To devolve into their tactics is to give them ammunition to fuel the brainwashed.

I agree with this message but not your reasoning. Fascists don’t care about what is true. If we only speak objectively, make rational arguments, emphasize logical consistency, stick to our principles, etc, they’ll just lie and take things wildly out of context to feed to their base. They don’t need us to feed them ammunition.

However, we should still do these things for our own sake. If we fight their misinformation with our own, we erase any hope objective truth and shared reality have of coming back. A lot of Trump voters and supporters don’t support every aspect of modern fascism. If the Epstein files or Iran war gets some of them to realize they’ve been lied to, they might look around to other ideologies. We need to represent the values of transparency and truth that the MAGA movement pretends to uphold. If manipulation and deception eventually defeats fascism, it would still be bad. The new normal and values of the new leadership would continue manipulating and deceiving people to the benefit of the rich.