I’ve always thought, if you call a fascist a fascist, that doesn’t make them back down. It makes them feel proud instead (achieving their goals) and makes them stronger.
I think if you call a Nazi a fascist, they’d laugh, but if you call a random MAGA fascist a fascist, they take it as being overly dramatic
Fascism to them is the comically evil natural conclusion that was Nazi Germany - It’s like how they’re not criminals even though they commit crimes, because they’re good people and the criminals are bad (and they’re criminals even if they’ve never broken the law). Fascists are the bad guys, like terrorists - they don’t know or care what it means to be a terrorist
But make no mistake - they understand and believe in the core of fascism. They think everything would be better if “the good people” were in charge, because “the bad people” are the cause of all evil. They want to be the “in group” and either hate or don’t care about “the others”. Which is cruel, but I can understand it - if you could fix the country by getting rid of a few million people, that’s just the price for a better world. Even then, in many of their minds, those people have the option to just shut up and conform and they’ll become a “good person”
That’s what’s so obvious to me now - they think they’ll never be in the out group. Up till now, I’ve been thinking you have to make them understand that fascism must always have an enemy, and when the obvious targets are gone fascism will pick a new enemy to perpetuate itself, forever. One day you’ll end up on the wrong side of that line.
But they don’t want to understand that, and so they never will.
But what would rattle them? What would make them rethink all this? Question their status as one of the “good guys”. They know what they’d let happen, if not join in on. The others aren’t treated as people, and that’s them. Tell them they failed to conform. They didn’t make the cut.
They’re just weird, they’re different and couldn’t even notice because they’re too intrinsically weird. They’re not part of the “in group”, and it’s just a matter of time until someone notices.
