Memes

I don't buy it. There is a really big difference between a nation fighting an existential war with a military, and performative, mostly nonlethal, vigilante political violence. The latter is useful to fascists for obvious reasons; the experience of violence is at the core of their ideology, they have a clear path for using the trauma for hazing and indoctrination, it attracts attention, it attracts potential sympathy for the same reason it may serve the goals of nonviolent protestors to have violence seen being done to them in the course of their protest.

Trying to engage with them this way seems like it would clearly advance their goals more than it would harm them. How could it do otherwise? Do people think activists respond to light beatings by becoming dissuaded from their activism? I feel like this kind of messaging is pushed either by fascists themselves or by people with goals aligned with fascists, like involving more people in violence and bringing the overall political climate closer to a civil war situation.