Protests can work, but only if it triggers a government overreaction. Once you have images of troops/police beating up grandma or outright murdering people, that can be enough to trigger far stiffer resistance and radicalise people to the cause. You want to create martyrs, basically.
This is also why I’m always sceptical about calls for violence, especially on the internet. Especially against fascists who are often very good at portraying themselves as the victims. You need to be careful to do it right, or you end up with another Horst Wessel or Charlie Kirk.
Protests can work, but only if it triggers a government overreaction.
True, but that’s the thing: Only disruptive protests can trigger a government overreaction. As authoritarianism takes hold the definition of “disruptive” becomes more expansive, but at least as it stands right now the kind of protests we’ve seen so far won’t cut it.
Especially against fascists who are often very good at portraying themselves as the victims.
I think there needs to be a lot more “spicy” resistance before violence becomes viable, but to be fair people who buy bullshit fascist narratives and people who would join anti-fascist resistance are probably two non-intersecting circles on a Venn diagram. I mean have you seen how MAGAts talk about Renee Good? These guys do not live in reality.
or you end up with another Horst Wessel or Charlie Kirk.
Not sure who the former is, but the killing of Charlie Kirk was a net good. The fascists aren’t doing anything they wouldn’t already do, and now there’s no more Charlie Kirk pushing fascist narratives.
Agree on the protests being insufficiently disruptive. You need to block roads and stuff like that.
Members of MAGA are lost. You need to convince those in the middle who are too apathetic, lazy, selfish, or scared to do anything. Convince them that they have something to lose, that they’re next.
Horst Wessel was an SA thug in Nazi Germany who was killed by communists. His death was very succesfully used by Goebbels as propaganda. They wrote a song about it and made it the official Nazi anthem. It is now banned in Germany.
MAGA were quite obviously inspired by Wessel, when they attempted to make Kirk a martyr. The critical thing to understand about Wessel, is that before he died, there were previous attempts at creating a martyr. So I would expect MAGA to attempt to make another Wessel sooner rather than later.
Protests can work, but only if it triggers a government overreaction. Once you have images of troops/police beating up grandma or outright murdering people, that can be enough to trigger far stiffer resistance and radicalise people to the cause. You want to create martyrs, basically.
This is also why I’m always sceptical about calls for violence, especially on the internet. Especially against fascists who are often very good at portraying themselves as the victims. You need to be careful to do it right, or you end up with another Horst Wessel or Charlie Kirk.
True, but that’s the thing: Only disruptive protests can trigger a government overreaction. As authoritarianism takes hold the definition of “disruptive” becomes more expansive, but at least as it stands right now the kind of protests we’ve seen so far won’t cut it.
I think there needs to be a lot more “spicy” resistance before violence becomes viable, but to be fair people who buy bullshit fascist narratives and people who would join anti-fascist resistance are probably two non-intersecting circles on a Venn diagram. I mean have you seen how MAGAts talk about Renee Good? These guys do not live in reality.
Not sure who the former is, but the killing of Charlie Kirk was a net good. The fascists aren’t doing anything they wouldn’t already do, and now there’s no more Charlie Kirk pushing fascist narratives.
Agree on the protests being insufficiently disruptive. You need to block roads and stuff like that.
Members of MAGA are lost. You need to convince those in the middle who are too apathetic, lazy, selfish, or scared to do anything. Convince them that they have something to lose, that they’re next.
Horst Wessel was an SA thug in Nazi Germany who was killed by communists. His death was very succesfully used by Goebbels as propaganda. They wrote a song about it and made it the official Nazi anthem. It is now banned in Germany.
MAGA were quite obviously inspired by Wessel, when they attempted to make Kirk a martyr. The critical thing to understand about Wessel, is that before he died, there were previous attempts at creating a martyr. So I would expect MAGA to attempt to make another Wessel sooner rather than later.