The Award For Worst Idea Ever Made on Cable News Goes To…Greg Gutfeld

On Tuesday’s episode of The Five, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld made a remark that was, by all accounts, meant to be a joke. The problem is, like so many of his attempts at edgy humor, this one wasn’t just tasteless — it was profoundly reckless.

While riffing on a segment about critics casually labeling conservatives as Nazis, Gutfeld launched into a bizarre monologue in which he suggested that right-wing Americans should follow the example of Black Americans who reclaimed the n-word. Gutfeld’s suggestion? Conservatives should start calling each other “my Nazi,” in order to strip the term of its power.

“This is why the criticism doesn’t matter to us when you call us Nazis,” he said, as his co-hosts chuckled. “Nazi this and Nazi that. You know, I’m beginning to think they don’t like us. You know what? I’ve said this before. We need to learn from the Blacks. The way they were able to remove the power from the n-word by using it. So, from now on, it’s, ‘What up, my Nazi? Hey, what up, my Nazi? Hey, what’s hanging, my Nazi?’”

The fellow panelists laughed. Gutfeld grinned. The “woke scold” social media aggregators were gobsmacked. And Gutfeld got the outrageous reaction his comments intended. But the show moved on, as if nothing wildly inappropriate had just occurred or no line had been crossed.

But let’s not move on so quickly.

Even allowing for the obvious: yes, Gutfeld was joking, yes, this is part of his performative contrarian schtick, and yes, his entire appeal rests on pushing buttons — this moment was uniquely revealing and arguably dangerous. It’s not just that the “joke” was clumsy, tasteless, or tone-deaf. It’s that it toyed with a word and an ideology that is rooted in genocide, war crimes, and white supremacist violence — and invited his audience to not just laugh along, but also join in and call each other “My Nazi.”

The comparison itself is absurd on its face. Black Americans didn’t “reclaim” the n-word casually or flippantly; the complex relationship to that word has been debated and dissected over decades, through music, literature, and cultural discourse. It is not a punchline — it is a process born of the generational trauma, resilience, and resistance to America’s original sin: slavery. To liken that to conservatives being called “Nazis” by progressives is not just intellectually lazy, it’s grotesquely trivializing.

And here’s where the real danger lies: Gutfeld is not just a court jester on a fringe network. He is, by some measures, one of the most-watched cable news hosts in the country. The Five is the top-rated cable news show and regularly pulls in millions of viewers, many of whom are older, pro-Trump, and less invested in the nuances of semiotics, irony, or postmodern deconstruction of slurs. When he jokingly proposes that conservatives start calling each other “my Nazi,” he’s not just trolling MSNBC viewers — he’s playing a risky game with language and identity politics that could easily be misunderstood or, worse, internalized. Reclaiming the meaning of the word Nazi to a conservative term of endearment undermines one of the darkest chapters in recent history.

This isn’t the first time Gutfeld has danced close to the fire. He’s made a career out of this kind of stunt — a faux-intellectual provocateur whose jokes often mask reactionary talking points. But when that shtick involves using the language of genocide as a punchline, it’s no longer just an edgy joke. It’s a normalization of rhetoric that should never be normalized. Or in other words, deeply irresponsible to the degree that it’s dangerous.

And yes, there’s a part of Gutfeld that delights in the backlash. This is, after all, his bread and butter: say something outrageous, get liberals to gasp, and then posture as the fearless truth-teller who “triggers the libs.” But just because a bad joke is designed to provoke doesn’t mean it deserves a free pass.

There’s also an unintentionally ironic layer here when viewed through the lens of Godwin’s Law — the long-standing internet adage that “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” In other words, whoever resorts to calling someone a Nazi first is the loser of the argument. That was the whole point: the Nazi comparison is so extreme, so historically loaded, that it signals rhetorical desperation.

So if Gutfeld is now suggesting that conservatives should embrace the label, jokingly or not, isn’t he tacitly conceding that they’ve lost the argument? If you’re proudly calling yourself the thing that the losing side is always accused of being, what exactly are you trying to win? Even as satire, the logic short-circuits. All we are left with is the conclusion that Gutfeld is not just a loser, but so too are those who will follow his bizarre Nazi lead.

Gutfeld’s intended irony is a poor excuse for an idea that collapses under its own incoherence. His so-called “joke” is also witless. His entire schtick is to say something in the syntax of a joke, pause and make a face to signal a laugh, then move on. He’s not funny. He’s a troll eager for attention.

It’s worth noting that Mike Godwin has since amended his rule to say it’s well within bounds for people to use the term to describe real Nazi-like behavior, in particular that which has come from President Donald Trump and his chief acolyte Stephen Miller.  In other words, not all use of the term is lazy or innacurate, according to Godwin.

Fox News has long leaned on its ability to mix news with entertainment. But when that entertainment involves joking about reclaiming the word “Nazi” — in the middle of a real-world resurgence in antisemitism and white nationalist violence — that’s not just a bad look. It’s a lapse in responsibility.

There’s a line between dark humor and dangerous trivialization. Greg Gutfeld crossed it. And millions were watching.

Watch above via Fox News.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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