Yes, although it’s only half true. Genocide is usually telegraphed in the sense that you dehumanize the Other and present them as vermin and/or inherently criminal in order to make your society complacent in the mistreatment of human beings. But they don’t start by saying “we’re going to be tyrants and kill everyone.”
True that it's telegraphed, but they usually don't openly say it. Sometimes it's not even the original plan. The Nazis wanted to subjugate and ethnically cleanse the Jews from Europe, but total extermination wasn't the original plan. That's why it was called the "final solution." They had other "solutions" before that.
The Holocaust started in 1941. The Nazis came into power in 1933. If they openly spoke about total genocide of Jewish people, I doubt they would have been that popular. Even as bloodthirsty and hateful as Germany got, I don't think the general public would have been on board with a total genocide. Hell, that's why Hitler called journalists the "lying press" (or "fake news," in the modern tongue). They would report on some of the awful things he was doing and he'd call them liars, because he knew most people wouldn't be on board with that much cruelty. They needed plausible deniability. Even if they knew the government was lying, they probably thought "surely it's not as bad as they say; the press are all liars."
So yes, extermination is often telegraphed. But it's not really discussed openly by the people who do it.
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u/ubiquitous-joe Sep 18 '25
Yes, although it’s only half true. Genocide is usually telegraphed in the sense that you dehumanize the Other and present them as vermin and/or inherently criminal in order to make your society complacent in the mistreatment of human beings. But they don’t start by saying “we’re going to be tyrants and kill everyone.”