Fascism is interesting in its “creep” stage, where you have a hint of what you’re looking at, but you’re not quite sure, and you keep turning it over for historical marks, like the Antiques Roadshow of the Coming Apocalypse. But not in its “march” stage, when antisemitism and Islamophobia are in the open, misogyny is basking under the studio lights, and white nationalism takes its democratically mandated place in ancient parliaments. Intellectually speaking, that’s very boring; the arguments are tedious, even if emotionally it’s as epic and engrossing as watching your house burn down.

Don’t beat yourself up, this is timeless: Marie Curie would not win a debate with Steve Bannon about whether she should carry on doing science or go back to the kitchen; Sigmund Freud would not win an argument against Nigel Farage over whether the psychoanalyst was exerting undue influence because HE WAS A JEW. Authoritarians delight in the weakness of their case; if they can be that wrong, and still prevail, they get to prove how strong they are and besmirch the principles of truth and respect at the same time, so it’s win-win.

What we used to do really well was rules. Fascists are like vampires – the important thing is not to invite them into your house, or on to your radio talkshow. Even if they have brought apple martinis or a really novel and interesting way of making a racist point, even if they’re wearing skinny jeans and have bleached their hair and it’s a real thrill to hear a person dressed like that opine that women should attire themselves more modestly, still don’t invite them into your house. First, it is not enjoyable to have them in your house, and second, if it gets to hand-to-hand combat with a vampire, they’re much better at it than you.

In the sub-category of anti-vampire measures, the garlic-and-crucifix market, there are artefacts that decent people carry: a taboo against certain words, not because they are overtly racist or demeaning, but precisely because they are deliberately opaque and plausibly deniable. So a thoughtful person doesn’t say “swarm” or “flood” or “cheat” or “bogus” when talking about large groups of human beings, and avoid them because they are dehumanising. You can’t flirt with a little, light dehumanisation enough to keep the centre undisturbed and the alt-right hopeful. It’s either there or it isn’t; more like garlic, in this respect, than a crucifix.

It’s too late to get the vampires out of the house, though never stop trying to vote them out. A blast of daylight would probably do it: economies recovering from stagnation, bonds of civility and internationalism repairing themselves in the warmth of prosperity. It doesn’t seem likely, but no nights last for ever. In the meantime, we’re in late-season Buffy territory: everyone losing confidence, regular blasts of cold reality corroding the spirit, the group fragmenting, the enemy getting stronger, not because it’s better, but because to be unquenchably bloodthirsty and to have no soul is quite the combination, when you want to make stuff happen.

So, it’s a bit too late to point this out, but might help for next time: we shouldn’t have let the fascists into the house; not on to Newsnight to fight for white power, not into the tabloids to preach gunning down refugees, not on to chatshows and reality TV. It wasn’t mischievous and fun, it was stupid.

Want to save pubs? Spend more time in them

I have about a thousand fights a week on Twitter, but the only time I’ve ever had a fight, with a stranger, in real life, over my actual opinions, was in 2014. It was about pubs – in a pub. MPs had just voted to untie pubs from pubcos, having noticed that large pub chains were locking landlords into punitively high beer prices, for “reduced” rents that weren’t that low, and the landlords then worked themselves to death for often less than the minimum wage (of course, they weren’t technically employed, so it was nobody’s fault). Scores of pubs were closing weekly. It was a classic story of our social fabric picked apart by cannibalistic capitalism, I wrote. “That was the most ill-informed, ill-written, ill-thought-through piece of journalism I have ever read in a British newspaper,” said the guy, all finger-jabbing and thick pinstripe. I assumed he worked for a pubco and moved away.

But the argument over the great British pub has never subsided: they are still in decline, and their demise is still a classic carrier issue. Everyone can find an explanation, depending on what they think is wrong with the world. I still think it’s a story about late-capitalism. People who like to blame millennials for everything can, legitimately, say that it’s because the younger generation doesn’t drink enough (snowflakes, you know). Yesterday, one of my regular Twitter foes blamed immigrants: they come over here, they don’t have a drinking culture, the next thing you know, you’re knee-deep in coffee and the Dog and Duck has shut down.

Unlike a regular carrier issue, however, there is scope for some personal agency here: if you really want to show your commitment to pub culture, all you have to do is visit more pubs, more often, and stay longer.