There are certainly a lot of people on here who are very keen to point out that the Nazis aren't that bad because [bullshit reasons], yes.
But surely no one is arguing "Nazis aren't bad" on HN?
If your first instinct is to minimise the Nazis (historical or new) by way of comparison to [anything else], then yeah, I would say they're arguing exactly that.
If they are fair then it's just equivalence, not false equivalence. I feel like this has become the new vogue term thrown around since Charlottesville happened, and it's seeing a lot of misuse. Most people don't even bother to explain why the equivalence is false, thus attempting to shut down the conversation in the manner of the fallacy fallacy.
> If they are fair then it's just equivalence, not false equivalence.
I think you are misparsing my statement. The "and" separates two sub-statements:
1) I see lots of false equivalence arguments,
and, additionally
2) I see lots of (possibly fair, possibly not) criticisms of political violence from left-leaning groups
It seems to me that "I condemn Nazis and the KKK" is pretty much a "motherhood"[1] statement and you'd have to be pretty extreme not to make it. Even Jeff Sessions condemned it, and many of those on the left consider him a complete bogeyman.
So while increased polarization might be a problem in US politics, I'm not at all sure we can see that here.
Edit: And who on earth downvotes a comment like this? I don't need to complain about downvotes, but what on earth are people thinking here? Is it people who support Nazis who downvote this, or is there some subtle point here I'm missing?
[1] Motherhood statements are those statements that politicians make that "everyone" agrees with; eg "I think motherhood is great"