No. of Recommendations: 9
Fascism was defeated the only way it can be, by force of arms and then by the justice system imposing the appropriate punishment and, in the case of Germany, by banning the hateful ideology.
You do give fascism legitimacy by engaging its advocates in debate. Fascist ideas just become one of many ideas sold in the marketplace of ideas. Fascism is a violent and hateful ideology bent on the total subordination and domination of the ever shifting “enemy”.
But here in America, you can't ban the hateful ideology. You can't take it out of the marketplace of ideas. You have to engage its advocates in debate. As much as you devoutly wish it to be the case, you are not going to reach a point where the ideas that you label "fascist" will be treated the way the most obvious and odious forms of overt racism are. However much you detest the ideas that are being voiced by conservatives on this message board, we will never reach a point where advocating them will result in the same barring from public discourse as incontrovertible over racism would.
Other participants in the marketplace of ideas - the people that the fascists are trying to get to adopt their viewpoints - will get to encounter fascist ideas. And if you don't have a good understanding of what modern ideas and arguments are being put forward, and how they're being framed, you're going to fail in the battle in that marketplace.
Rather than debating fascists, why don’t you use your lawyerly skills to share with freedom loving Americans the best tactics for defending our freedoms safely in the face of ICE violence in our communities?
Because I can do two things. I'm not debating people on this message board because I have any expectation that they will change their priors or come around to my way of thinking. I do it so that I understand their arguments and learn what they believe. That helps me in my conversations with people in my community that aren't already completely convinced of the ideas that I have, but who aren't fascists either, and are open to genuine conversations about why conservative arguments around immigration (for example) are wrong. Because I'll know what the arguments actually are, and how they're actually being presented, rather than walking around with my own strawman caricature of what modern fascists are like.
I normally dislike meta-conversations, but I think this is important. If you refuse to engage with fascists, you're not denying them legitimacy in the marketplace of ideas. You're ceding the marketplace of ideas to them. They won't go away just because you refuse to talk to them, you can't deplatform them the way they were in Germany (or in certain specific institutions here in the U.S.). You have to engage - and do so in a way that's more nuanced than blowing a whistle at them....
