When Gavin realized where things were headed he basically said, "you know what guys, this isn't worth it" and walked away—and I can respect that.

Again this only happened once consequences finally came to him. It's not a respectable thing to let other people go down for your organization and then ditch out the moment the heat comes on you. Then turn around and start a "FREE GAVIN" campaign and grift money while your boys are locked away. You shouldn't get a pass for that.

I'm also not sure what you mean by "letting them rot in jail".

When his boys got sentenced there were numerous fundraisers for the guys who went to jail. The moment the heat got turned on Gavin he denounced the group and stepped down and immediately started his own fundraisers for him and his censorship campaign. That's a fucking shitty thing to do. Not to mention, he used the boys going to jail as an excuse to stand down to "help them" which was also just another lie.

it means they're now effectively the same as the anarchist groups on the other side and there's nothing you can point to

They're still and going to always be Nazi skinheads and KKK. That's just what retards think of them because the left-wing needs boogeymen.

discourse only happens when you leave an opening that assumes the other side has good intentions. Anything less is dehumanizing.

Discourse is useless when you have groups of people who believe fundamentally incompatible things.