They are not stupid; they are an existential threat. Quit underestimating them!
Actually, the person you are responding to is correct - the far-right is too incompetent to gain power on their own. Power has to be handed to them by liberal regimes that can’t handle working-class revolt without the indiscriminate violence the far-right offers. That is why states always treat the far-right with kid gloves and allows it to fester - the ruling elites know that they might need them someday.
Call it pedantry if you want, but the fascists themselves are what truly “makes fascism possible”.
Yes, there are plenty of folks have culpability in allowing these fucks gain control, from short-sighted collaborators who just want profit, idiots who think “they can’t really be that bad”, but there’s an extent to which I think we should be careful about victim-blaming well-meaning (but naive) folks who believe that Liberty and Justice will win the day (being misled by whitewashed historical narratives who erase the boots on the ground required to make social and political changes - and the organization necessary to resist the rise of fascists).
I get your point, and clearly (from the paragraph I just typed) agree to an extent - I just think it’s reductive to the point of undermining the movements against fascism when “liberals” all get thrown in the same basket.
Maybe a simpler way of explaining that is that it always boils down to this; when forced to choose between supporting leftist/prog politics and fascism, it’s the status-quo liberals that consistently choose fascism out of fear that anything lefty/social-justicey would be too disruptive
Actually, the person you are responding to is correct - the far-right is too incompetent to gain power on their own. Power has to be handed to them by liberal regimes that can’t handle working-class revolt without the indiscriminate violence the far-right offers. That is why states always treat the far-right with kid gloves and allows it to fester - the ruling elites know that they might need them someday.
Oh of course, it’s the “liberals” who are the real enemy.
I’m afraid they are - and always have been.
The only thing that makes fascism possible is liberals “reaching across the aisle.”
Call it pedantry if you want, but the fascists themselves are what truly “makes fascism possible”.
Yes, there are plenty of folks have culpability in allowing these fucks gain control, from short-sighted collaborators who just want profit, idiots who think “they can’t really be that bad”, but there’s an extent to which I think we should be careful about victim-blaming well-meaning (but naive) folks who believe that Liberty and Justice will win the day (being misled by whitewashed historical narratives who erase the boots on the ground required to make social and political changes - and the organization necessary to resist the rise of fascists).
I get your point, and clearly (from the paragraph I just typed) agree to an extent - I just think it’s reductive to the point of undermining the movements against fascism when “liberals” all get thrown in the same basket.
Maybe a simpler way of explaining that is that it always boils down to this; when forced to choose between supporting leftist/prog politics and fascism, it’s the status-quo liberals that consistently choose fascism out of fear that anything lefty/social-justicey would be too disruptive