Yep. That is the whole point of having debates. You rarely change the view of the person you are debating but you can cause their followers to reconsider if you put forward your case well. Even if you manage to make 1% of his followers question their beliefs, thats 1% less nazi's in the world.
Naziism is not a reason-based ideology.
That's not a glib one-liner, it's a fact. Communism, libertarianism, liberalism - even militarism - have some kind of rational basis. We may agree or disagree with the basic tenants, but these ideologies flow from observations about the state of the world and attempts to remedy what are viewed as problems.
Naziism is a fantasy-based ideology, both in terms of input and output. The observations of the German Nazi party were based on Germanic
mythology. Nazis held chivalric medieval German society - a society that was largely created post-facto by authors during the romantic era - as the goal that their modern society to strive for.
They wanted to recreate a society that never existed in the first place.
The statements and writings produced by Nazis were also fantasy. This is particularly important for this discussion; Nazis did not say, nor intend to say, things that were true. They said things
that would have to be true in order to justify their planned actions.
For instance, the idea that Jews caused Germany to lose WWI is ridiculous. It doesn't take long to take this idea apart in a debate. It has no grounding in fact, nor is it even a plausible explanation for Germany's defeat - an event whose causes were not a mystery to historians or contemporary observers. But the defeat of Germany due to Jewish sabotage is something
that would have to be true in order to justify the horrific crimes that the Nazis would later perpetrate against the Jewish people.
Their view of the world is fantasy, and their statements are feverish conspiracies.
Modern fascists fall into the same exact pattern. Richard Spencer, Steve Bannon, and Milo Yiannopolous believe that people of European decent are genetically superior to people of other ethnicities. This is scientifically false. They believe that every achievement of the modern world is due to the European colonization of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. This is an absurd misreading of history which has been discredited for decades.
The statements they make are also pure fantasy; 3 million illegal immigrants voting in the election, "Black crime" skyrocketing, Islam waging war on the West - this is all nonsense. But again, these are things that would have to be true in order to justify whatever terrors these men have planned.
Every time we allow fascists to speak, we give them the opportunity to justify violence against vulnerable people.
Every time we allow fascists to speak, we give them the opportunity to justify violence against vulnerable people.
They will not say things that are true. They will not address facts. They will not acknowledge the superiority of their opponents reasoning. Instead, they will shout as loudly as possible about the evil deeds of the Jews or Trans or Blacks or Muslims until their mic is cut off (or they get slugged in the chin).
When you give fascists a platform, you are allowing someone to scream 'fire' in a crowded theater and calling it free speech.
