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The use of minorities as stock villains is something that has plagued entertainment media for years. Now that political correctness has gone thankfully mad, it has become less acceptable to lean on generic brown terrorists, effeminate criminal masterminds or scheming mandarins when finding adversaries for an action hero to plow through. Video games may have lagged behind somewhat but many developers do at least make some effort to to avoid stereotyping.

There is one notable exception, however. One beleaguered minority that seemingly has no voice in wider society. Nobody to stand up and say, "Enough. Leave these poor people alone, you MONSTERS."

I'm talking, of course, about Nazis.

Yes, the proud Aryans (and affiliates) of the Alt-Right are sick of being the go-to target for self-righteous good-guys. Why should they be treated as scum, fit only for vigorous fragging and expertly chained combos? Where is the respect? The simple human decency?

And what has triggered these snowflake stormtroopers? A vicious piece of anti-Nazi propaganda in the form of a trailer for Bethesda's latest game - Wolfenstein: The New Colossus.

A brief history of shooting Nazis in the face

There are many, many games that involve the punching, stabbing, shooting and general doing-in of members of the National Socialist party. From the Indiana Jones point-and-click adventures to the full-on assault of Medal of Honour, with plenty of oddities like the superhero antics of Freedom Force vs the Third Reich in between. The gold standard of Nazi-harm, however, is the Wolfenstein series.

Starting in 1981, with the 2D Castle Wolfenstein, the series put you in the shoes of all-American bruiser BJ Blazkowicz, deep behind enemy lines and on a largely stealth-based mission to infiltrate the titular, Nazi-occupied castle. By 1992, the series found its groove with Wolfenstein 3d - one of the earliest first-person shooters and the template for pretty much every game in that genre to this day.

After shooting your way through the primitively-rendered 3D castle, you would finally do battle with a cybernetically-enhanced MECHA-HITLER, thus cementing the franchise's reputation for cold-edged realism.

Later reboots gave us Return To Castle Wolfenstein and simply 'Wolfenstein', both of which featured multiplayer Nazi-duffing as well as a load of occult bits and bobs, because the Nazis were definitely into that, no matter what David Duke says. There was even a Wolfenstein role-playing game for (non-smart)phones, allowing turn-based Nazi foiling you could carry around in your pocket.

Which brings us to the most recent iterations of the Wolfenstein experience. 2014s Wolfenstein: The New Order and this years entrant, Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. These games take place in an alternate reality, a 1960s in which the Nazis defeated the Allies and took over the world. Only you, a revived BJ Blazkowitz, can lead the fightback and kick the ascendant fascists right in the crease of their impeccable uniforms.

Why now?

Im not here to debate the ethics of video game violence. You can see first-person shooters as a malign influence on our Pop Kids or as a harmless exhaust pipe for pent-up frustrations or as anything else you like. Im easy. The recent outpouring of Alt-Right anger does raise one important question, though. Given the fact that we are now well into the fourth decade of digital Nazi slaughter, why is it only now that games like this have put the far right on the defensive?

Reactions to the New Colossus trailer have been mainly positive, with fans of The New Order relishing the chance to get back to that games formula of fast-paced action and light puzzle solving. The game resembles a glossier, Nazi-themed Half Life 2 sequel as much as anything.

Among the criticisms from the Alt-Right are accusations that the game is racist to white people. The evidence for this seems to lie in a black woman character who at one point refers to our man BJ as white boy.

As YouTuber Bob Ross comments, That black Afro whore calling that white man a white boy... More racist agenda against white people.

An anonymous commenter to 4Chan has seen through the real agenda behind the game. Bethesda jews are trying to destroy gaming industry with political correctness fagottry.

Ultimately, as YouTube commenter Bobby Johnson puts it, Why are people hating nazis? You should be hating muslims who are terrorizing, murduring, and raping europeans. And the jews

Wise, if poorly spelled, words, Im sure you will agree.

No, the real issue with Wolfenstein: The New Colossus isnt that it strikes a markedly more critical tone against the would-be Master race. The explosions may get bigger and the guns louder with every new game but the Wolfenstein formula is the same as it ever was.

The problem is Trumps brand of populist, easily consumed, fascism-lite. The problem is the dark corners of the net that put the Alt in Alt-Right . The problem is simply that, more than ever, there are now self-identifying Nazis who are willing to peer out from under their stones, hold up their hands at about 45 degrees and cry foul.

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The Alt-Right are complaining about Nazis being killed in video games - New Statesman

Southern Baptists Grapple Over Calls to Condemn Alt-Right Wall Street Journal (subscription) PHOENIXThe Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, denounced the alt-right movement and white supremacy on Wednesday, following a dramatic 24-hours during which the organization openly wrestled with whether ...

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Southern Baptists Grapple Over Calls to Condemn Alt-Right - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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Rachel Zoll and Angie Wang, Associated Press 10:01 a.m. CT June 14, 2017

Home to prominent evangelical supporters of President Donald Trump, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a statement on moral leadership at the group's annual meeting Tuesday. It avoided pointed criticism of current political officeholders. The denomination also rejected a proposal to condemn the "alt-right." The political movement has come to the forefront during the presidential election that mixes racism, white nationalism and populism. Barrett Duke is a Southern Baptist executive who shepherded the statements through the meeting. He said the resolution contained inflammatory and broad language "potentially implicating" conservatives who do not support the "alt-right" movement. Wochit

Southern Baptist Executive Committee President Frank S. Page speaks during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.(Photo: .AP)

PHOENIX A national meeting of Southern Baptists will consider condemning the political movement known as the "alt-right" amid a debate aboutthe denomination's commitment to confronting prejudice. Barrett Duke, a Southern Baptist leader who led a committee that decided which resolutions should be considered for a vote, said the resolution as originally written contained inflammatory and broad language "potentially implicating" conservatives who do not support the "alt-right" movement.

More: First Presbyterian Church seeks healing, redemption for sins committed during civil rights era But the decision caused concern online and at the gathering in Phoenix from Southern Baptists and other Christians, especially black evangelicals. The denomination has been striving to overcome its founding in the 19th century in defense of slaveholders. Thabiti Anyabwile, a black Southern Baptist pastor, tweeted that "any 'church' that cannot denounce white supremacy without hesitancy and equivocation is a dead, Jesus denying assembly. No 2 ways about it". Southern Baptist leaders responded late Tuesday night with a call for attendees to return to the assembly hall, then announced they would take up the proposal after all on Wednesday. In encouraging the meeting to reconsider, Steve Gaines, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said he wanted to send the message that "we love everybody on this planet."

Norris Burkes: Seeking Gods will or willing Gods will?

The initial proposed resolution came from a prominent black Southern Baptist pastor, the Rev. Dwight McKissic, who had submitted the suggested statement to Duke's committee before this week's gathering. He called the "alt-right" a symptom of "social disease," ''deceptive" and "antithetical to what we believe." His resolution condemned Christians who attempted to use biblical teachings to justify white supremacy. The Southern Baptist Convention, based in Nashville, has 15.2 million members and is the largest Protestant group in the country. Leaders have repeatedly condemned racism in formal resolutions from the meeting and built new relationships with black Baptists.

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Southern Baptist Convention ponders rebuke of 'alt-right' - Montgomery Advertiser

Pacific Standard

A scholar of the Ku Kux Klan explains how the KKK used the same trolling tactics as the alt-right. Pacific Standard To get a sense of the historical context behind today's alt-right, I spoke with Elaine Parsons, a professor of history at Duquesne University and author of Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan in Reconstruction. The book is an excellent history of the 19th ...

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A scholar of the Ku Kux Klan explains how the KKK used the same trolling tactics as the alt-right. - Pacific Standard

The man called the Jewish godfather of the alt-right has a new book out this year and white nationalist websites are applauding the work.

Author and academic Paul Gottfried, mentor to Richard Spencer and self-described paleoconservative, released his thirteenth book this spring, a collection of essays titled Revisions and Dissents.

In the books introduction, Gottfried writes blasts historians who he says have become lazy in their historical analysis. He casts himself as a contrary rebel, one who is willing to challenge the establishments acceptable ideas and liberal pieties.

Contemporary historians, Gottfried writes, display a bias against certain groups that do not enjoy liberal respectability.

Some of those unpopular groups that Gottfried believes are being unfairly dismissed? Germans, southern whites and medieval Christians, among others.

On the white nationalist website VDare, John Derbyshire remarked on Gottfrieds impressive virtuosity. A glowing June 11 review found almost no faults with the new release and remarked on Gottfrieds great skill and erudition.

Another April article on the same website proclaimed: Three Cheers Three Cheers For Paul Gottfrieds Revisions and Dissents.

The fingerprints of his intellectual prowess can be found all over the writings of the alt rights better known names, VDares Hubert Collins wrote.

Who is this Jewish intellectual being lauded on a white nationalist website?

Gottfrieds earned his undergraduate degree at Yeshiva University, Modern Orthodoxys flagship institution, and received his doctorate from Yale. He spent much of his later career at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, where he is an emeritus professor.

Gottfried calls himself a paleoconservativeanother term he coinedwhich is usually taken to mean a conservative who value limited government, tradition and Western identity. This is in contrast to neoconservatives who emphasize an interventionist United States over other policies. Paleoconservatives favor an isolationist foreign policy, restrictions on immigration and controls on free trade.

But like many neoconservatives, Gottfried is Jewish, Northeast-born and was educated in an Ivy League institution. Still, he casts himself as a sworn enemy to neoconservatives, castigating them for being insufficiently conservative.

In 2008, Gottfried founded and still runs the H.L. Mencken Club, to create conferences that would provide a regular gathering place for conservatives like himself. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, these conferences have from their first meeting served to bring together racists and white nationalists.

Few people have known just how to make sense of Gottfrieds position in the alt-right universe.

Even he is a bit uncomfortable.

When his portrait was included a recent New York Magazine expose about right wing movements, he took issue.

The editors of New York may disagree with my priorities and analyses, but I dont see how this disagreement proves that Im a white nationalist, he wrote in the American Conservative. They seem intent on lumping together all their villains and linking them, however circuitously, to The Donald.

And months earlier, a National Review editor disparaged Gottfrieds newfound place in the alt-right dubbing him a house Jew.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

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The Jewish 'Moses Of The Alt Right' Has A New Book And It Isn't Pretty - Forward