Sometimes someone writes somewhere in the internets something that seems very well articulated I just want to re-blog it (oh, times where reblogging was a thing!).

the lore about why that doesn’t work is because it’s not the responsibility of the people they hurt to go and rehabilitate fascists, because they’re the last people the fascists will believe, and the first people they’ll hurt and what’s worse is that if they’re given space to communicate their ideas, it’s more likely that you’ll change than they will. It’s the same reason police departments are never reformed from the inside.

the reason why isolation is an effective tactic is because fascism always spreads by debating it. If you lower your bar to engage with fascist viewpoints to “deradicalize” them, the conversation isn’t “how can I help the marginalized people in my life” it’s “do marginalized people deserve to exist”, which is a very different conversation. and upon that, it’s not a 1v1 debate either. fascism is a spectator sport that thrives on putting down its opponents.

and I think the biggest thing is that fascism is an emotional response and not a logical one. A fascist can’t ever be defeated by enagaging with them, because even by entertaining their viewpoint and beginning a discussion, they’ve won. Their goal isn’t to prove that fascism is better, it’s to encourage an emotional response in the people that hear their arguments, which is very different from what we’re used to.

as a strategy, isolation has worked incredibly well actually. the thing is, far right communities ALWAYS implode when left alone, because when they have no strawman to defeat, they turn on each other immediately. After a while, people realize that everyone in their life has abandoned them, and the only people left are white supremacists who genuinely hate each other, and they’ll have no choice but to leave on their own volition.

(via librepunk.club by wgahnagl)