When fascism is in power, if you support fascism, you are a fascist.

If you do it because you're enthusiastic, you are a fascist.

If you do it because you're indifferent, you are a fascist.

If you do it because you're confused, you are a fascist.

If you support fascism and you love your kids, you are a fascist.

If you support it and you volunteer to help the needy, you are a fascist.

If you support it and you are friendly and jolly to strangers, you are a fascist.

Fascism doesn't care about anything but the support.

People telling me that calling people "fascist" is wrong because I'm condemning them without getting to know them miss the entire point.

I know them.

Many of them are lovely people.

That makes it worse. So much worse.

DO YOU NOT SEE THAT

It's not the crazy or the evil that empowers the fascism the most.

It's the normalcy. It's the niceness. It's the good.

The good masks the evil intent of empowered fascism. That's what they always wanted it for.

There are books about this, dammit. We all read them in school.

The quote isn't "The only thing necessary for evil to rise is for good people to not say 'fascist,' that emboldens them."

It's not "We mustn't take sides. Silence always helps the oppressed, not the oppressor."

It's not "...and I said nothing—which was the right thing to do."

No country ever committed atrocities without first making itself complacent in its own goodness, convinced that they were far too good to ever commit atrocities.

We have to stop this addiction to our own narrative of goodness. It's death.

Difficult truths from here.

It's not the truth that emboldens comfortable or confused nice people further into their complacent or ignorant support of atrocity.

It's silence.

It's our acquiescence.

It's our normalization.

It's our willingness to see things their way.

This IS history's lesson.

We, their loved ones, have a duty to tell them that they are lending their moral authority and basic decency to evil people who intend to squander it on atrocity.

If that makes them double-down on their support, that reveals their deeper intention.

Some ignorances are chosen.

People decide what to align themselves with in times like these, and then they make their choice, and then we see.

It's not nice, but it's true. And it's time to speak truths. No more with our addiction to our narratives of goodness. It's death.

Uncomfortable truths from here.