RICHARD Spencer is an American neo-Nazi who was punched in the face while giving a television interview. Spencer, a creep dedicated to spreading inflammatory Nazi bile, was sent hurtling.

The incident sent a very clear message at the start of Trump’s presidency. An upsurge of far-right activity will be met with a campaign to “Make Fascists Afraid Again”. Spencer, a supporter of ethnic cleansing, founded a website that promoted “Black Genocide”, asking for “the best and easiest way to dispose” of people with black skin.

Following the election, he spoke at a rally where his supporters responded to his “Hail Trump” remarks with Nazi salutes.

He has carved out a space in more mainstream American media – despite his politics being a clear, violent threat to the safety of millions of citizens. In doing so he became a torch-bearer for international white supremacy – which once again threatens European peace – and was lauded in the sewers of the internet for his racist bravado. Not any more.

All Spencer’s macho showboating came crumbling down in those few seconds when an anti-fascist protestor ended his tough-guy image. He is in fact just a giant baby in a suit. Online, where the far-right mocks all-comers as fragile and sensitive, the tables were turned. The truth is the far-right are weak, impotent, hollow men when confronted and hit hard.

The targeted violence of anti-fascists, however, isn’t universally welcomed. Liberals ask for calm, for democracy, for dialogue. The vigilante nature of targeting Nazis makes some people feel uncomfortable. Pacifists too – rejecting all violence – warn that it can provide no real solution to the world’s problems.

Now I’m probably one of the most peace-loving, CND types you could ever bump into – but I make an exception for fascism. As much as I wished it was the peace movement that stopped the Third Reich, it was actually a giant Communist army with guns and bombs that made the greatest impact.

Believing in exceptional circumstances doesn’t make you a hypocrite – it means you have to seriously justify why something is exceptional. Fascism is exceptional – whether it’s the genocidal impulse faced by the women of Rojava, the Allied forces, or the lad who punched Richard Spencer.

Planning the ethnic eradication of others – through internment or massacre – is more than a theory. It is the tragedy and disgrace of our species. However loudly the post-war generation proclaimed “never again”, the reality has been different. Genocides have re-occurred. I think it is dangerously naive to think these groups can be defeated through conversation alone.

Spencer, for instance, is an adept propagandist – able to mould a desire for ethnic cleansing into an entertaining TV snippet. Similar content flooded the airwaves in Rwanda of course, until it was too late. Fascists – see Golden Dawn in Greece – can also camouflage themselves inside the military and police. Relying on governments to crack down on these people isn’t always possible.

Instead it’s been the anti-fascist tradition that has consistently put its bodies on the line to confront the march of the far-right. Eighty years ago last October London’s East End stood together to shut down the British Union of Fascists. Resistance was strong in Scotland too. Protesters threw bricks and stones at the buses of the BUF’s 1934 Edinburgh rally. Whenever they visited, there was resistance. In Glasgow too the BUF were chased through the city’s streets.

Did throwing bricks and stones at the BUF make the protesters as bad as the fascists? Does punching Richard Spencer make the protester as contemptible as an advocate of ethnic cleansing?

I’d rather live in a world without fascists – when these acts were all unnecessary. But we don’t. We can all become too safe, consensual, and even cowardly when it comes to defending the basic dignities we have today. So it’s easy to reject conflict and scorn people who have the bravery to target fascists to their faces. It’s easier for self-preservation to keep a distance.

So I can’t accept this moral equivalence – the idea that everyone that uses violence is the same. Is a policeman who drags a murderer to court equally guilty in their use of force? Is a United Nation’s peacekeeper, gun in hand, on global fault lines as culpable as those who aim to kill across them? I don’t think so.

If I had lived through the 1930s I could only have looked back asking if I could have done more – anything – more aggressively to stop the far-right. Instead I’m from a generation incubated, for now, from that experience. I hope we will never see another conscription. But the fascist threat, emboldened by recent events, remains. We should not shed a single tear when anti-fascists send a message of fear to those who threaten our existence.

Michael Gray @GrayInGlasgow is a journalist with CommonSpace.scot