The case for not debating fascists
1. How a fascist debates
1.1. The narrative
A debate means one thing to you, and a completely different thing to a fascist. Their goal isn’t to convince you in a debate, it’s to reach those people who will be looking in and may be swayed by their posturing and narrative.
Indeed, the narrative plays a major part. Fascism has already been proven completely wrong in its foundations since 1945 and even before (remember we had a whole world war about that). So how do fascists repurpose those ideas that are complete lies and make them seem true?
First, they create a narrative. They don’t use facts in the rough but spin them into a story. Listen to an anti-Semite and their Jewish conspiracies one time. They’ll give you as many “observations” as you ask for (many of which are completely wrong, like the lie that Jews owned all ships involved in the American Slave trade [source, follow the books if you’re interested in the refutation]), and then they’ll introduce the seed of doubt: “don’t you think it’s strange that Jews did all of this?” [working in the slave trade, being persecuted throughout history, supposedly making up a large part of billionaires…]. Well, no. I could make the same observations about straight white men or Christians and even commission statistics to find out if people with green eyes get higher-paying jobs than people with blue eyes. And if they don’t I’ll just say blue-eyed people have been keeping green-eyed people down for centuries now and hastily find some event in history to support my claim, no matter how loosely.
Secondly, they play on words. When people counter-argue and dismantle their facts, they change the topic and even tactics if they need to. They weren’t talking about all Jews, but only about a few, they’ll be all too happy to tell you. Except no, they weren’t, but that doesn’t matter. They don’t believe in words. It’s all about the narrative. And the goal is to get that narrative out there. And they know they weren’t being truthful with you, but they’re hoping that you won’t notice.
1.2. You speak a different language
Fascism does one thing well, which makes our job as antifascists more difficult, and we have to acknowledge it. They take very complex topics and simplify them to an absurd point. The economy is a very complicated thing, right? Not to the fascist: it’s because of illegal immigrants that “the economy” (whatever that means to them) is “bad” (again, whatever that means to them). It’s very idealistic in that their conclusion is: “if we got rid of immigrants, then the economy would get better”. How would it get better? Well, that’s for you, the antifascist, to disprove. And if you ask them how, they’ll create that narrative again. Using individual news stories about an immigrant stealing to make a point about all immigrants, using historical anecdotes and misrepresenting history (or outright lying) to make it look like it’s been going on for centuries, and maybe even linking one or two fascist sources here and there if they can get away with it.
They know how to use language, but they don’t believe in it. So they’ll ask you something that seems innocuous, like “if my conspiracies were true, would it change your opinion about Jews?” (which I actually saw, couldn’t believe my eyes). Don’t get tricked into going down that hole. Refuse to play by their rules. If you say yes, they win. If you say no, they’ll use that as ammunition against you. So what do you do? You tell them there are no Jewish conspiracies and you have no intention of answering a hypothetical question whose premise is not true anyway.
To conclude that first point before we go deeper: don’t get into a debate with fascists. Even if you’re sure you can win, and especially if you’re not very experienced in how the far-right operates. That doesn’t mean you have to stay silent, as we’ll see in the last section.
2. Fascists don’t respect you and they will use you
2.1. They pretend to see you as an equal
To them, you are a convenient pawn. They don’t respect you. They like that you want to give them a platform, they like that you want to defend their right to free speech, but they don’t respect you and they’ll get rid of you all the same once they get the chance.
So they’ll tell their fascist friends (and other in-groups) that you’re a liberal cuck or whatever, and then demand respect from you when you engage them. Actually, this happened to me not long ago. Basically told one that he was acting like a total boomer and he could fuck off, and he came back with “you need to calm down”. Spend maybe 30 seconds in his comment history and he was openly insulting me with his CringeA friends. There is no reciprocity from them.
They want you to respect them because hey, you’re the one who believes in the benefit of the doubt, worthwhile debates and all those liberal values that the fash love to abuse (and watch the meltdown when you tell them you’re a Marxist and their tactics don’t work on you lol). Meanwhile they fantasize about killing trans people. Does it look like there ever was a balance between the two of you? You’re already better than them.
2.2. But they’ll also attack you directly if they need to
Looking like the calm, collected academic in the room is something many of them try to do to give weight to their argument. Because if you look the part, then surely you know what you’re talking about. To some extent you can credit Richard Spencer for popularizing this trend (but it goes as far back as fascist leaders like Hitler or Mussolini who postured in public speeches and chose their words very carefully), who had some credibility left until he kept getting punched and refused to go outside any more, and ultimately an unhinged rant of his destroyed whatever modicum of presence he had left.
And then they drive you to the camps because you don’t sieg heil hard enough when they’re in power. Like the Night of the Long Knives when the whole SA (which was instrumental to Hitler’s rise to power) was completely purged and killed. So yeah, remember what’s at stake.
Sometimes they’ll just attack you as a person. They’ll claim, for example, that you’re gay and therefore all your opinions (i.e. your whole debate) are invalid. Then you tell them you’re not gay, and they’ll tell you you’re a liberal. You tell them you’re not a liberal, and they’ll find something else, and so on. Usually they end up saying you’re a Jew or manipulated by the aforementioned when they run out of qualifiers.
So if you enter a debate with all the best intentions, and it looks like the fascist is doing that as well, he’s only using you. Look out for it next time. Will they talk to the audience? Will they fit you in a neat little box to invalidate your arguments? Will they change the subject as soon as you press them a little bit too much?
3. Don’t let them in your community
3.1. The limitations of free speech
Free speech has to have limits, you can’t allow everything and let the “free marketplace of ideas” take care of it. If you don’t set up boundaries and let everything run free, then you run the risk of this philosophy turning against you. If you set up a subreddit for knitting, will you delete posts about motorcycles and redirect them to an appropriate subreddit, or will you leave the posts up because you don’t want to infringe on their free speech?
If you start letting fascists and sympathizers in your community, you are creating a situation that will soon backfire. This is signalling to other fascists that they are welcome to propagandise in your community. This will invite more of them in, and if they get too vocal, your regulars will start leaving because they don’t want to be part of this any longer for obvious reasons. You enter a vicious circle where more fascists come in when they see that it’s a platform for them, your regulars keep leaving because the community keeps changing for the worse, and soon you’re left with only fascists.
A very recent example is r/stonetoss, which was banned just a week ago. They started as a general sub about stonetoss, and through inaction, fascists started being more open. It was banned because of this (officially because it was trying to recreate a banned subreddit, but the sub in question was likely r/MDE or any of the alt-right subs banned last October). Though we have to note that the head mod and his team were also fascist sympathizers if not completely fash, so they wanted this to happen. Still, as a witness during that whole debacle, it could have been any other sub. There weren’t any actions taken to prevent fascism, but there also weren’t any actions to promote fascism (apart from the fact that they will naturally congregate to a fascist subreddit).
3.2. They don’t respect you for letting them on either
I’m not saying that you need to ban all political ideas. Ultimately it’s up to you, but good faith debates, where the point is that all participants learn something, should be encouraged. I firmly believe that people learn all the time and ought to learn as much as they can. But fascism, as we’ve seen, is not debated in good faith. The fascist wants to propagate his ideas as far and wide as possible, like a big fishing net that catches whatever it can drag to the surface. If they can take over your community, it’s like payday for them. They have a place to congregate, and more importantly: they have a “normie” place to radicalize. It’s like a massive recruitment drive. Imagine going on r/knittinghobby because you love knitting and the first thing you come across is someone talking about the great replacement or something. Two things can happen: either you’re disgusted and you leave, or you think the idea has some merit and you stay, and get exposed to more shit like that.
A final point: as a moderator of a community, they don’t respect you either. You’re giving them their free speech and they love that, but they’ll never say “hey, at least they’re nice enough not to delete our comments”. Watch this, then share it. It’s Richard Spencer explicitly saying his side (fascists) don’t believe in free speech. You know what’s the first law they’ll make when they get in power? They’ll abolish free speech and if you speak out against the dictatorship, you disappear. It happened in Germany, Italy, Chile.
So if you moderate a subreddit or any other community: ban fascists on sight, and delete all of their comments. Make it so they’ve never existed in the first place. They’ll get to come back once they stop being a fascist. How to spot a fascist is a completely different topic that could be its own article because they adapt the speech to the situation, going from open to very subtle. At the very least, listen if your community tells you their concerns about a certain comment or person, and remove anything that’s overtly fascist, like anti-Semitism.
4. Here’s what you do with fascists
You don’t engage them. You play by your rules, not theirs. You never give them an inch or a single concession.
If they want to start a debate? Just tell them they’re a fascist and you have no interest in wasting your time with them. Alert other people around you so that they don’t make the mistake of trying to debate. Don’t hesitate to mock and deride them, but ultimately, you’re going to have to walk away because they’ll likely never let it go if you don’t disengage (and if you keep up on them, you’ll often see them boasting about winning the debate because you stopped responding; they salvage anything they can).
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t refute their points. Just don’t do it with them present. Again, it’s on your own terms. We should very much disprove their claims, but not with them having a say in it. Not because they shouldn’t have the chance to defend themselves, but because they’ll use that opportunity to propagandise (but also they shouldn’t have the chance to defend themselves, you can’t defend “everyone not white enough should be killed”).
Do you want to go further? Watch The alt-right playbook (links to a playlist).
If you really want to debate fascists (though I call it taking them down a peg, because you can’t really debate with them), learn everything you can about how they talk and what they talk about. If you find one in the wild, read the discussion and analyse it as an observer. Find out how it went, who won (in the sense that posturing is important, there has to be a clear winner and loser to them), what should have been avoided. If you give them any ammunition, they’ll use it — that’s why debating a fascist is something that is learned with experience, and usually can be predicted.
Remember that they will lie if needed, and they always argue in bad faith.
Don’t feel bad about toying with them. While you don’t have to stoop to their level or bring out ableist or other bigoted remarks, you can push them around a little bit. If they lose their cool, they’ll show themselves for the unhinged, raving paper tigers they are. Debate with a fascist is a power play, and it’s important that you retain this power. I see it like a game of chess: you have to think several steps ahead at all times, and one wrong move could spell your loss. Keep your replies short: the more you say, the more you give them to work with. If you can get the upper hand, they’ll start answering your questions honestly as you push and prod them. In this state, you can easily expose them for what they are: raving lunatics that are ultimately profoundly ill, and lash out at the world to make up for their lack of success.
Remember that we are doing this for a purpose: we want less fascists in the world. Either we can help them, or they start getting power and we enter a world war. Both will result in less fascists either way, but we prefer method one to method two.
5. Some examples of fascist debate tactics.
1. They like to dodge, pivot, retort. This is probably what they do most. Dodge the question, pivot to another topic, and retort with more accusations. Very rarely will a fascist actually answer your question; they will prefer to change the topic to try and get the upper hand.
What to do: force them to answer the question. Ignore everything else they say, and get them back on topic. A simple “answer the question please” will get them, or some sarcasm usually gets them going; “huh, for the master race you’re really not capable of answering a simple question”.
2. Ad hominems, of course. Also very often used. They’ll attack you as a person for whatever they can. Recently, I had a user who spends 12 hours a day on Reddit telling me to get a life for writing the exposé on consumeproduct. You banned them after they ditched your discussion for an hour? Well, looks like you admit you lost then!
What to do: Expose their hypocrisy. Don’t think for a second that they are more honest than you, or don’t have the bad habits you do. Alternatively, you can force them to reach their conclusion — one once said to me “I can tell this was made by either a very skinny dude or a very fat one”. Ask them: what difference does it make? Why is it important to remark this? Do they have any actual arguments?
3. The source barrage. Sometimes, when trying to spin the narrative, they’ll get you links to everything you could ever hope for.
What to do: if you’re in a moderated space, it’s best to make sure their comment gets removed. Fascists lie, and flooding someone with more sources than they can read is a known bad faith tactic to shut down the debate. Then, pick one or two sources, disprove those, and move on: you have no interest in checking every link if even two of those are completely wrong.
4. the “no u”. Do you ban fascists from your community? Then you’re just as bad as them! That’s the “no u”.
What to do: I’ve had success using their own logic on them, a reversal if you will. If you tell them “wow, not everyone you disagree with is a fascist!” that usually shuts them up.
