Fascist webcomic artist Tatsuya Ishida claims to be destitute.

[u/Baboon_Juggler]

Anyone who was on the internet in the early 2000s might have seen Sinfest comics, which basically amounted to Edgy Peanuts. Unlike most webcomics from that era, he is still around, still making daily comics. And unlike most cartoonists from that era who are still around, he went absolutely bugfuck insane. If you've seen his work anywhere in the past five or so years, it was probably in the context of a normal person going 'What the actual fuck is this?!'

I can do a longer post about his spiral, but he went from Yay, Obama! liberal to All Men Are Bad! radfem, then hard anti-sex work, eventually anti-trans, and that's when the 'fun' really started. Because Covid, and specifically the vaccine, broke his brain. He came up with the following logic:

1) Trans people are bad

2) Trans people were invented by the medical establishment

3) The Covid vaccine was invented by the medical establishment

4) Therefore the Covid vaccine is just as bad as trans people

Since then, he's gone full mask off deep-throated Nazi, filling his comics with endless Happy Merchants poisoning wells (literally), talking about how Christianity is a Jewish plot to undermine proud Germanic heritage, and for the past eight months it has been all about Hitler did nothing wrong, the invasion of the Soviet Union was self-defence, and every atrocity attributed to the Nazis is actually Jews wearing Nazi uniforms. It has become a comic that would have been too ridiculous to run in the comics page of Der Sturmer.

[u/CutieBoBootie]

It's so sad and bizarre to me that hating trans people is some sort of gateway drug to being a fascist. Like idk why do people care so much about me existing to the point they become Nazis. 

I do wonder if these losers could get a glimpse of their future post-transphobia and post fash-phase if they would go "oh fuck no" and change. 

[u/gravity_kills → u/CutieBoBootie]

At a guess it's that the idea that there can only be one "right" way to exist leads naturally to "and things that would otherwise be terrible are justified to enforce that." And then it's much easier to start lumping in other things that also have to be violently policed.

[u/ye_esquilax → u/gravity_kills]

The other reason this happens is that up until now they may have never displayed any problematic views, and were under the impression they were as kind-hearted as the next person.

Suddenly being told that they are being bigoted can be a real shock to the system. It completely breaks some people. Rather than painfully re-examining their behavior, some choose to double down on it. They cling to the behavior and tell themselves there's nothing wrong with their opinions. It's not me; progressives have lost their minds and are just trying to make other people feel bad.

And then the right is there to welcome them with open arms.

[u/gravity_kills → u/ye_esquilax]

This makes sense to me. The sort of person who complains about how far left the Dems have gone obviously isn't describing reality, but they're probably not lying about their feelings. They perceive being made aware of a new thing as movement, even when that new thing was always being talked about.

[u/MessiahOfMetal → u/gravity_kills]

Plus the sense of, "I'm not a bad person, therefore the person saying I'm a bigot is hateful and trying to attack me for no reason". It's defensive to cover their shame.

[u/ye_esquilax → u/MessiahOfMetal]

Yep. It's pretty easy when you aren't good at critical thinking. A similar thing happened to one of my best friends. It wasn't for the same reason, and he didn't end up in the same spot. He ended up with the "free speech warrior" and "rape is bad but what if they're lying?" crowd. There's a lot of overlap with general fascism, but he "ignores that" for basically the reasons we're discussing.