Will Bunch expresses what I’ve been thinking since Trump was elected. American democracy is under attack from within. The fascists who yearn for an authoritarian government in the media are promoting it, and the media who supposedly don’t support it fail to recognize it. They are busy trying to follow the political playbook of the 20th century.
The issue is there is a belief that the problems we are facing are because we can’t accept each other’s opinions and we all need to buckle down and compromise with one another.
Which is deliciously naive in a world where Nazism has gone from “So universally reviled that they are a punchline at best” to “Just an opinion from a guy asking questions.”
Do not serve Bar Nazis
I think there is a large amount of this that’s the result of social media. When I was a kid, there were still flat-earthers and other people who believe extremely stupid things. The thing was, however, that if you said that out loud, all of the people around you would with varying degrees of politeness tell you you’re a fucking idiot and you’d usually change your mind quickly. In today’s environment, not only can you go online and not get called a fucking idiot for your dumb opinions, you can find all of the other fucking idiots and form a
circle-jerkFacebook group for bad opinions and feel validated in believing them. Oh, and even if you don’t go looking for your own little community of morons, Facebook and the rest will happily help surface those morons for you.The reality of social media is that not only do they serve bar nazis, they might as well be tinder for bar nazis.
Hell you tell someone “Bro you’re a dumbass” these days
You’re the one getting the door for being “toxic”
If you try and engage many of those types they won’t accept reason and logic either, it’s a no win situation. Of course you’re still the toxic one for not wanting to do that dance again.
This is kind of the same reason, I think. They get enough validation on the internet and unfortunately this leads to more validation IRL as well. Humans and critical thinking already rarely go together, and social media only seems to have exasperated that.
The problem of the “Punch a Nazi” line of thought is not particularly that Nazis are subject to violence : most people (centrists included) couldn’t care less about what happens to them specifically.
No, the real issue here is that people don’t trust the perception of others. You don’t attack a fascist, you attack someone who you think is a fascist. And polarization of the political discourse mean that you can be easily accused of crypto-fascism for pretty much anything (see Hexbear for example). And some people will take it at face value, and hence feel justified to attack you.
That’s… actually a good point. I consider myself being pretty against Cancel Culture despite being pretty far to the left.
Too often people get canceled based on gossip or false rumors, like somehow “He’s 30, she’s 24” gets morphed into “Dude’s a full blown pedo” or… “This forum post from 9001 years ago uses a form of slang that is offensive now, but was acceptable at the time, clearly he’s a white supremacist” becomes “This guy eats babies in the glorious name of Satan, and by Satan I mean Trump!”
It’s just something I hope the internet grows beyond. Society and general.