So the question is a bit weird and for the sake of not sounding like a complete edgelord I will try to explain what I mean
I used to be pretty active inside the hooligan scene (lol) when I was younger. I still follow lots of football ultras accounts and the occasional hooligan thing gets posted there as well. It should be no surprise that some hooligan groups are pretty right wing or out right fascist. One of the Dutch accounts posted a Feyenoord hooligan picture in which some of their members posed in front of a ‘anti antifa’ banner, with the purpose of looking cool of course, flexing their muscles and whatnot.
I decided to call them out on it, saying it’s messed up since Rotterdam was bombed to pieces by the Nazis even. They deleted the post afterwards.
I rarely see people do this, not even leftist accounts I follow. Which made me think, should we be less afraid about calling shit like this out? To send some sort of message that we are not afraid of losers like them? Or do you think it is counter productive to do so?
I don’t mean we should start doing ‘come fight me bruh’ things, but I feel like the left is sometimes missing a link between neanderthal fighting and your average debate me bro intellectual leftist that speaks to the people.
Honestly, I respect it. Call it out, drag it for filth, and move on; with aim to keep from devolving into the “drop your location”/“pull up then” type keyboard-warriorism (unless you’re actually on go like that, but most ain’t); I can respect energy like that. There’s always a chance it might reach someone who otherwise, might’ve played fence-sitter. Might pluck 'em down off it.
In the situation I mentioned above I was indeed hoping to reach lurkers or people on the fence. I called them what they are, fascists, which for many people still is a heavy line to cross. But by posing the way they did, which is by showing their well trained bodies, you can actually reach easy to manipulate young guys. But by calling them out, without also adopting a counter toxic masculine way, I think we can show those same guys that this is not the way to go.
I greatly admire your bravery and strategy, though I wouldn’t entirely worry too hard about presenting toxic masculinity in calling out fascists. The Overton window is so fucking far-right that any attempt at criticizing capitalism and fascism makes you the bad guy and/or a “OMG soyboy es-jai-duyba!”