To read Richard Carrier, he faced Andrew Wilson's side of alt-right at Wilson's best and still made him his bitch. Rhetorically speaking.
Carrier might not be the best source; some fellow atheists find him hard to suffer, like Tim O'Neill who cooked up a whole blog for atheists like him. To read Carrier himself, we get a hint why people dislike Carrier personally: the man needled Wilson, to waste time on a definition, namely of "fascism". A quick aside from Wilson to the effect "this is not a fascist movement and I'll thank you not to insult us" should do. To Carrier's thought, Wilson-ism might even be worse than secular fascism, so Carrier could have stuck with that, as Carrier in fact did with most of his arguments.
Trolling the opponent may well get you a win on points. It certainly unveils where the opponent is a bad face for the movement, and might even suggest why the movement attracts bratty autists into authoritarianism.
Although if we were shown why it is bad to let Wilson lead us, I feel more comfortable that Carrier not be leading us either.
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