Another Wrong WND Columnist

Hanne Nabintu Herland has distinguished herself as a WorldNetDaily columnist by being a shill for Russia and Vladimir Putin and getting facts wrong about things like the nature of Nazism.

Hanne Nabintu Herland is a right-wing Norwegian who was born and grew up in Africa, where her parents worked for UNESCO (which explains her middle name, though you’d think she would be ashamed of its African link as she became the kind of right-winger who normally disdains all things African). As a WorldNetDaily columnist, Herland made her name as a booster of Vladimir Putin and an apologist for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and she servdd up more fealty to Russia by touting Putin’s favorite philosopher in a September 2022 column:

The murder last month of Russian journalist Darya Dugina has brought international attention to her influential father, the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. As the car bomb that killed her apparently was meant for her father, many read up on who Alexander Dugin is. Why is he considered so dangerous in the West and hailed as such a hero in the East?

As it turns out, Dugin is Russia’s strongest critic of the ideology of globalism, or what he calls liberal totalitarianism. He says that the post-Cold War idea that Western liberalism represents “the end of history” is a very premature assumption.

[…]

Then, says Alexander Dugin: “Russia under Putin became an obvious obstacle to the end of history, and after the start of the New World Order, it completely challenged this project. Hence Fukuyama’s fury: Before his eyes, the project for the end of history was not only postponed, but completely collapsed.”

In trying to whitewash Dugin, Herland is obscuring certain relevant facts, as a more trustworthy media outlet reported:

Dugin helped revive the expression “Novorossiya” or New Russia – which included the territories of parts of Ukraine – before the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin used the word in declaring Crimea part of Russia in March of that year.

Dugin has long had a visceral loathing of Ukrainians resisting assimilation into “mother Russia.” After dozens of pro-Russian protesters were killed during clashes in Odesa in May 2014, he said: “Ukraine has to be either vanished from Earth and rebuilt from scratch or people need to get it. I think people in Ukraine need total revolt on all levels and in all regions. An armed revolt against junta. Not only in the South-East.

“I think kill, kill and kill. No more talk anymore. It is my opinion as a professor,” he said.

[…]

The work that propelled Dugin to prominence was the “Foundations of Geopolitics” in 1997, in which he set out his vision of a Eurasian empire, stretching from Dublin to Vladivostok. The book advocated sowing instability and dissent in the United States – a pre-echo of the disinformation campaign around the 2016 US election.

The word “Ukraine” did not appear once in Herland’s column, let alone that his philosophy is rabidly anti-Ukrainian. Instead, she concluded by singing the praises of Mother Russia:

The restoration of the sovereignty of the nation state of Russia, the national control over its coveted natural resources and richness in commodities, the revival of its cultural Orthodox history and traditional value system, strengthening the self-awareness of Russians in general, its denial of the Western atheist liberalism – all this represents currents that push for a multi-polar world. A new phase of history has begun, Dugin writes. The future will show if he is right.

Herland’s silence on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine shows that she doesn’t want it to interfere with her vision of Russia’s future.

Herland slobbered over Dugin again in a May 2024 column:

The most famous political philosopher in Russia, anti-communist, anti-Marxist Aleksandr Dugin, who recently gave an interview to Tucker Carlson, is well-known for pointing out that modern liberalism is the third wave of totalitarianism. Rather than ending totalitarianism, modern socialist liberalism, which developed with the rise of socialist movements that strongly opposed traditional values in the 20th century, continues the repression found in classic totalitarianism.

In the 20th century, the Soviet communist empire created poverty, repression and a destitute population; and the fascist system fueled hatred between ethnic groups and actively persecuted those that did not comply with its state narrative. In both waves of totalitarianism, exemplified by the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and the German NAZI (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) the media were used as a repressive propaganda tool to create fear and push the desired public compliance that benefited the elites.

We’ve previously caught Herland pushing the false narrative that the Nazis were socialist because the word “socialist” appears in the party’s name. Rather than admit that Putin’s Russia has a massive propaganda operation, she once again helped Dugin defend Russia’s war against Ukraine:

Claiming that fascism is an inherent part of Western liberalism, Dr. Dugin argues that the idea that “everyone must become like us” is a fascist credo. This is a Western movement that is highly influenced by the same Marxist-socialist dominated Soviet and NAZI systems. After 1991, this form of liberalism defeated communism and fascism and has become the only dominant system until the rise of multipolarity, accelerated by the economic effects of especially the Ukraine war.

Of course, one way to avoid the “economic effects” of the Ukraine war is for Russia to stop waging it. Rather than positing that simple idea, Herland lavished even more praise on Dugin:

Alexandr Dugin has been an very influential voice pushing for religious values in Russia, a nation that today is comprised of more than 70% traditional Christians. His 1997 book “Foundations of Geopolitics” (his books are forbidden on liberal Amazon) outlines how Russia could regain its international influence through alliances and conquests, defining the need for a specific national identity based on the Christian roots Russia left during its Soviet era. Needless to say, Dugin is like so many other conservatives demonized across the hedonist, liberal West.

He definitely comes across as a stern anti-globalist, critically defining Western liberalism by its eurocentric and thereby racially determined view that classic Anglo-Saxon societies are the standard measure that the rest of humanity should copy and embrace. This ideal leads naturally to a one-world globalist goal where human beings are all essentially the same with only one distinction, namely their individual nature. Consequently, the world should forcefully be integrated on the basis of individual world citizenship and ruled by the atheist, Western liberal narrative.

She even praised Carlson’s softball questions to Dugin:

When Tucker Carlson questions why the West seems to be on such a self-destructive path of division and internal hatred between sub-groups in society, Dugin states it began with the enlightenment concept of individualism, which is the wrong understanding of human nature. The doctrine of individualism cuts the relations to everything else and implies the liberation of the individual from any kind of collective identity. Man exists alone, liberated from any collective identity that transcends the individual, split off from the moral obligations to others. The individualism in modern liberalism thereby ends up fueling the nihilist breaking up of collective identities such as the unified church, empire as collective identity, the nation state, the family, gender and ultimately, the human identity. What lies ahead is a dark, dystopian future.

The reality of that interview, however, is that Carlson served as a willing stooge for Dugin, letting him spout his alleged concern for traditional values while simply nodding along and refusing to ask challenging question. Even though Dugin is a rabid Putin supporter and apologist, Herland didn’t mention Putin once in her column.

All of this, of course, makes Herland a Putin stooge as well.

Wrong about Nazis

Herland also has a habit of getting stuff wrong so it doesn’t clash with her right-wing ideology. She invoked Kanye West’s anti-Semitism to try to reinforce a right-wing narrative in a December 2022 column:

The famous musician Kanye West recently declared his admiration for Adolf Hitler in an interview with Alex Jones. West said he sees “redeeming qualities” in the Nazi dictator. And of late, the entertainer has expressed anger toward Jewish Hollywood leaders and Jews in general.

So, what did Hitler stand for? Elitist nationalism coupled with socialism was the national socialism ideology that dominated the German democracy prior to World War II. NAZI is the abbreviation for “Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,” namely the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The name itself declares it a socialist movement.

The Nazi party stood for strong centralization of government, a rigid culture of consensus, few individual liberties, strict media censorship and propaganda. Simply by observing the old photographs of the multitudes greeting Hitler with Nazi salutes, one gets a glimpse into the immense group-think social pressure. You were not allowed to keep your hand down. Everyone was to have the same political opinion; the only accepted view was that of the ruling Nazi elites.

Today, few seem to recall that the Nazi party was left-wing socialism. Among many, author Jonah Goldberg has pointed this out in his book “Liberal Fascism.”

Yeah, no. Even though right-wingers insist on portraying the Nazi movement as “socialist” as a way to own the libs, that’s not even close to being historically accurate. As researcher Ronald Granieri pointed out:

Although the Nazis did pursue a level of government intervention in the economy that would shock doctrinaire free marketeers, their “socialism” was at best a secondary element in their appeal. Indeed, most supporters of Nazism embraced the party precisely because they saw it as an enemy of and an alternative to the political left. A closer look at the connection between Nazism and socialism can help us better understand both ideologies in their historical contexts and their significance for contemporary politics.

The Nazi regime had little to do with socialism, despite it being prominently included in the name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The NSDAP, from Hitler on down, struggled with the political implications of having socialism in the party name. Some early Nazi leaders, such as Gregor and Otto Strasser, appealed to working-class resentments, hoping to wean German workers away from their attachment to existing socialist and communist parties. The NSDAP’s 1920 party program, the 25 points, included passages denouncing banks, department stores and “interest slavery,” which suggested a quasi-Marxist rejection of free markets. But these were also typical criticisms in the anti-Semitic playbook, which provided a clue that the party’s overriding ideological goal wasn’t a fundamental challenge to private property.

Instead of controlling the means of production or redistributing wealth to build a utopian society, the Nazis focused on safeguarding a social and racial hierarchy. They promised solidarity for members of the Volksgemeinschaft (“racial community”) even as they denied rights to those outside the charmed circle.

Granieri went on to describe what Herland and others are doing in perpetuating this false claim “historical ‘gotcha'” as well as “historical and political sophistry that attempts to turn effect into cause and victim into victimizer.”

(Also, contrary to Goldberg’s book title, fascism is not liberal.)

Oddly, even though West’s anti-Semitism was the jumping-off point for her column, Herland never actually criticizes West, referencing him again only at the end while trying to reinforce her bogus narrative: “It has been quite an accomplishment by the left to hide the fact that Hitler was socialist. Therefore, what exactly Kanye West means by offering his admiration for this man remains to be explained.”

Herland was at it again in a March 2024 column:

Today, few seem to recall that it was German elitist nationalism coupled with socialism that became the National Socialism ideology that dominated Germany prior to World War II. NAZI is the abbreviation for “Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei,” the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Communism, socialism and National Socialism were all a part of the same root-ideology – Marxism.

The Nazi Party stood for precisely what we struggle with in the West today: A strong centralization of government power, a rigid culture of consensus, censored individual liberties, repression of free speech and brutal media censorship. There is a frightening unison in the media narrative that prescribes what people are to think and feel about almost every topic.

Herland is lying. As we pointed out last time she did this, actual historians and researchers know that socialism played a negligible role in Nazi Germany, which was an enemy to actual socialism and communism. As researcher researcher Ronald Granieri pointed out, this false claim is nothing but “historical ‘gotcha’” as well as “historical and political sophistry that attempts to turn effect into cause and victim into victimizer.”

Herland spent the rest of her column trying to force historian Hannah Arendt into her false framing, touting how she “viewed National Socialism and Communism in the Soviet Union as two sides of one ideological Marxist coin.” But as Granieri also noted, the linking of Nazism and socialism by Arendt and others is largely a product of Cold War politics rather than being based in historical reality. Herland also misleadingly called Arendt “a Holocaust survivor”; in fact, she and her mother fled Germany in 1933.

More stuff wrong

Herland claimed in a June 2021 column:

The authoritarian Communist leader Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, is currently quoted again and again in President Joe Biden’s speeches. “Mao qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history,” says Frank Dikötter, an expert with unprecedented access to the Communist Party archives.

Dikötter explains in his book, “Mao’s Great Famine: The Story of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe,” that around 45 million people were starved, beaten to death or killed in prison camps in China between 1958-1962. Bear in mind that the death toll from World War II was around 55 million. The Hong Kong-based historian said he found that during the time Mao was enforcing the Great Leap Forward in 1958, in an effort to catch up with the economy of the Western world, he was responsible for overseeing “one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known.”

[…]

Since President Biden keeps quoting the Communist leader, one may humbly assume that Biden respects Mao and endorses his work, or else he would obviously not repeatedly have referred to the authoritarian leader. Black Lives Matter openly endorses atheist Marxism and the U.S. university systems are now being modeled after the same revolutionary thought. Let us therefore take a quick look at who Mao Zedong was.

This is a highly misleading — not to mention dumb — attack on Biden. Despite Herland’s insistence that Mao has been “quoted again and again” by Biden, she offers no evidence that he has used multiple Mao quotes. In fact, all he has done is on several occasions use the phrase “women hold up half the sky.” The phrase is actually older than Mao, though Mao popularized it, and there’s nothing inherently communist or evil in the phrase.

Nevertheless, Herland spent the rest of her column rehashing Mao’s history for shock value, then concluded: “The fact that Biden gladly and repeatedly quotes Mao speaks volumes.” No, it doesn’t, and all the right-wing ranting in the world will not make that happen.

A May 2023 column by Herland started with nonsensical ranting about how America is purportedly turning into Soviet Russia:

The rise of totalitarianism in modern societies happens in nations where Marxism first is infused into society. It is a must to create Marxist repressive revolutions that bring fear and terror into the population and thereby silence political opposition in order to fundamentally alter the whole culture and the social fabric of the nation.

It is the fruits of Marxism that over time change the population from being independent thinkers with individual rights protected by a conservative Constitution to becoming subordinate, groupthink, indoctrinated communities full of fear of the government.

But then she served up this claim:

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi summed this strategy up as she on tape explained how Democrats smear their opponents with falsehood and lies. She states: “You demonize, it is called the Wrap Up Smear. You smear somebody, with falsehoods and all the rest. Then you merchandize it, you write it and say, ‘It is reported in the press’ this and this, so you have the validation that the press reported the smear. That’s what’s called a Wrap Up Smear. So, we merchandize what the press has reported on the smear that we made. It is a tactic.” Pelosi is among the long lines of Americans who fell for the neo-Marxist deception, and to use Vladimir Lenin’s often attributed term, have become very “useful idiots.”

But according to a fact-checker, Pelosi was describing how Republicans smear their opponents, not “explaining” what Democrats do. Herland is taking her words out of context and misrepresenting their meaning.

Looks like the one who’s acting a bit Soviet here — and serving as a useful idiot — is Herland.Ironic, given that we’ve previously caught Herland acting as a useful idiot for Vladimir Putin, whose authoritarianism is very Soviet while under acting the guise of what she insisted was a “traditionalist, religion-friendly, capitalist society.”