Well, if he didn’t selectively edit reality, he wouldn’t be conservative but my money is on “this is how he stays mask on”.

He doesn’t truly believe anything he’s just said. That’s why if you check his history, it’s littered with examples of Fascist Brand™ nationalism that he’s just claimed conservatives don’t believe in.

He knows his peers and politicians fit the fascist label better than anyone. That’s why self-confessed, swastika-waving fascists support them and more than likely why he supports them.

It took decades to dawn on them, but nobody gives a shit what fascists and neo-nazis think about the way society is run. Their gold standard is a genocide.

And so the alt-right was born. They had the same opinions as neo-nazis, the same key figures as neo-nazis and the same solutions as neo-nazis but they staunchly insisted they weren’t neo-nazis.

That plausible deniability earned them a platform they’d previously only dreamed of. Not just social media and it’s endless pool of disaffected young men and unmedicated schizophrenics but actual international news networks who hadn’t handed a mic to a Nazi since Hitler.

Of course, they couldn’t keep it in their pants for long. They triumphantly ripped off their masks at the “Unite The Right”, proudly displaying their swastika tattoos, white supremacist chants and domestic terrorism against innocent people deemed “leftist”.

Their plausible deniability vanished, as did some of their biggest, violentest, most slur-friendly platforms. So they retreated, regrouped and came back with a new strategy.

They’re just “conservatives” now. Still the same neo-nazi opinions, still the same neo-nazi figures, still the same neo-nazi solutions. But if you state the obvious, they’ll deny it. They’ll try and shame you for saying it. They’ll claim over and over again that the alt-right never existed and they’re just average conservatives. Maybe even moderates.

Not because they believe it, but because they know that going mask off loses them platforms.

This guy definitely knows it. His tactics aren’t just rehearsed, but traceable back to brain-storming sessions held by racists, sexists and extremists where they openly try and figure out how best to “red-pill” vulnerable people like children, the lonely, the stupid and the mentally ill.

If your instance admin can’t see that, it’s time to find a new instance. That one has cancer and thinks they can stop it metastasizing with polite discussion.

I’m not saying “no true Scotsman.” I’m saying Mussolini was a legitimate fascist, and his party died a long time ago. Some people today have similar traits, especially on the Left, but nobody is really part of his party anymore.

Free speech is a delicate principle. It requires everyone to firmly agree that everyone is allowed to speak freely, and we’re all prepared to fight to the death, literally, to defend their right to say it. It’s delicate because as soon as people abandon it, the entire project of western civilization can be destabilized. What we are permitted to say on kbin and every other online platform is the essence of free speech.