Antifascist praxis and the threat of violence
"Bring that shit around and get an ass whooping, bitch" - Murphy Katana
[This article makes mention of potentially triggering topics like child abuse.]
Much of the following analysis of history and politics is sourced from the anarchist author J. Clark, who has done much more research than me and has helped me immensely in understanding anarchist praxis in the fight against fascism.
The theme of masculinity permeates every sociopolitical neurosis in this country; every discussion on social media, every breaking news story, every regressive Supreme Court decision. It is men who wage wars, commit genocides, hoard money, burn the earth, shoot up schools, and commit violent crimes. It is men who lead our descent into ethno-fascism and men who fail to fight against it. As I try to better understand this shit, I—a man—often find myself reflecting on my own life and how lessons learned inform my praxis today. This is a summary of how masculine violence shaped my childhood and worldview, how I’ve analyzed and adopted its themes into my own approach to political violence, and what I think is waiting for us in the future.
I. The psychology of a coward
My father is the most polite man I’ve ever met in my life. He’s not compassionate in a performative or transactional way; he just truly believes in being kind to others. He’s the type of guy who audibly says “no that’s fine, you go ahead!” at a four-way stop, as if the person in the other car can actually hear him. As kids, he would (politely) forbid our waitress from walking away with our orders if we didn’t say “thank you” with a smile and he always tipped like a high roller even though we were broke. He coached youth sports for most of my life, and in my hometown he is still adored by two generations of grown men who remember him as a mentor and father figure from their teen years.
My father is also not a man to fuck with. He doesn’t play sports anymore, but God help you if you got on his bad side in a men’s league hockey game. He is a man with morals, and while I don’t always agree with them, I’ve always admired the way he will check anyone who crosses them, anywhere at any time. He doesn’t argue, he doesn’t posture, and he doesn’t back down; he plants his feet, says his piece, and that’s that. He simply does not feel any mortal fear of confrontation. I’ve seen many a rude passerby get a talking-to that neither of us ever forgot.
We only know what we’re taught, and my father was raised and taught by a man who was so polite that on his literal deathbed he would tell his hospice nurses—with closed eyes that he hadn’t opened in days—“My, you look lovely today.” My grandfather once threatened to resign his job as a finance CEO when the rest of the board tried to fire the elevator doormen. In his eyes they were people, and they deserved the same dignity as the Rolls-Royce owners on the top floor; if they were gone, so was he. He set a good example for my father, and in turn my father set it for me.
At my other house, I saw the example set by my stepfather. He was raised down south in a family who used to own slaves. He had a knack for science and a love of the outdoors, and his friends will tell you he’s a great time, but at home his rotten core was a reflection of what he was taught: he was a racist, adulterous, physically abusive alcoholic who took his anger at his marriage & the world out on my baby brother. I look forward to pissing on his grave someday. But I digress.
Both men are old now, but in their primes they were near complete physical opposites. My father is pretty tall, but my stepdad towers over most people. My stepdad was a former football player who never stopped lifting weights and could drag an elk carcass five miles back to the trailhead; my father was skinny, joked about sunscreening his bald spot on fishing trips, and had a back surgery every few years. My stepdad was violent, he’d been in fights, he carried a gun; my dad had never thrown a punch without a hockey helmet on.
My little brother was terrorized by my stepdad. He would hit him over any infraction, withhold food as punishment, throw him down the stairs. I spent years hiding in my room after school waiting for my turn. And there were plenty of moments where it seemed like it was coming—I would be menaced with the threat of it, dragged upstairs and thrown into my room, waiting for the beating that I knew followed—but it never came. For whatever reason, I was spared.
I realize now that the reason my stepdad, an enormous man who had proven himself more than capable of beating a child, never hit me is because he was scared of my father. He’ll never admit that, but his actions prove it. Somewhere in his mind even he knew not to cross that line. What could my dad have even done about it? A fight between those two would only end one way. But my stepdad was, at his core, the same as any man who uses violence against the women and children in their life: a coward. He feared just the idea of my father, because he knew my father didn’t fear confrontation and didn’t fear him, and that superseded all else.
This lesson has profoundly impacted and informed my approach to dealing with other men and the praxis of antifascism. We tend to view fascism as an unstoppable force; an engine of hateful ideas and policy fueled by the inevitable failure of liberalism, with no course of action left but to save ourselves. But that’s just not the case. Where many view it as a top-down issue, I consider it to be the opposite: fascism’s vast political power is only as strong as its goons’ ability to enforce it, and more of a reflection of the weakness of its opposition than the strength of the movement itself.
Of course I understand why so many people fear these guys, the way I feared my stepdad as a child. I hadn’t yet seen what a coward he was, because he disguised it with intimidation and violence and I lived in fear of him every day of my life. In the case of fascists, I know they commit violent hate crimes on the street, brutalize their partners and children at home, and use their political power only to subjugate and torture other social groups in service of their own cultural sadism. I know they are a threat. In fact I regard them as an immediate one. And I can understand why every week I read thousands of comments from terrified white liberals saying, in so many words, “This is a hopeless fight! They have police power and guns and big muscles! I will sit at home and wait to die.” You can read my thoughts on those folks elsewhere.
I’m not afraid of fascists though, for a lot of reasons. I’m tall and white and outwardly masculine, I’m a pretty good kickboxer, and I’m armed. But the biggest reason I don’t fear a fascist is because when I look at them I see my stepdad. I hear his voice say the slurs, I see his figure menace smaller people; and I see the terror my father could put in his heart that kept me safe for years. I know their worldview is based on lies and hatred and fear, and that’s the chink in their armor. Like my stepdad, they’re cowards, and I don’t fear cowards.
II. The Three Way Fight
In his article Three Way Fight: Revolutionary Anti-Fascism And Armed Self Defense, anarchist author J. Clark deep dives the power of a gun in political violence. He analyzes the roots of (and contradictions within) fascism, chronicles its rise in the USA throughout the 20th century, discusses the roles of race and class in its ascent and bloodiest moments, and summarizes the events and impact of several major conflicts between fascists and their opponents. I feel rejuvenated and empowered by every example of them fleeing at the mere sight of the violence they threaten us with. I highly recommend it for folks who want a quick read packed with history and analysis.
Particularly striking to me was Clark’s summary of the neighborhood militias that formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For those of you too young to remember, New Orleans was basically a failed state in months following the disaster. The Bush administration’s abysmal response is now a benchmark for terrible presidential approval ratings, news media seized on the crisis to shamelessly report sensational, racially-charged stories of rampant rape and looting—all later disproven—and life for many communities became hell on earth with nobody coming to help. The city sat under martial law and four feet of water for months.
Clark tells the story of the Algiers Point—an affluent white neighborhood—and the militia they formed to “defend” themselves. Of course, they weren’t a defense force at all, and quickly started doing IDF-style raids into the adjacent predominantly black neighborhoods of Algiers and West Bank; they went in pickup trucks full of armed hillbillies with no purpose besides menacing and killing unarmed black people, which they openly bragged about.
Eventually they began harassing Malik Rahim, an organizer and former Black Panther. Rahim threw his hat in the air, and a group of Texas anarchists snuck into the city and made their way to the Algiers neighborhood.
The white militiamen showed up again to menace Rahim’s house. But this time, they were met by the anarchists pointing their own guns right back at them. The Algiers Point militia turned tail and left. In the weeks to come, the anarchists did their own patrols through the neighborhoods, letting the white militia know they weren’t welcome anymore.
This is the crux of fighting fascism that the anarchists from Texas understood, and what liberals don’t. If those guys were truly as scary as they acted, they’d have had no problem opening fire on Rahim’s front porch and killing everyone (and given the conditions of New Orleans at the time, they’d have likely gotten away with it). But they weren’t, so they didn’t. They had a great time committing hate crimes for weeks but the moment they stared down the barrel of a gun themselves, they ran and were not seen again. Once again, they proved themselves to be cowards.
Clark’s essay on antifascist praxis paints a clear and irrefutable picture of the necessity for an armed presence among any meaningful opposition. He is a far more gifted and well-read writer than I am, and I have nothing to add to his analysis of these events.
Here I will jump in, though, to remind folks that this praxis is effective at the personal level in any interaction with a fascist. The venue and the weapons may change, but who they are does not. I live in the South, and as a consequence of leaving my house, I get in verbal altercations with fascists all the time. We don’t point our guns at each other; rather, we posture with verbal threats and body language in a performative and stupid battle of egos that I always win. It’s not because I’m a particularly scary guy. It’s because I meet their hateful rhetoric with a show of force—the threat of violence—that their own pathetic praxis cannot withstand.
I wish people would understand that fascists don’t really want to fight. They’re just as scared of getting punched or shot as you are; I would argue even more so, because before protecting their ideology they will always protect their ego. Sure, they may be capable of violence, but it’s against people who can’t or won’t fight back. It’s gun violence against unarmed civilians, physical violence against women and children, or maybe even another grown man who just won’t stand his ground. But at their core, fascists are simple, primitive, binary. They present themselves as predators but in reality, they’re cockroaches who scatter when the lights come on. And you don’t politely explain to a roach why he should leave your house and teach him about Bacon’s Rebellion; you squirt his hiding spot with lethal poison that kills his next three generations.
Fascism is an inherently weak and fragile ideology, and that’s why it seeks to monopolize the currency of fear. Far-right influencers have monopolized every aesthetic measure of power in our society, from money to guns to muscles to skin color, to spread fear. But it’s all an act. The gun guys will only shoot up a church or a school where they know they won’t be harmed themselves; the jacked guys can’t run a mile; and the rich influencers rent everything. More importantly, when you show up with your own guns and muscles and white skin, they run and hide. Fascism is a facade and so are the men who try to enforce it. When you realize this, they just aren’t scary anymore.
III. The Wars To Come
There was another point of analysis in Clark’s essay that really struck me. This one isn’t a gratifying example of the bully getting his comeuppance, but rather a shrewd political observation that cuts to the core of liberals’ complete uselessness in the fight against fascism:
Clark digs into the idea that because left leaning folks believe their politics to be objectively correct, and assume that the majority feels the same, they operate under the subsequent assumption that any major moment of unrest will break a divided society towards their side. They are certain that problems like healthcare and civil rights will galvanize undecided folks in their favor and add to their own ranks. In reality this just isn’t the case, and in fact right wing populism has proven to be scarily effective at mobilizing the masses, but folks on the left never consider this possibility because they’re blinded by their own hubris. As a result, they are always blindsided by the true scale of their opposition and several steps behind them (radical leftists, this applies to us too; never forget that our voice is virtually silent in electoral politics and respected by neither party, and we’ve taken our fair share of Ls in this fight too).
I have always maintained that the enabling and impotent nature of liberals is more responsible for the rising threat of fascism than its far-right perpetrators, because they have worked as hard as possible to create an environment where fascist violence can avalanche upon us unchecked. They smugly maintain an attitude of nonviolence and say shit like “the opposite of hate is indifference” to justify doing nothing, and in fact they’re actually quite similar to fascists in how they value their own ego over the strength of their ideology.
But I’ve always struggled to understand something: I get that liberals are devoid of any class consciousness, and I get that they’re smug assholes, but I could never figure out how they thought their approach would work. As in, if they play the tape forward, how can they honestly believe that refusing to intervene in this clear descent into authoritarianism will fix anything?
Clark’s analysis gave me the missing piece. They don’t feel a responsibility to fight for anything, because every time some crazy shit happens, they just assume it’s creating more liberals. Of course they were shocked and bewildered that Harris, who ran the worst election campaign I’ve seen in my lifetime, lost by historic numbers. They don’t feel a call to action because in their mind, eventually enough people will come to the left that this will all stop. But those people are going to the right, and now Nazis are marching in the street.
In the past I have referenced the disastrous events of Charlottesville and how ensuing events empirically proved the nature of effective antifascist praxis. To refresh your memory, 500 fascist demonstrators marched on a city park carrying rifles and tiki torches. A thousand leftist counter-protesters arrived overnight and beat the shit out of the fascists on camera. The next year, that same rally drew 25 fascists who left when it started raining and the entire country made fun of them for weeks.
You don’t even need to go back seven years to find an example. Nazis in full regalia marched again in Ohio last month. They made it about six blocks before passersby dispersed them with pepper spray and cans of soup, with no shots fired. We know what works.
If I can impress anything upon you, it is to arm yourself with this praxis every day. The liberal approach of nonviolence is rooted in hubris and will get us all killed if it’s the only game in town. You should have no problem standing up to a fascist now, because I’ve given you everything you need. You understand their fragile psychology and the chinks in their armor, you’ve seen their cowardly souls exposed, and you have history to inform your efforts.
Above all, you know the stakes. Every fascist you see is a threat to your community. Fascist control of a nation causes the violent deaths of millions. When you tell a fascist to shut the fuck up in public; when you grab your waistband to let them know you’re not here to fight; when you feel that rush of fear in a confrontation that makes you want to walk away; remember that while intervening may increase your risk of death, failing to do makes it a certainty for others. The path we are on only ends in mass exterminations. Remember that if you don’t risk your life now, they will take it anyway.
My little brother, whose story I told earlier, has grown into the finest young man I’ve ever met. Even though I’m several years his senior, I deeply respect and admire him, and I learn from him all the time. He is now a college graduate and an ornithology savant with a brilliant mind and a bright future ahead of him. If Trump has his way with this environmental shit, there won’t be anymore birds for him to study, and I’m not letting that slide. Call me petty, but we went through too much to accept that result.
I’ll end with this: I often think about a meme I saw a couple years ago depicting a knife-wielding Brad Pitt and BJ Novak leaning over Hans Landa. The caption read:
“Inglorious Basterds (2009) plot hole: the Americans killed and scalped the Nazis instead of voting blue.”
Thank you for reading. I’m experimenting with a new voice; if you like this direction, please let me know. If you don’t, please let me know even louder! 161 1312]
I have known people in these militia groups, served with them in the military. I have studied these groups for nearly three decades intently. I've come to the same conclusions the author has. They are essentially brown shirts. We Saw this happen in other countries, the paramilitary groups would be used by the dictators to disappear political enemies. My heartfelt plea to all is this, do not obey in advance and do not get into the box car to go to the camp. Stand up and fight
I grew up a sheltered liberal in Waldorf private school and always fancied myself well ahead of the progressive curve. But over time, and especially when trump got re elected, and I saw my friends true colors, and the real life fascism id only read about in my dads ww2 history books enacted in real time, I started shaking in my unscuffed boots. I realized I’d never considered what I’d be willing to lose in support of what I’d always said mattered to me. I’m terrified still but reading your work helps me know where to go. Thank you