I don't think the Chapo bros are fash.

I don't think they care at all about whether their friends are fash or whether their "irony" enables Nazis.

In the end, that isn't what matters.

They've created a fanbase that thinks antisemitism is fine as long as it advances "leftism."

That fanbase has left approximately ten thousand receipts in my replies in just the last two days saying things like "humor can't be antisemitic" and defending people who "joke" about using biowarfare against Jewish civilians.

They've sent DMs about finding me where I live, used an impersonator account to make "me" talk about molesting children and killing Black people, bombed my inbox with porn, and applauded when one of Chapo's regular guests waxed poetic about nonconsensual touching.

My notifications are just a flood of incredible misogyny and ableism.

Instead of responding to the critique or taking responsibility for their actions, Chapo hosts egged on that fanbase and encouraged them to lean into a misogynist, ableist hysteria narrative.

When I pointed out that one of Chapo's regular guests was a peddler of antisemitic pizzagate conspiracy theory, did they address it?

No.

Instead, they retweeted that regular's conspiracy theory about how I'm a deepcover agent destroying the left in order to protect pedophiles.

I see a whole lot of people that I liked and respected trying to minimize this shit, saying "why does it matter, it's just a podcast?"

It is really fucking disappointing.

Chapo is not "just a podcast."

It entertains presidential candidates as guests.

Chapo earns 200,000 to 300,000 downloads on any given episode.

What Daily Show was for libs in the oughts, Chapo is to rose Twitter.

It has an outsized influence, and the dirtbag trolls it created ended up being the Sanders campaign's Achilles heel.

For years, the Chapo hosts have been pushing a class reductionist narrative that pretends racism and misogyny and ableism and antisemitism aren't real or don't matter.

They've told people they can be oppressive dicks all day as long as they're also posting guillotine memes.

It is an ugly, toxic attitude that has spread like a disease across the left, and it is killing us.

It is being weaponized against those of us who have dedicated our lives to liberatory movement work, and our comrades are basically responding with "well, you asked for it."

The Chapo hosts induct their listeners into a casual class reductionism, telling them that racism and misogyny don't matter, that antisemitism doesn't exist, that people naming it are really just trying to silence supporters of Palestinian liberation.

They actively deny that organized white supremacy is a threat, then invite pizzagater antisemites onto their show & moonlight on the podcasts of self-admitted fascists.

They tell those listeners that a podcast with an explicitly Nazi fanbase has their show's "seal of approval."

They "ironically" spout antisemitic shit.

When they recruit new hosts, the ones that sign on just happen to have a documented history of associating with and platforming actual, honest-to-God Nazis.

If this were some show on Fox News, we'd be absolutely united in saying fuck you, Fox, how dare you platform this fascist-adjacent trash.

But somehow, when folks who share our attitudes about wealth distribution do it in our name, it's not important.

When it's happening in our space, it's a "waste of time" to address it, to call it out, to demand that we be accountable to our own principles.

That shit is minimization, deflection, & hypocrisy.

I have spent my entire adult life working long hours in service of leftist liberatory movement.

I absolutely refuse to let these grifters gaslight their way out of accountability for broadcasting this shit in our house.

It's not a waste of time to say, no, I refuse to stand by while these assholes extract massive profit by leveraging a movement built by the sweat and tears of my movement ancestors, my comrades, and me in a way that enables fascists.

You know what would be the real waste of time?

A waste of years and years, of decades?

Continuing to let Chapo and the rest of the dirtbags erode all those years of movement-building by monetizing the house we built and renting it out to fascists.

And know what?

When I started doing survivor rights work in the time before #metoo trended-- when I started calling out the DNC and the Democratic establishment for being predator-enabling cowards-- people called that work a waste of time, too.

They called my work crazy.

Then all of a sudden, when the election was over and they didn't have to stan a rape apologist candidate and their enemy was a sexual predator?

That's when liberals decided that accountability work wasn't crazy after all, that it was Brave and Admirable and Very Important.

I'm used to being brigaded, attacked, and called crazy/hysterical/obsessed with the unimportant when I stand up for my principles and demand that we hold our own accountable.

It's what the DNC did with survivor rights activists until they decided we could be usefully co-opted.

It's what Very Important Corporate Bureaucrats did when we demanded paid sick time, when we fought through two mayoral vetos to win it in Philadelphia.

It was crazy, it was unpatriotic anti-capitalism.

COVID has a whole lot of those guys hoping no one will revisit their words.

It's what some Sensible Union Officials said when we came to them saying we were going to organize our canvassing office, when we asked them to run the drive.

It was crazy, it was unworkable, there was too much turnover.

Then we organized with IWW and got 100% card signage.

First they ignore you.

Then they laugh at you.

Then they fight you.

Then you win.

That Gandhi quote may be apocryphal, but it's also very much a theory that I've seen proved over and over again in my extensive time working on campaigns.

You know when I'm discouraged?

I'm discouraged when I feel like I'm just talking to myself, that my words aren't landing, that the impact isn't there.

When people start to laugh and point, I don't love it.

But I also know it means the work I'm doing just advanced to Stage 2.

When a target starts to fight me?

To, say, brigade me and harass me and threaten to come to my home and mobilize entire subreddits against me?

That's not what losing looks like.

That's the next-to-last stage.

That's the "then they fight you" that comes before "then you win."

Stage 2 & 3 are real fucking lonely.

Those are the stages where the "comrades" who are afraid of the fight start treating you like you're radioactive, even if they privately know you're right.

They hedge, they distance themselves from you, they say "oh I usually like her, but"

Stages 2 & 3 aren't fun, but the fact that you're moving through them means the tide is close to turning.

The dirtbags wouldn't have fought this so hard if they didn't see the writing on the wall.

Chapo just got so upset about getting named as fash enablers that they made that callout trend.

Are they going to disappear overnight?

Of course not.

But now the line is undeniably drawn in the sand.

There's no "oh, I didn't know, oops," now.

The question's been called.

Once the question has been called, there's no defaulting to "oh I hadn't heard."

Once the question has been called, their fans and listeners and apologists can't pretend that they aren't making the active and fully-informed decision to be part of a project that enables fascists.

This isn't about thinking a plug will suddenly be pulled.

It's about creating an environment where people-- namely the Chapo hosts, other dirtbag niche celebrities, their trolls, and their apologists-- cannot escape accountability for their choice to enable and promote fascists.

That's what winning looks like here.

Winning is drawing that line, forcing people to pick a side, and then holding the people who cross that line and side with the Nazi enablers accountable.

From what I'm seeing today, it looks like we're at a very late stage 3.

The Chapo hosts and their trolls are still trying really really hard to pretend they're laughing, that this is all a big joke to them, but it's increasingly clear that they're 1) Big Mad, & 2) losing steam.

I'm getting stalking threats and extreme pornography in my DMs.

The impersonator is just openly trying to convince people I'm a child molester.

The hosts are pushing pizzagate conspiracies about me now and calling it "research."

That's what desperation smells like.

That reek of desperation is the hallmark of "then they fight you" drawing to a close.

It's them scraping the bottom of the barrel, praying for a Hail Mary.

It's the sign that you're going to win, and soon.

The trolls are already beginning to stagger away, to go hide and lick their wounds.

The shit they've kicked up is starting to fall back to the earth.

After they walk away, I'll still be "that crazy lady obsessed with Chapo" to the haters.

I'm still "that crazy lady who wouldn't shut up about getting sexually assaulted at the DNC" to a sizeable crowd of sexual violence apologists.

I'm still "that crazy antifa lady" to Nazis.

When the dust settles, though, the line in the sand is going to be deep and distinct and undeniable.

The "then they fight you" will have ended.

We'll have entered Stage 4.

We'll have arrived at, "then you win."