It’s easy to see in hindsight which tactics of fighting evil were justified.
Second World War? Yeah, Hitler had to be stopped. Civil rights movement? Yep. Gandhi’s acts of civil disobedience? Women’s suffrage? Protests against South African apartheid?
In the moment, though, each and every one of those movements was subject to harsh criticism, either for using the wrong tactics or for just being the wrong fight.
On Feb. 20, Richard B. Spencer, alt-right founder and all around horrible human being, was sucker punched while being interviewed on the street in Washington, D.C. Spencer was there for Donald Trump’s inauguration, as was the masked protester who whacked Spencer and launched a thousand memes.
Many people are gleeful about Spencer being punched.
Why? Well, Spencer has:
• Advocated sterilizing minorities,
• Wants to create a white “ethno-state” in the U.S., (Peacefully, he says but “Maybe it will be horribly bloody and terrible. That’s a possibility with everything.”) and
• Shouted “Hail Trump!” at a rally, prompting his followers to throw up Nazi salutes.
He’s a hipster Nazi, a rich kid from a Texas suburb who grew up to peddle a high-gloss, online version of old-school fascism.
But is it right to respond with violence? Spencer hasn’t attacked anyone, he isn’t organizing storm troopers or leading lynchings. Yet.
But that’s the thing about hindsight. We have some.
In 1932, British politician Oswald Mosley formed the British Union of Fascists, one of dozens of parties modelled after Hitler and Mussolini’s vile dictatorships.
In 1936, Mosley tried to lead a march through Cable Street, in London’s largely Jewish, working class East End.
The locals, with the support of leftist political parties and Irish dockworkers, stopped them cold, blocking every street and brawling with police who tried to clear the streets for the fascists.
The Battle of Cable Street was the beginning of the end for Mosley’s fascist movement.
Fascism wasn’t stopped in time in Italy and Germany, and it led to global disaster and the Holocaust.
You don’t have to agree with the punch, but we do need to commit to taking action. Protests and denunciation, shunning and shouting, we have to do what we can to stop the modern Mosleys.
