‘Progressive liberals’ do use the term too loosely to mean people they don’t like. You should not fall into the trap of subconsciously accepting the premises of that usage.

This is a Marxist instance. We understand what fascism/Nazism is materially. As cfgaussian notes, there’s a racist, bigoted, utterly evil megalomaniac element to it. But (and I’m not saying cfgaussian is saying this) Nazism is not just some evil ideology that some evil people organised for a few years in the twentieth century. By that liberal/Nazi-apologist definition, it’s over and done with. But it’s more than that, and it does still apply today.

In a word, it’s the cold and calculated response of capital to protect itself against a progressive change in the mode of production. It’s what happens to liberalism when faced with socialism. It’s a way of crushing worker power to make it easier and more profitable to do capitalism. It provides a framework for dividing the working class by race, gender, sexuality, origin, religion, accent, anything else you can name. Anything to stop the workers from working together.

Why is the EU doing Nazi shit? Not only does the EU do the evil megalomaniac cartoon villain thing, it also does the cold and calculated defense against socialism thing. In addition to cfgaussian’s points, we must understand that socialism is an international movement.

Capitalism is zero-sum. If one wins, another loses. Socialism is logically far more co-operative. If one wins, another, somewhere else can also still win. There need not be losers, except the capitalists. Socialists anywhere work for socialists everywhere.

By manufacturing low cost EVs, China benefits the working class in three clear ways. One, Chinese workers are part of the global proletariat and they happen to control the state, which means if ‘China’ benefits, so does the proletariat, ab initio, by definition.

Two, this is very much a trade war not just against China but for (Anglo-)European capital. These are different things although they are interrelated – it’s a dialectic. This is the EU setting up the framework to do whatever it takes to protect the Anglo-European empire.

Aside: this empire is the ideological child of Nazism. While the Nazi party was defeated, in part by inter-familial war, the ideology was not defeated. It’s more glaring horrors were somewhat held at bay due to the threat of the USSR and the need to maintain good PR. But otherwise the west continued almost everything that Nazis were doing. They changed the name and some of the target-victims, and became more efficient.

Three, cheaper goods for Europe is good for European workers, directly. They mean European workers don’t have to get into so much debt for vehicles. What do you think the Anglo-European finance capitalists want more, workers borrowing €40k for a European EV or €15k for a Chinese EV?

Hint: they don’t gaf about the sale going to a Chinese firm if they can lend the money to a consumer and get a huge cut via interest payments. But they would prefer the interest on €40k over €15k any day. Not only for the car payments but also because the less debt a worker gets into, the faster they can pay off their total debt and the sooner they can become debt free, which puts a massive spanner in the cogs in hyper-financialised economies. Which means that China’s policies work to benefit the European working class (another dialectic with point one) and to the disadvantage of the Anglo-European capitalist class.

Not to mention the benefit to the fight against climate change by filling the market with affordable EVs. This benefits everyone, everywhere. Anglo-Europeans overshot their fair share of carbon emissions a long time ago. But they keep going. Most don’t have a choice. The sooner something can be done to minimise western emissions, the sooner the rest of the world can (a) heal and (b) develop without westerners saying ‘don’t you care about the planet?’

Edit: To clarify the implied conclusion, this is ‘Nazi shit’ because it shows the EU gearing up to attack socialism/ists to save capitalism. The liberal mask is slipping because capitalism is under threat. When the mask slips, the Nazism is revealed.

Note, I switched from EU to Anglo-European empire because these things are part of the same political economic ecosystem.