Michael Hobbes: One of the core lessons of history is that you don't need all that many fascists to produce a fascist regime. You need a broad swathe in the middle to look the other way.

The most chilling thing about this era isn't the growing number of explicit fascists, it's the way elite institutions refuse to even attempt to stop them.

Every day I get more radicalised I’d probably pop a bottle of brut if the BBC Question Time offices were obliterated by a rogue timetravelling Luftwaffe pilot

One of the core lessons of history is that you don't need all that many fascists to produce a fascist regime. You need a broad swathe in the middle to look the other way.

Which one of the anti-trans activists was it who said something like "we don't need to convince the majority. we just need to convince a few key decisionmakers"? I think she may have been correct.

Helen Joyce! That's who I'm thinking of. www.thepinknews.com/2022/06/03/h... From 2022, when she explicitly called for a reduction in the number of trans people.

Like, that's the play that they've run. 100%. They haven't tried to convince people. They've just gotten large institutions to make sweeping declarations, to say this is how things ought to be, and end "debate" in their favor. All the while, I don't know trans people are supposed to go on living.

*how trans people are supposed to go on living. It's been making my life really difficult and contributing to all sorts of challenges that simply did not exist for me until just a few years ago. It's not being trans that makes my life hard. It's being trans in the world they're intent on creating.

Life was easier for me in 2014 — it was a lot easier. I know this isn't the case for everyone, but for me, it is. Things have gone so far backward in the past decade.

Like, I have a lot more trouble writing, focusing, working, living these days. The world's just gotten so much more hostile.

I think of 2014 as the year the Internet stopped being fun. It's been rough for a lot of other reasons, but as a Too Online person, that's how I think of it.

For a little while it almost seemed like the fight was won forever Naive of course but it really did appear to be something relegated to the most extreme wackos

Honestly yeah, that was the point where it started feeling like the storm was gathering

I hate it. I was really hoping this country was making progress in all kinds of acceptance.

Absolutely

I don't even think it's "looking away". A lot of it feels like "the way they are presented in trusted meadia, these issues seem to be unclear and very complex... shouldn't responsible people err on the side of caution"? Especially since the BBC, the NYT, the Guardian whoever seem skeptical too.

"Nuance trolling," is what a recent episode of the podcast Citations Needed called it. (Not specifically in reference to trans issues - people nuance troll about climate change, about universal health care, about all kinds of things.) (And by people I mean the NYT.)

OTOH most people lived through the whole “let’s normalize homosexuality” saga so maybe they shouldn’t be so fucking gullible

I'm not arguing that this is the right reaction or good. It's just my - utterly unscientific - gut feeling how people function, not how they should function.

I think there are 2 schools of transphobia in UK media. from the right wing you have the "we cant openly hate the gays so the trances will have to do." whilst on the left you have a certain brand of upper middle class fame columnist who used to play the victim card until intersectionalism came in.

At that point the mask started to slip because as an upper class white girl fresh from private school who's dad helped them get a plum job... they cant admit theyre posh or it will break their self image. So they kick down at the easiest target, women they can call men...

sure they get push back... but because they see themselves as left wing that must mean theyre doing it right. Now theyre real feminists fighting against the system. Sure they cant admit theyre fighting alongside the system... theres baddies now and theyre the goodies.

the right wing sees this and spies an opportunity to cloak their bullshit in a cover of "feminism" without actually being feminist, so play along. They radicalise the useful idiots, make them more aggressive and now you have what w're dealing with on Transphobe Island...

This particular programme has form for actively promoting fascists like Nigel Farage and Douglas Murray, and putting far right activists in the audience where they get to ask questions www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/i...

Is BBC Question Time’s audience producer really a fascist?www.opendemocracy.net A freak Twitter storm engulfed the audience producer of the popular current affairs programme last week, as it was revealed she had shared Facebook posts by far right groups. But is there more to it?

the-free-press.co.uk/2022/11/03/a...

A Questionable Time: BBC Question Time Guest Selection in 2021the-free-press.co.uk BBC Question Time is arguably the foremost political panel discussion in the UK. The programme first aired in 1979 and, while viewing figures have declined in recent years, it continues to enjoy audie...

Yup. It is an actual fucking disgrace

Paraphrase, cf: Paxton, Robert O. _The Anatomy of Fascism_. Vintage, reprint, 2005, p 217.

Only because they always think they'll be fine. And they are until the dictator decides he wants their stuff. Or doesn't like their face. Or wakes up a bit grumpy.

Which always happens, because only a tiny minority of people are actively involved at any given time anyway. The anti-police brutality protests of 2020 were record-breaking in the U.S. and the number of people out there wasn't even 1 percent of the U.S. population.

In Germany scientists call this phenomenon "middle extremism".

"good people? do nothing? in this economy??"

Fascist takeovers are another norm that we must respect.

They look the other way cuz they feed their time, money and attention into various pursuits that benefit the ruling class and keep the middle class fighting one other basically.

I'm not sure this is accurate. You need a substantial fascist movement combined with a centre right political establishment who believe they can control the fascist for their own gain.

Substantial can still be a minority, like it was in Germany.

But it's misrepresenting history to say there weren't many, in either Germany or Italy. There were a great many.

Yes! All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for people of good will to do nothing!

One of the core lessons in history is why countries with any form of secular enlightenment resisted the axis powers. The broad swathe you mean come from people who think civil liberties and human rights are not inalienable rights.

A conservative American journalist hit the nail on the head by saying none of Peter magyar's protesters and supporters are for marginalized groups just against corruption and organized foreign guest worker programs.

And creating an environment where “should we let kids know trans people exist” gets portrayed as “trans people + your kids” and that is just jet fuel for reactionary politics but more directly, permission for the broad middle to look away and be indifferent.

Or chaos agents and ratfuckers to get the middle too busy fighting amongst each other.

This post is incredibly relevant. bsky.app/profile/emil...

I agree that extremists have taken over Israel, but in 2014, during one of the other wars on Gaza, I argued in The Forward that it had been handed to them by the moderate Jewish middle: emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/a... [NY Times gift link]

The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israelwww.nytimes.com After 50 years of failure to stop violence and terrorism against Palestinians by Jewish ultranationalists, lawlessness has become the law.

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