Bill Anderson
Aug 22, 2017 · 8 min read

This is pure ignorance, with perhaps a touch of arrogance thrown in. Nazis as well as white supremacists and segregationalists were already afraid — that is why they are getting pissed. They are a tiny portion of the population huddled for the most part in even smaller enclaves. This is one reason why we should let them speak — people will tell you what is going on. But you do have to listen to or read them.

They say feel they are marginalized. They say they feel the society is excluding them. They say they feel like the culture is going away from them. In short, they feel they they are dying out. And for the most part, they are correct: they are dying out, they are not in sync with society’s views, they are marginal, and when they express their racist views they are excluded. Fear leads directly to violence. When you’re afraid and feel you have no other options, you resort to violence.

In a society that increasingly focuses on grouping rather than individuals, they seek out a group they can identify stands against those feelings. Their cries are not the sound of people who are unafraid. Those are the cries of a group of people who are already afraid.

By supporting the initiation of violence against an already fearful group you are exacerbating the problem — you are escalating. Despite the sense of self-righteousness such a claim provides, the racists were not out smashing buildings, running up and punching people where were merely getting interviewed, throwing bottles of urine on people, and so forth.

And, if you’re going to talk about history, you’d best go learn the history rather than spouting off nonsense. Antifa was never a pro-democracy organization. Antifa was explicitly a communist organization combined with a socialist organization, and today’s Antifa marches under that communist banner. Antifa wasn’t even a “resistance” movement, but more of a movement to punish people they perceived or were known to be Nazis after the war, and to revive the origins of their conflict: the battle between Marxist schools of thought such as Socialism, Communism, and Fascism. The war between “fascists” and “antifascists” was never aboua war between democracy and fascism, but a war between Marxists.

One of the more well known leaders of Antifa during the early postwar period, Wolfgang Leonhard, even acknowledged the anti-democratic nature of Antifa, saying in his memoir:

It’s quite clear — it’s got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control.

And this was regard to controlling the internal factions within the AntiFA collective. If you want to see how a group that seeks power would rule, look not only to their rhetoric regarding their “enemies”, but to how they rule themselves.

This notion is further visible in the activities of Antifa of that time: control of industry through labor unions and syndicalism (which propelled Fascism’s victory in Italy it should be noted). It is also visible in the return of AntiFA in Germany during the 1980s. During that time it arose from a German “squatters movement”, and was explicitly “re-formed” to counter the National Democratic Party in Germany. Now, it should be noted that the NPD was and is an actual German political party that is white supremacist, or at the minimum white segregationalist.

Yet Germany refuses to ban them. Why? Because when it comes to this type of thing, Germans have learned from history. The NPD, like the KKK and other white supremacists groups, is powerless. Despite fifty years of trying they’ve never elected a national representation and the most they’ve managed in a local election is still single digits. Germany explicitly takes the route of saying “they are not worth the bother” and noting that to do so would open the doors to political groups being controlled by other political groups. Germany remembers history.

Antifa was also not a united group, but rather one that attacked itself, committing acts of violence against other groups within the larger movement. Much of this is because they were not a thinking group, but a collection of reactionaries seeking power. They attempted to gain control of the levers of industry the same way their forebears did — intimidation. Germans have seen that playbook before. Americans have too, but we’ve forgotten it.

Of course, Italians have seen it too — it is precisely how Fascism took over Italy. In both Germany and Italy (as well as Soviet Russia), the violence was used to take over, and was always labelled as the moral good. The socialists used it to take over in Italy, to which the Fascists responded with an escalation of violence. The socialists claimed it was self-defense because the state wasn’t socialist enough so its existence was a threat. The Fascists claimed it was justified and a moral good because the socialists were being violent.

One of the many lessons there is that once you’ve started the path of initiation of violence, the responding wave of violence will find more purchase because you’ve demonstrated your violence; thus Fascism leveraged the violence and appealed to the masses due to the violence of the Socialists. Mechanically, the Antifa of today are the Socialists of Italy circa the early 1900s. They are setting the stage for a violent reaction to them.

The acceptance of the violence of Fascists seeking power in Italy was accepted because the Socialists, in their violence, had created a victim mentality among the public at large. The socialists used intimidation spread via the threat and actual deployment of forces to destroy property of those who did not march to the Socialists’ ideals. The message was clear: do what we want, go along with our people, or we will destroy your livelihood regardless of who you are. For them, there was no neutrality.

Implicit in all such attempts at intimidation is the escalation of violence. If they torch the inn, and people still resist what happens? We know what happens: they escalate the violence to beatings and killings. So the Fascists appealed to that growing concern and used beatings, the occasionally killing, and most commonly public humiliation and shaming to counter the Socialists. Just as Fascism was built on, and an extension of, Socialism, the violent tactics of the Fascists were built upon, and an extension of, the violent tactics of the Socialists. A key lesson here: the Socialists came to power on “low level” (compared to what followed) violence, the Fascists arose as a counter with increased violence.

The Nazis, however, already had power in Germany when they lifted the Fascist tactics from Italy. The Nazis weren’t Fascists, they were Socialists. They saw the ability of the Fascists to utilize street violence (despite being against Fascist policy and rhetroic) to keep and grow their power. For Nazis, the violence was a natural addition to their own tendencies. The Soviets, in their occupation of East Germany “tolerated” the AntifA street violence in precisely the same way that Mussollini “tolerated” the Fascist street violence — it served their ends.

“But Today it is different” some cry. If you look at the mechanics of what is going on, it isn’t any different. Group A initates violence against others and claims they are the moral good, even the national good. Group B, one of the targets responds with their own escalation of violence and claims (more rightly) it to be self-defense. Group B will be more violent than group A and it will be generally seen as less-objectionable, if not acceptable, because of the violence initiated by group A. The names may change, but the sequence of events does not.

Indeed, consider the punching of Spencer. While more than property damage and instead a clear physical attack for the explicitly stated purpose of intimidation, how was it responded to by those so attacked or identfying with them? Like this:

If law enforcement can’t protect us from antifa assaults we will begin protecting ourselves.

Does that sound familiar now? That is precisely what happened in pre-Fascist Italy that produced the first Fascist state. The pattern is the same. We would be fools to think that the repetition of a well-known and historically proven sequence of events will produce the opposite of what it has always produced. We would be idiots to think that merely changing the names of the targets would make it any different.

The Antifa of today are the ones who initiated the violence through the violent “protests” where rampant and wanton destruction is a tool for intimidation. This lays the groundwork for Fascism. If the justification of the violence of the modern Antifa becomes accepted, then even more violent resistance and counter groups to Antifa become legitimatized. Once you accept that attacking someone for their political or ideological beliefs, or for speaking about them, or for getting together in support of them, you accept that violence is the answer to ideas. That isn’t pro-democracy. That isn’t liberal. That is a core precept for Fascism, for without it Fascism can’t take root.

If it becomes OK to cause property destruction, or to walk up and physically assault someone because of their speech or beliefs, then it becomes even more OK to do more than that to people who do those things. This is the escalation inherent to any and all initations of violence.

As I’ve said before, and as history clearly demonstrates, the way to advance fascism is to preempt it with violence. When faced with “we’re victims because they speak things we don’t like, so violence is OK” put up against “we’re victims because they are physically assaulting us, so violence is OK”, people naturally gravitate to the latter. The most powerful weapon a marginal group has is sympathy. Don’t give people a common cause of sympathy. When people are saying things such as “I hate that I have to defend this group, but …” because that group subject to active violence, you need to realize this is exactly what is happening.

Active violence against a minority group is the best way to build support for that group. You prevent its growth by not being violent against them. Let them call for the “destruction” of the powers that be. Respond with “no, and here is why such a notion is wrong”. If they have a protest or other public grouping, let them chant whatever lunacy they want. You counter it with protests that take away the audience by having larger peaceful “counter protests” (the term itself is problematic) elsewhere. Your audience is not them. It is everyone else.

A public protest/gathering is an attempt to get people to side with you. If there are more interesting protests demonstrating the route of peace elsewhere, the media will go there; thus denying the spotlight with neither violence nor laws.

Don’t escalate in kind, don’t escalate with intimidation, and certainly don’t escalate with active violence. When the scared attempt to intimidate, you give them power by responding in kind. You want to counter Naziism and Fascism? Great! Now take Germany’s path of recognizing those groups have no power and no significant appeal. You want to claim they are actually violent? Let them actively show it by abandoning their powerless protest to travel over to yours to assault you rather than going to theirs.

Demonstrate you are not afraid of that small group of idiots by the equivalent of patting them on the head and telling them “run along now, nobody cares about your small minded ideology”. Feel free to parody the ideology, or even to mock it. Of course, keep it to the ideology not the person, or that will backfire as well. Illustrate that their ideology is impotent by having demonstrations elsewhere that are peaceful, that are larger, and are thus more persuasive. There is no other path that is more clear about their powerlessness, nor more effective in showing it.

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