Stop Arguing Logic with Fascists

Things are moving quickly with our American neighbours to the south. In fact, it's a bit hard to keep up with all of the news, and each story is more dismaying than the last. Overall, we are seeing some aspect of each one of the early warning signs of fascism coming to fruition, including: 1) Disdain for human rights; 2) Identification of enemies (ex. Antifa, immigrants) as a unifying cause; 3) Controlled mass media; and 4) Disdain for intellectuals and the arts.

As this is being enacted by the Republican party, the party that has traditionally argued for small government and free speech, a popular social media hobby has become pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump and colleagues. And boy are these poignant:

I could post literally hundreds of these examples. Trump and MAGA say the left cancels free speech, but then hunt down anyone who has been remotely critical of Charlie Kirk. They say Kamala Harris would create wars, and then promote old and new conflicts abroad and now at home. They call the left fascists and both RFK Jr and JD Vance refer to Trump as Hitler, then say that use of such terms by the left is inciting violence. They say they will hunt down pedophiles, then dismiss any news about Trump and friends being in the Epstein files. Every day there are literally dozens of examples of this hypocrisy and if nothing else, it makes for quality social media posts.

But here's the problem, this has no impact whatsoever on taking down fascists. The point of fascism is not policy, it is power. Showing that their policies are hypocritical is not only ineffective, it might actually even build the brand because it highlights actions they are taking to assert their power, particularly power over perceived enemies. As long as the general public feel their lives might be improved, there is zero necessity for congruence between words and actions.

A read of history makes one thing particularly clear, fascism is not defeated via logic and people don't leave fascism because of effective arguments around who said what. What does take down fascism? Well, that's going to take a much longer post, but in a nutshell it's helping general citizens understand that they are much worse off under fascists, then the masses remove the fascists themselves, not a small, clever group of intellectuals who point out how evil these guys are.

So, I worry that a lot of the influential online left is using a lot of energy proving how wrong and hypocritical Trump and MAGA are, rather than highlighting how their actions hurt everyone but their billionaire friends. Is that going to stop me looking at these posts with an ironic chuckle (or cringe), probably not, but I won't be spending my own time showing they lied, because there are a million more lies to come.