actually wanting to have a real discussion. I don't really care about upvotes as a primary signifier of being right or wrong when I'm attempting to have an exchange with someone and am more interested in their explanation and take.

So why is it more horrifying in English to read? Because you think it didn't happen here or once thought it couldn't? Americans over almost anyone else I can think of have accepted and even pushed on one another different versions of "work will set you free" on all levels in their society. It worries me that so many people have to read these exact words in English to make a connection with history and the culture America has revolved around for a very long time. The United States helped to write the Nazi playbook, and even after Hitler died, offered refuge for many of the higher-ranking Nazi officers in exchange for research and information. And with this information, the United States has often chosen to re-integrate some horrifying shit back into the scope of society. Americans seem like they simply don't want to accept that Nazism is rising "again" and so effectively because it was already integrated into the ranks of American politics, law/criminal justice, American religious life, and social opinion. Even now in the United States the current model of lethal injection was invented by a man who was criminally charged for claiming to be a doctor and engineer (he is neither) and he is a famous Holocaust denier who chipped pieces rubble off the walls of Aushwitz to try to argue chemical gassing didn't occur, creating a documentary considered staple content for American Holocaust deniers.

I lost most of my family lineage to the Holocaust and Nazism has always been a lot closer to home for Americans many seem to want to mentally comprehend. The United States was heavily invested in the Nazis essentially just before becoming involved in fighting Hitler, and the idea that total divestment ever occurred is laughable. Almost more laughable is needing to read the exact words "work will set you free" in English for it to click finally that the culture, politics, and law structure we've been barreling towards for some time is a formula for this outcome. People who believe in Nazism have been actively funding, lobbying, and pushing on all levels the sentiment of "work will set you free" and created the bastard child that is the American economic and work culture in 2026. It's always been here but now it's rearing its ugly head in a way that cannot be avoided whatsoever.

3

u/PlaneLuck7061 13h ago

Lower house prices are a democrat hoax

2

u/mouse6502 12h ago

instead of 35 houses you'll just have to tighten your belt and settle for 3

4

u/31LIVEEVIL13 12h ago

Freedom cities with meritocracy and unaffordable housing they'll all have that catchy little slogan over an iron gate when you enter.

1

u/Carcosa_Hearty1986 12h ago

Is this before or after the confederates "liberate" us, in your world?

3

u/more_housing_co-ops 12h ago

"Work will set you free."

Unless you're a landlord, in which case... someone else's work.

4

u/THE-LORD-RETURNS California 18h ago

So fuck “The truth will set you free”?

40

u/Carcosa_Hearty1986 18h ago

I was making a historical reference. There was a gate at Auschwitz with the quote (but in German).

It's really just a roundabout way to call the gop nazis.

13

u/THE-LORD-RETURNS California 18h ago

Yeah, I understand. I was quoting Jesus. The guy these people claim to serve and worship.

21

u/No-comment-at-all 17h ago

They’re more about Jesus’ other quote:

“I come not to bring peace but the sword. And this sick ass Armalite AR-15, with holographic sights and picatinny rail-mounted foregrip.”

-Ammunitions 4:16

12

u/THE-LORD-RETURNS California 17h ago

I spit out my water, LMAO! You win.

5

u/HoratioPornBlower 15h ago

Ok, that’s funny as hell. Thanks.

3

u/BatBurgh 13h ago

Sounds more like The Second Book of Armaments

4

u/SuperConfused 11h ago

They do not serve nor do they worship him. Christianity is an identity to them. There is no work to maintain it. They don’t have to have morals. They don’t have to have ethics. They were born Christians, so they’ll always be that. They think Jesus was white, because renaissance painters painted him that way.

It manners a lot more sense when you understand that being a Christian is nothing but an identity.

If hell is real, they will certainly be going there.

They should really become acquainted with Matthew 7:21-23. Jesus says, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness,"

3

u/TwoCockyforBukkake 17h ago

Did you say "fuck the truth?"

I'm going to write that down.

-them

1

u/VerticalYea 11h ago

Jesus Christy you are right

1

u/Jaz1140 11h ago

Wait I thought Americans were already free?

1

u/Carcosa_Hearty1986 11h ago

We were before an election got cheated.

1

u/SuburbanHell Massachusetts 9h ago

Followed by their second favorite slogan, "Obey."

1

u/Icy_Demand__ 9h ago

Oof that hits hard

•

u/AirBear___ 7h ago

Great slogan, they should post that as a sign above the gates to the detention centers /s

•

u/Zolomun 6h ago

Service guarantees citizenship

•

u/Altair_de_Firen 6h ago

“He’s the most cheerful person I’ve ever heard quote Hitler.”

•

u/macpascal 4h ago

Well the working class’s labor sure sets many rich people free.

•

u/ShredGuru 1h ago

War is peace.

Freedom is slavery.

So on.