Look, there are still lines. No one’s talking about shooting nazis or violating nazis or torturing nazis. No one’s passing a law to get anyone who calls themself “alt-right” on Twitter thrown in prison. It’s not about “kill everyone who doesn’t agree with you.”

It’s about making the social consequences for advocating genocide excruciatingly fucking clear, for the benefit of the potential victims of that genocide.

What do you do if you see someone attacking a vulnerable person in public? Don’t answer right away, picture it: a grown adult hitting or screaming at a child, or an elderly person, or someone with a cane or a guide dog. What do you do? You leap to the victim’s defense. Even if the cane-user has a mean swing or the child knows kung fu, you fucking step in, because that person should not have to fight alone. (or, y’know, you start screaming for help, or something. Each according to ability.)

Because hey, guess what, we’re social primates with a community structure. We teach each other how to behave via how we react to infractions. More than that, when we react - either way - to one member of the community attacking another, we make it clear who is part of our community and who is not.

That is super fucking important, y’all. Most important thing in the world.

And so we come back to the Nazi Next Door. Nice guy. Clean-cut. Picks up after his dog. And he stands in front of national television and explains, in a reasonable tone of voice, that Nazi-ism is Right and Good and The Future. Guys, let’s not pretend this is not an attack, okay? Let’s not be disingenuous. We all know what Nazis stand for.

When this happens… the community has a choice to make. Which monkey gets protected and which one gets ostracized? Who do we welcome and who do we sucker-punch into next week? It’s not morality - it’s community dynamics. It’s also very much a binary choice. If we ignore the Nazi, if we allow the Nazi, then every single member of that community who isn’t Christian, white, straight or able-bodied has cause to believe that they’re the ostracized monkey.

I’ll say it loud for the people in the back: THERE IS MORE WORTH IN ONE NON-CHRISTIAN/NON-WHITE/NON-STRAIGHT/NON-ABLE-BODIED/ETC PERSON’S LITTLE FINGER THAN THERE IS IN A BARGEFUL OF NAZIS. Choose fucking wisely.

Punch the Nazi. Yell at the Nazi. Mock the Nazi. Pie the Nazi in the face. Turn off the Nazi’s microphone. Do whatever you have to do to communicate you are not welcome here, you are not one of us. Because even if the Nazi doesn’t listen…

…you know who is listening.