This week in Nazism

Depeche Mode has just been declared the “official band of the alt-right”

Further evidence that everything is terrible: Never-not-punchable neo-Nazi Richard Spencer has just declared Depeche Mode the “the official band of the alt-right.”

Of course, this is all news — fake news — to members of the long-running industrial-pop band.

Related: Are gay supremacists ‘literally’ Nazi stormtroopers? This guy thinks so.

Shortly before being whisked out of the Conservative Political Action Conference for being “repugnant”, he sarcastically invoked the band’s name to New York‘s Olivia Nuzzi:

To be clear, he made no mention of New Order, possibly due to the viral video in which he’s punched repeatedly in the face to the beat of 1983 romper stomper “Blue Monday” …?

While there’s no shortage of ’80s bands that decided to dubiously straddle the fine line between the fascistic and fetishistic —

— Spencer decided to settle on the band behind decidedly not-evil 1984 anthem “People Are People,” which features the following palpably humane lyric:

People are people / So why should it be / You and I should get along so awfully / So we’re different colors / And we’re different creeds / And different people have different needs / It’s obvious you hate me / Though I’ve done nothing wrong / I’ve never even met you so what could I have done / I can’t understand / What makes a man / Hate another man / Help me understand

Related: Bryan Fischer’s Gays-As-Nazis Slander Debunked By Holocaust Historian, Once And For All

Esquirewasting no time in reaching out to the band for a quote, received the following from Depeche Mode’s apparently quite busy representative:

That’s pretty ridiculous. Depeche Mode has no ties to Richard Spencer or the alt right and does not support the alt right movement.

Which, duh.

Spencer has since — heh? — made it clear that he was “joking”:

If any clarification is needed as to what Depeche Mode could possibly think of this fresh taint on their name, look no further than new single “Where’s the Revolution?” —

— which, through our lens, roughly translates to:

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