Thread by @drvolts

IMO we need to stop thinking these moves are either ridiculous fundraising gimmicks or genuine threats. The thing about reactionary insurgencies is that they can be -- & usually are -- both. They are ridiculous right up until the moment they're not, at which point it's too late.

https://twitter.com/janecoaston/status/1400510975573467146

The whole game for reactionaries is to push, push, push on the bounds of the acceptable, the legal, the decent. The first one that pushes beyond some previously firm barrier looks absurd, like a radical outlier, but it makes it easier for the next one. It's a ratchet effect.

All incentives on the right point in this direction now: push, push, push. The way to get attention & status is to say something even more outrageous, to propose something even more radical, to make insults & contempt toward libs even more florid. People respond to incentives.

The most difficult part of the dynamic & the reason it has worked to bring down so many democracies: ratchets are incremental. Each new reactionary offense is not THAT much worse than the last one. If you didn't respond decisively to the last one, well, why this one?

Putting a stop to the reactionary slide almost definitionally means drawing a line, making a very big deal out of the latest incremental ratchet. Saying: "this far, no further, we will not negotiate on this point no matter how marginal it looks relative to the last one."

It is very, very difficult to coordinate that kind of response among the diffuse interests & constituencies that theoretically ought to oppose reactionary illiberalism. For any one of them, it's always easier just to give a little more ground. Fighting is scary & carries risks.

There's an element of irrationality, of disproportionality, in drawing a firm line & throwing everything into a fight against a relatively small increment. It tacks against the predilections of left elites, who see themselves as Very Reasonable. It's a power move, not persuasion.

Nonetheless, a small increment followed by another small increment followed by another and, whoops, there you are in illiberal minority rule. Then, only outright revolution in the streets has any chance of stopping it. Slippery slopes are extremely real in this context.

Point being: people who want to preserve democracy need to stop waiting for some decisive, obvious offense to rally around, something that doesn't seem absurd & half-kidding. It's ALL going to be absurd & half-kidding, until it's not, so the time to draw an obstinate line is now.

People rightly say, of the Holocaust, "never forget." But we should also never forget the decades *leading up to the Holocaust* -- the stepwise, incremental loss of democracy in Germany as "moderates" waited & dithered until it was too late.