Yeah so basically the word “fascist” here is being used as an opening to allow violence. What Arcade is doing is threatening me with violence, by showing me that he can get others to agree that I’m a fascist.

It does actually prove my point quite nicely, because Arcade‘s reasoning for why I’m a fascist is … drumroll please … he doesn’t like me and wants me to shut up.

His next comment will double down on this “you’re scum” thing. It’s contempt coding. Demonstrate contempt for me, applying the frame of “gross thing, to be removed”.

This whole thread is bait for my comment of course. The baiting goes like this: Make an open-faced declaration of war against a category vaguely defined as “people we’d like to hurt but need a label for in order to justify it”. Then, when someone objects, on the grounds that “hey don’t you guys tend to just use that label as a dog whistle to mean people opposing you?”, you can threaten them with the label itself.

“Remember buddy, this is a room where we’re smashing fascists. We wouldn’t want to put your name on that list now would we?”

This whole sequence of moves is being played out again and again. Always the same message: get in our way, speak up in opposition or question, and we turn the violence on you.

Tactic as old as time. Arcade is playing an ancient role here.