The political centre is missing the mark when they attempt to fight “the enemy” because they don’t understand who the enemy is. The enemy isn’t white supremacy. The enemy is fascism. Those two things can work together, but they are not the same thing. Fascism is more dangerous than white supremacy because it has a much broader appeal. Fascism includes people of all skin colours under it’s tent, all faiths, every demographic, every culture, and every sexual orientation.
That is what moderates do not understand.
The three defining characteristics of fascism are:
- extreme beliefs not based in truth
- a desire to replace democracy with dictatorship
- a belief in the use of force to achieve it’s goals—the “fasces”
Fascism will also tend to target the “other”, but the “other” can be anyone or anything, it is not limited to ethnic minorities, 2SLGBTQ+, or even people of Jewish heritage, even though those have all been traditional targets. Those targets can be extremely slippery, difficult to define, and are constantly changing.
