It means let the fuckers know they can retreat from their extreme or misguided political stance and come back to a more reasonable point of view without consequences. It’s a variation of Sun Tzu’s "Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.” : if you don’t, they’ll fight you to the death because they have no other option.

My problem is, however reasonably the idea, that’s a bit too rich for me to apply to imbeciles who turn their country into a fascist hellhole.