Talking to Fascists

Joan Braune is a lecturer in philosophy at Gonzaga University in Washington State. She too is sceptical of state efforts to deradicalise fascists, and she extends that scepticism to the liberal press. The story of a fascist leaving the movement, she says, is often told as a ‘compassion narrative’, which doesn’t leave room for other ways of understanding the far right. ‘People are desperate for hope; Christians love redemption narratives.’

In Trump’s first term, Braune says, stories of former fascists ‘became a huge phenomenon’:

The ‘former’ has a story of looking for some purpose in life. Maybe they don’t admit to everything they did wrong, but they do talk about their teenage angst or life traumas leading them to seek out belonging. Then they have an encounter with a lovely person from a minority group. They describe feeling shame and cognitive dissonance.

Braune describes how being a ‘former’ can turn into a job, making the person dependent on retelling their own story in a way that liberals find acceptable. It can also demobilise anti-fascists: ‘When confrontations are suggested by activists – let’s try to block some far-right gathering, let’s try to shut down a neo-Nazi event – people will say we should do outreach to them, we need to meet in the middle.’

The hope that every fascist is a future liberal or leftist just waiting to escape their present life is a form of naive and self-defeating optimism. ‘It’s terrible advice,’ Braune thinks. It can be dangerous for minority communities to show compassion to people who have expressed hateful ideas, or forgive people who haven’t given up the politics of hate. ‘There’s a lot of expectation on Black people to forgive racism, on Muslims to bring non-Muslims into the mosque, on gay people to justify their lifestyles.’

I asked her if anything changes when the people moving to the right are friends or family:

When you try this stuff, it’s you against Elon Musk, Fox News, it’s you against a powerful network. You might lunch with your Trumpist cousin, you might win them, but in the meantime there are thousands of other people being drawn into fascist politics. I think sometimes people feel responsibility for family members. With kids maybe it can work, with cousins. But with the QAnon mum, I tell people there’s probably no point trying to change her. Because she already thinks she knows more than you – she’s your mum.