Fascism has two big public relations goals in the run up to its takeover: 1) obtain legitimacy by being treated as a valid political ideology, worthy of "debate" and inclusion, and 2) delegitimize their opposition, including by insisting that violently resisting genocidal fascism is just as bad as the genocidal fascists themselves.

In the West, this is a strategy designed to get white moderates, centrists, and "ordinary" conservatives on board with the fascist project by masquerading as a respectable political entity and by casting their opponents as dangerous, usually left-wing subversives, taking advantage of the white moderate's conflict averse nature and ambivalence toward other people's subjugation and extermination.

But an important part of this process is establishing a post-truth regime in politics and media where opinions, feeling, nostalgia, and "tradition" are allowed to overwhelm factual and scientific evidence and the kinds of basic human empathy and decency required to maintain a pluralistic democratic society.

Expertise is not only to be discarded but demonized and treated as a subversive element working against the "true volk" whose identity and feelings are held to be factually superior.

Every single "debate me" bro is feverishly engaged in this project even if they don't realize it. They're sock puppets of the fascist movement attempting to bleed legitimacy from scientists, academics, and historians and establish the supremacy of white male grievance and conspiracy theory over facts and evidence and in most cases, human rights and dignity, to render them as mere "ideas" to be debated and discarded.

For all of their pithy slogans, they have a completely wrong-headed and self-serving understanding of truth and human nature, which is probably why they're such easy marks. They like to portray themselves as "rationalists" who are "just asking questions."

Most are grifters and well aware of what they're doing, and they've been creeping into mainstream and online media for years to legitimize fascist bullshit; e.g., the anti-trans moral panic, Joe Rogan, CNN's Trump town hall sham.

They usually portray themselves as "brave truth-tellers" standing up to "the corrupt and sinister establishment," which is usually understood in terms of antisemitic conspiracy theories once you dig deep enough.

Often simultaneously, they claim to be merely giving a voice to "real Americans" who are being ignored, usually with good reason, i.e., white male supremacist assholes who live and breathe bigotry.

There's invariably Nazi shit at the bottom of all these seemingly disconnected groups.

"If you scratch any conspiracy theory deep enough, you will find Nazis 100 percent of the time. Even things that seem harmless, like Flat Earthers, often have deep ties to Christian nationalism."

"Most conspiracies require a cabal of sinister figures at the top... and more than half the time it’s all just code for the Jews."

https://www.houstonpress.com/news/conspiracy-theories-are-not-harmless-14383225

And I think it's important to point out the enshittification of mainstream news and increasingly social media was not an accident but the result of media consolidation under white conservative ownership.

Ironically, perhaps, as mainstream journalism becomes increasingly untrustworthy and regarded (correctly) as ideologically motivated tools of the wealthy, that, too, is fed into the conspiratorial matrix about "what they don't want you to know."