political shit

we talk a lot about the “every accusation a confession” strategy of fascists– “accuse your opponent of what you yourself are guilty of” and all that

and we talk a lot about its immediate effect (distract from what the fascists themselves are doing; put their enemies on the defensive)

But there’s also the more insidious long term effect

Which i don’t see talked about very much

And I’m not convinced that it’s part of their actual plan… but it’s just as important and insidious as if it was

I’m talking about, when their accusations against us are just absurdly, wildly baseless conspiracy theories – and they get publicly treated as such

And that public perception continues, even into a time where there’s significant evidence of them doing the same things they accused us of

and it sets a precedent to treat reasonable accusations like baseless conspiracy theories

“they’re involved in sex trafficking” “oh, so you believe in Pizzagate when it’s your side making the allegations, huh”

“They’re tampering with election results” “oh really. what are you gonna do about it, storm the capital next January 6th?”

(also: the fact that they’ve encouraged their followers to commit crimes in the name of revolution against a government that they believed had denied them the ability to effect change through a fair election.)

(And yes, those followers were horribly egregiously wrong. But in that wrongness they strengthened the ingrained rules in our heads about how violent revolution is always wrong even when you believe that all means of peaceful change have been destroyed.)

(And we’re gonna be seeing the effects of that for a long time.)