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."