This week, it was Steve Bannon’s turn to be the subject of a no-platforming efforts after it transpired that both The New Yorker and The Economist had invited him as a speaker to liven up one of their annual yawn-fests. Cue outrage on social media and plenty of talk of “not legitimizing” fringe voices. All of which allowed a lot of fringe voices to pretend that the former chief strategist to the president of the United States is some obscure, fringe whacko. These people are now just one office away from trying to “no platform” the U.S. president on the grounds that he is too obscure and unimportant a figure to engage with.

The other line of attack is that Bannon’s views are so despicable that they must not be engaged with. In the U.K., a commentator called Laurie Penny announced that she was dropping out of The Economist festival because of Bannon’s slated appearance. She gave her rationale to the BBC’s Newsnight thus: “He is not interested in listening to me. He is not interested in listening to anybody else. These people do not want to engage.”

So Ms. Penny chose not to engage in the same festival as Steve Bannon because she believes that he doesn’t want to engage. Which must count as a sort of pre-emptive hit of non-engagement: “I’m going to not engage with you before you can not engage with me.”