This is quite literally how Italian liberals reconciled themselves to fascism.

Interesting reading from the July 30, 1921 issue of the WASHINGTON TIMES.

Conor, like Sully a week ago, would probably say "well, *I'm* not endorsing fascists! I'm just saying that in periods of lawlessness and anarchy, people will turn to fascism to provide order!"

The problem is, IT IS THE FASCISTS WHO ARE COMMITTING THE VIOLENCE!

One of the reasons I like the TIMES editorial from 1921 is that, as bad as it is -- and it suggests that the Klan had its heart in the right place in the Reconstruction-era South -- it recognizes the violence in Italy was coming FROM THE FASCISTS...

...and that direct actions, like the strikes in Italy in 1921-1922, were responses by workers and socialists to inaction (to put it mildly) AGAINST fascist violence.

Framing "anarchy" and "lawlessness" as the far left and the far right being equally responsible for those conditions -- when the vast majority of deadly violence has been perpetrated by state agents and far-right auxiliaries -- is essentially taking the fascist side.

That's why people saying Sully (rightly) had let the mask drop last week.

This is a fascist framing. Pretty much explicitly.

It's the equivalent, in many respects, of what the 1921 WASHINGTON TIMES does with the Klan:

"Oh, well, the Klan was responding to the horrors of Reconstruction, like freedmen voting and holding political rights/offices! BOTH SIDES WERE TO BLAME FOR THE ANARCHY!"