This is the specific sort of muddying via association that's often used. Suddenly, trump is a literal swastika flashing nazi, and that's why twitter banned him.

Associating people with the worst of whatever group you can lump them in, then following up with "they're that guy"

No, Trump is not a literal swastika-flashing Nazi.

BUT, there are literal groups of swastika-flashing Nazis that do support Trump. Targeting these people with harassment should be encouraged, NOT because they support Trump, but because they are Nazis.

Trump and non-nazi Trump supporters MUST NOT be harassed by simple association, EXCEPT to the extent that they are themselves protecting the nazis, or trying to muddy the waters.

Because a lot of people ARE muddying the waters from the "Trump" side as well: instead of recognizing that many attacks are against literal nazis who happen to support Trump, they act as if the attacks are against Trump supporters in general, or that people are calling a crowd nazis because they support Trump, not because they were chanting "jews will not replace us". Or claiming that Trump, who said about the crowd chanting "jews will not replace us" and the antifa counter-protest "there are fine people on both sides", was not literally defending nazis in this case.

He's not a Nazi although he's willing to ally with them, but I believe he is a Fascist, on the basis that he has nothing but contempt for democracy and the rule of law (among other things).

He pulled exactly the same 'stop the steal' crap in 2016, claiming massive voter fraud then as well, as a pre-emptive strike in case he lost. But hang on, if he actually believed there was massive voter fraud, how come he did nothing about it for four years eve when he controlled both houses? Where were his reforms of the voting system, increased supervision of voting and vote counting? why no improvements to ballot security and statistical analysis to identify the fraud (the current analyses show it's negligible). If he actually believed what he is saying about vote fraud, why didn't he act on it?

He did nothing about this for two reasons. First he knows there isn't any significant vote fraud, this is well established and was not a partisan issue before he started talking about it. Second, if he reformed voting security, he would become responsible for preventing any potential fraud and would be unable to blame failings in the system on anyone else, taking away his excuse.

> Trump and non-nazi Trump supporters MUST NOT be harassed by simple association, EXCEPT to the extent that they are themselves protecting the nazis, or trying to muddy the waters.

That's the thin end of the wedge though.

- Muslims must not be harassed by simple association, except where they muddy the waters to protect Islamists.

- Feminists must not be harassed by simple association, except where they muddy the waters to protect transphobes.

- Conservatives must not be harassed by simple association, except where they muddy the waters to protect an anti-gay rights agenda.

"Muddying the water" is dangerously vague. Who adjudicates between good-faith arguments and those intended to give cover for extremists?

> EXCEPT to the extent that they are themselves protecting the nazis

like BLM protesters providing cover to violent antifa & rioters, you mean?

Knew this was going to get downvotes. How very dare I apply the standards of the left to BLM. I've yet to see a good argument that this isn't s double standard though - your actions either aid bad actors, or they don't, whether through explicit support or indifference.

If you're part of a protest and it begins to turns bad, either repel the rioters, or leave - it's not impossible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzZ_VJXWtNs

Otherwise, how are you not complicit?

This is precisely the sort of water muddying via association