@drwho@hackers.town if you're concerned with the ripple effects from this, wait till you hear about Caitlin Jenner. :P

In all reality, though, if this is something you do care about (and you do care enough to write up a post on it), you might want to reach out to your local chapter of Life After Hate and ask if they need anything. I know when I'd tried to raise ours, they were wildly busy and it was almost impossible to get to a human. Additionally, there are a number of local post-prison community integration programs that could really use some empathetic men who are willing to work with ex-cons and treat them like useful members of society. I don't know who's active in your area, but that was the major request I heard most recently (admittedly a couple years stale) from some folks involved with disrupting the pipeline to WS groups in the Midwest.

IMO, people who are involved with a hate group know that it will be very difficult to re-integrate with greater society. People leaving hate groups already know that they will have many barriers. There is an incredible amount of humility and courage that this takes, along with an enormous amount of community support, and I think that the impact of this article is just a drop in the bucket, compared to, say, a highly visible tattoo of a hate symbol on someone's forehead that they haven't been able to afford getting removed.

Remember that every time you advocate on behalf of possibly making neo-nazis more comfortable, you're telling everyone else in the room that you're more concerned with the wellbeing of a fascist than the safety of their victims in your community. Being a neo-nazi is not a victimless crime, and if you imply it is, you end up further dehumanizing those groups, unintentionally advancing exactly what the fascist wanted in the first place.

It might feel like you're saying "everyone please be nice to each other", but it seems like you're saying, instead "you can continue being a violent fascist as long as you feel bad about it. please stop complaining about this fascist, they obviously feel bad already."

Anyways, I appreciate that you're capable of finding empathy for someone trying to leave a hate group, I'm just concerned that the way you've expressed this empathy is less likely to directly help folks in that position and more likely to let neo-nazis know that you are open to them sitting at your table.

If you have those feelings because you, yourself, have had issues with radicalization and felt discouraged, feel free to DM me and I'll do what I can to help.