Noone gives this take the other way round, do they? No one advises conservatives that calling their enemies communists, extremists, anti-semites, Britain haters etc. "doesn't work" Because political name calling plainly *does* work, if done regularly at sufficient volume with a big enough platform
the only reason this doesn't work is because they think fascism is cool. you have to call them gay or whatever
I kinda think he did not write the headline, and it has been edited to hell. His take seems to be that we should them wifebeaters. I agree with that. Nazi wifebeaters has cut through.
Why not call them fascists, if this was the 1930s its obvious they would all be joining Mosley and his British Union Of Fascists.
there's never any real evidence that it "doesn't work." This kind of opinion should always be read "I find it distasteful, therefore please stop"
I got here from a quote skeet and thought it was going to be about Gavin Newsom’s insane posts
The idea of comity only applies to people that care about decency, good faith, or the common weal
Calling people racists and/or fascists doesn’t work because a) if they know they are, they’re proud of it, or b) they don’t know and they don’t care, or c) they don’t know because they’re in denial. It only feeds their sense of grievance and reinforces their prejudices.
Yes, this is wishy washy pish. If it talks like a Nazi, goose steps like a Nazi and salutes like a Nazi, it’s probably a Nazi…
people mock that all the time - whether telling someone they're an idiot for labelling everyone a communist constitutes 'advice' or not might be debatable but I think it's fair to say there is a constant push back against the hyperbole of the right.
where?
No there isn't.
I think both things are true - name calling can work but also the names need to be specific enough so that most people can go "they're not talking about me" which chatting shit about the English or British flags doesn't do.
We are talking about you, shut up
I'd never thought of it like that! A bit like no one says they need to do more to listen to and engage with their opponents (e.g. immigrants, LGBT+, lefties) either. It's always, always been an axiom that we have to accomodate the right, and only the right.
Strangely though, that's an axiom for and by politicians who think they are catering to a center that is made up. It doesn't hold true for anyone but the right and, arguably & horribly, for those whose business persona is based on pushing the narrative of "the people" as a monolith.
P.S. the version in German is better, if you can read it.
This reminds me of discussions in publishing around "diversity of thought". CEOs used that as a shield to publish people saying horrifiying things on the right...but they never published communists for "diversity of thought".
No they don't. And when this guy is a prominent speaker and face of their movement, why would you. If an open Nazi is a welcome speaker at your rally, it's a Nazi rally.
It's also great that we're still seeing variations on "the working class are too dumb to understand the left's big words" in 2025.
You don't "win over" fascists.
This is the thing, isn't it. The UK media collectively decided that calling someone a fascist is worse than holding far-right views in the first place
And now being agreed with by someone with relative stature on the 'left' they can point to as qualifying + backing up their argument...
Yes, but we don't have the numbers or the platform. I don't think Dave's making a general point about name-calling, anyway. In the blog post this article is based on, he argued that calling the National Front Nazis was effective, but that calling anti-asylum protesters Nazis is counter-productive.
I just don't think it's important at all. Is there something you can call these people that will make them go home? No. Is there something you can chant on a demo that will derail the moral panic being driven by media and politicians? No. So what are we even talking about here?
Tactics that might make some less committed "protesters" think "what am I actually doing here?", as compared to tactics that are likely to make them think "the Reds hate us, we must be doing something right!". I think that's all it's about - nothing about Being Nice To Fascists or whatever.
I also think "how do we demoralise and otherwise peel off people from the edges of the anti-migrant coalition?" is quite ann important tactical Q.
Look man if someone is out there yelling at migrants they are *already* part of a radicalised fringe minority. The actual number of people out here at these things is tiny, it's just that each one has been assigned a personal telegraph columnist to big them up.
I am *beyond* sick and tired of being told that we have to focus our resources on not pissing off seventy-nine bald cunts just in case one of them miraculously converts to socialism after ten years of concentrated outreach. It's a shit use of time and energy.
The point of calling people Fascists *was* to demoralise less committed sympathisers etc etc - that's how it was (and is) sold, "ordinary people get sucked in because they don't know who the organisers are" etc etc. It worked at one time. The conditions to make it work don't exist any more.
If it was just about saying what you see and not worrying about who you offend, "racist c**ts" would probably work better than "Fascists"; "fat nonces" would be better still.
He appears to endorse the latter approach, so this really seems to be about policing language used.
Yeah and if you personally don't want to yell "Nazi scum" at someone outside a hotel ok, I won't make you. It doesn't matter. The whole thing is laughably irrelevant when every single one of these people will get a Sunday supplement pullout and a guest slot on the recipes blog.
Well see I think there's use in calling fascism fascism on account of what it is. Weird this is controversial?
I'm muting this thread. Consider yourself victorious over whatever the hell it is you're arguing with, because it's not me.
The point of calling things by their proper name is that it's correct and you cannot solve a problem you are too scared to name. You cannot tactically triangulate yourself through the minefield of "literally everything you say will be used against you because the fascists own all the microphones."
Again, you're talking about (and against) a whole bunch of stuff, most of which has got literally nothing to do with a blog post by a socialist which is about good and bad ways for leftists to organise physical resistance to a racist mob.
You've read Umberto Eco's Ur Fascism. Does this moment seem to be meeting the criteria?
It won't work and then the next thing won't work and the next thing won't work and idk maybe stop spending your entire life on a tactical semantic retreat from a right wing propaganda machine that can get a decades worth of "they're cancelling Christmas" headlines from one council memo.
I don't care, tbh. I think fascist is accurate and I think it's funny when dumbahit telegraph columnists get fussy about it.
Dave's a freelance writer who's been involved in anti-fascist activism for decades & written books about fascism, but apart from that.
I simply do not care to be told that the blood and soil nationalists trying to burn down hotels full of foreign people are not fascists. I do not care to be lectured about how accurately describing them might upset some delicate flower. I don't care and neither should you.
"but some middle class white lady ranting about migrants might think you're overreacting" I don't care. I simply do not care. Explain why I should care even a tiny fucking bit about that.
As far as I can see, Dave's argument is purely tactical: he's suggesting that calling people Fascists is bad tactics, because it may encourage less committed sympathisers to become more committed ("we stood up for our women and they called us names").
You're reading a whole lot of other stuff into it, and honestly if I thought all that other stuff was there I'd agree with you.
How's the overall tactic of "don't call these people fucking bastard shit head fascists, instead give them soft soap profiles in every newspaper where they get to regurgitate whatever poison the mail has been dripping into their ear, laundering it as the voice of the common man" going?
We're trying something new here, it's called "not caring what centrists are clutching their fucking pearls about because they are the enemy and their tactic is to enervate every left movement by doing this exact fucking bollocks."
My feeling is that what we're doing isn't working. Probably, as you say, because we don't have the platform and the volume. The question is how to get that? Perhaps spectacle, including name calling, might help, but it's still something that needs strategy
Also I agree with @dangerouscorner.bsky.social that standing between the dash and their targets is worth it. A change that makes them feel safer is important. And spectacle might not do that.
youtu.be/u2OPp_Dnki0?...
It works at the strategic level if you have the media power to frame it. The right does. The left, currently, doesn't. There's a completely seperate process happening at the tactic level. It's reasonable to ask if a slogan is working or not.
The lack of power to frame anything makes the discussion about the slogan redundant.
Me, I'm in favour of keeping on thinking about what we're doing and whether or not it's meeting its success criteria.
"what should I say to people" is not a useful question when whatever you say and whatever they say will still be rendered as "concerned families protest sex-crazed outsiders" at a level of discourse you have zero control over and that is actively being leveraged on behalf of the enemy.
So all slogans are currently useless on a strategic level? [therefore we should never discuss them on a strategic level also?].
imo, the only useful questions here are (a) how do you disrupt that transmission from small fascist demo to mass media-produced moral panic (b) how do you organise/bring out the people who have clocked that this *is* fascism on the march.
How about (c) recognising that it's holding the space, thus preventing the fash from having a clear go at their targets and (d) in the event of mass right wing mobilisations (which most of these aren't), what slogans are best to put a wedge in their org?
I think a) is getting the direction wrong. The small fascist demo isn't the cause of the mass media moral panic, it's the result of it. The good thing is that so far this is the best the upper class fash can produce, the bad thing is that they won't stop trying.
symbiotic relationship maybe? Think the small fascist bloc exists irrespective of what's going on in the mass media and is definitely useful for accelerating things
The fash exist but they take all their cues from the daily mail. When they're looking for the thing to be outraged about, it's on the front page for them.
harris was at her most popular when dems kept calling republicans "weird"
Yeah, the point isn’t to persuade them. It’s to remind everyone else that their views and behaviour are unacceptable.
Feel like there are generally two kinds of fascist on these hotel demos. Them that know they're fascist, and them that don't, yet, know that they're a fascist. Some of the latter can be peeled off, and that's likely to need more than being shouted at on the street...
... but the street is not the place to be engaging in substantive persuasive political conversation. It's about keeping people safe first and foremost, and drawing dividing lines where all the fascists are on the other side, clearly marked "fascist".
yes, exactly this!
Honestly pretty naive to imagine it's worthwhile giving chant advice when you're lining up against a solid phalanx of mass media, Reform, Cons, Labour, all singing from the same hymn sheet about what the protests mean.
The political/media class *chose* not to make a big deal out of Jenrick associating with a Neo-Nazi, precisely because it disrupted their scripted narratives about what these protests are and what they mean, precisely because violent Hitler fanatics being involved *is salient* to 'bystanders'
You think their whole thing is suddenly going to be troubled by a bit of bog standard liberal humanitarianism?! Come the fuck on.
What happens to the neo-nazis, Robert Jenrick, the editor of the Daily Mail and Keir Starmer when you stop calling them fascists and finally hit on the winning strategy of 'saying foreigners are human beings'
If it didn't work, why would fascists lile the Guardian bother fighting against the tactic?
I think it's useful for people to be told that they are engaging in fascism. Useful information.
Very notably, they were absolutely humiliated in Bristol!
Very, very much so. On multiple occasions.
But the left doesn't have such a platform.
And this isn’t the case in America, where people are seriously saying “but what if Hitler maybe had some points”.
I think he's trying to make a point about how we need to confront the 'migrant predator' shit directly, but I think he has made the point badly.
Yes, I think his point is that “and how many of you are abusers of women?” (40 per cent of the far right marchers were, apparently) might cut through more.
if he wants to come up with a slogan for that which is easy to chant at protests, that's great! Similarly, it's worth bringing up on mainstream news pieces- but you can do so without scolding people for chanting 'Nazi scum', in a context where the audience and goals are very different.
I think the 'migrant predator' thing is a serious problem, partly because it makes out the predators are those Other people, and put those innocent people at risk of attack. And also because it protects the predator at home. But none of this is easy to talk about with a snappy slogan
Like if you are knocking on doors on estates doing anti racist leafleting and you try to talk to people about 'the people who rape white women are nearly always white men who they know' I mean all power to anybody doing that but people will be very hostile to it
Also big difference if you are talking about doorknocking on estates locally and talking to people, or if you have a big mob outside a hotel attacking random deliveroo riders
In the second case the important thing to do is make sure nobody gets bottled in the face and they don't terrorise the people in the hotel (or random deliveroo riders, or black people going to the shops)
Frustrating seeing the Bristol bloke say protesters weren’t appealing to bystanders when this is precisely what happened last year (black guy gets physically attacked on his way into town)
Like number 1 priority is the safety of the communities they are trying to attack and everything else is number 2 priority
To the people who make up the bulk of the protests the words 'Fascist' and 'Nazi' just mean "the bad guys"; "the villains" in the countless war movies they've watched. They think they're on the side of good. Note how many begin their diatribes with "I'm not a racist but..."
From my perspective, as a USian living in a country that has been fully taken over by fascism at the national level, it seems clear that two profound factors in the rise of modern fascism are centrists’ unwillingness to call it what it is & their drive to discipline the anti-fascist impulse