Its not good against individuals, but it keeps this from becoming a space where they can congregate and try to attract people in the pipeline already.

Of course people aren’t automatons, but people can and do often unconsciously mirror and internalize things they see as normal in a community. Defederation does do a good job of keeping the bulk of Lemmy from being a Nazi bar, so that will happen less here. Its not a perfect solution, but its better than reddit in that regard.

I don’t know why you keep bringing up tankies, you do realize they founded the site right? I don’t think that gives them any special right to be here, but its also hard to imagine Lemmy without tankies. Its a part of what makes the space unattractive to fascists, and I’m not going to pretend I don’t enjoy seeing Hexbears tear their posts into pieces. I think the numbers of tankies here is a lot lower than some users would have you believe, and the main instances are largely defederated or default blocks. I’m fairly content with how that is working out.

As for the rest, you won’t be able to debate fascism into the ground. Fascists have to be crushed through collective action. People differ on what that would look like, in my ideal we would band together march through the streets and dismantle the engines of war that fascists rely on. Burn the factories, abolish their institutions, and set about the work of preparing the world for climate disasters. They’re not going to fall over and stop being fascists because of perfect inescapable logic. They’re going to stop being fascists when the tools they would use to oppress us both physical and cultural are broken and they see they cannot win. Your debate tactics will have a place breaking their cultural tools, but it has to be accompanied by a large enough unified front to make fighting back infeasible, and the removal of avenues for them to retake control by physical destruction of weapons, weapons manufacturing, and vehicles of war including those used by the police.