How (not) to talk to fascists

Layla Aitlhadj is one of the directors of Prevent Watch, an initiative which supports people who have been affected by the government’s anti-extremist programme, Prevent. Many of the people she advises are Muslim, but she has also counselled the families of children accused of misogyny, homophobia or far-right extremism. Most of these referrals to Prevent are made by teachers. They might be made aware that one of their students has been sharing videos made by a known extremist, such as the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate. They then contact Prevent, who send a social worker and a Prevent officer to the student’s house.

Often, Aitlhadj says, children are questioned without a parent present. It’s a frightening experience, as the child worries that a ‘wrong’ answer could get them sent prison or taken into care. In theory, the student should be asked questions relating to their own possible radicalisation. But, according to Aitlhadj, the Prevent officer may also ask: ‘Who are you speaking to? What are you doing online? What is your opinion of the Iraq War?’ The child may have no idea what the ‘right’ answer would be; they don’t have an opinion of a war that ended before they were born.

Such methods, Aitlhadj warns, can be counterproductive, antagonising the people subjected to them. ‘When people meet Prevent,’ she says, ‘it feels like the state is bullying them to change their ideas. And there’s a group of people who just won’t be bullied.’ She thinks that many of the teenage boys she meets would grow out of their ideas if society gave them the space to grow up and learn.

‘I think we need to do more joined-up thinking about our problems and how they interact,’ she says. She is often confronted with clichés of generational radicalism; the old imposing reactionary ideas, or the young developing them. She would like to see the generations talking more, not only to ‘address issues of mindset, but other issues too’, including problems of loneliness and isolation.

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.

Alex Roberts is an anti-fascist activist and the author, with Sam Moore, of Post-Internet Far Right. He has observed former fascists online and considered them as potential allies, but always been disappointed. When supporters of the far right make contact with their adversaries, he says, it is rare for them to have made a journey of rejection. They usually still identify with the right. Researchers approach them in the hope of gleaning valuable information but are usually disappointed. ‘The mistake is to think that these people have special insight into far-right movements just because they were involved in them.’

Roberts argues that there are no general lessons to be taken from former fascists, nothing to simplify the task of arguing with people who have been attracted by an idea associated with the far right. But he also insists that leftists need to take care of the people around us:

I persuaded my granddad not to vote UKIP back in the day by talking him through a very particular incident, a protest in Nigel Farage’s home village in which I participated. We were doing an action and it was generous and celebratory – we did calls to prayer and invited people to join in, we staged a gay marriage. Farage said we’d threatened his kids and it was a complete lie. My granddad had been thinking of voting for UKIP, but when I told him what had happened, he agreed not to vote. It was such a big issue for him – he refused to vote for a liar.

Aitlhadj, Braune and Roberts all accept that people will try to argue with their friends and family, and, with some caution, they encourage this. But it’s worth taking the time first to work out how far someone’s gone. A person who has shared a single tweet is in a different place from someone who’s been to a far-right meeting, or is rebuilding their friendship network around people they’ve met on a far-right website. If a member of your family has gone further, to the point where they encourage violence against strangers, then talk to them only with extreme caution. It isn’t good friendship to tell someone they’ve done nothing serious, or to forgive them, if you have any doubt as to what they’ve actually done.

People need to be talked down from right-wing positions, but it’s often a thankless task. If your friend is a determined follower of the latest right-wing fashion, then you won’t be able to persuade them otherwise without committing a great deal of time. Any number of people can reminisce about the time they gave trying to save someone and it was wasted, the effort they made to save an extremist who only lashed out at the people who’d tried to help them. The times we’re living in mean it’s necessary to have the argument, but it requires enormous patience, and an expectation of as many setbacks as successes.