Thread by @docMJP

What's interesting is how easily the pseudo- or intellectual-ish, writerly class slips into totalitarianism & advocates violence & persecution of all dissent. I know, like academics, they're all cheap dates & keenly sensitive to/easily swayed by whoever writes the checks, but...

...it's still wild to me how easily they embrace hatred & persecution of their enemies. It's natural to fear their overlords, who are very, very angry right now at Bad Orange Man and fighting an existential fight. So I get it. They sense the coming purge & must signal rightly.

But they don't HAVE to jump this high. Stop pretending any of this has anything to do with anything intellectual, at least—it is all just performative wrangling to cancel the other. None of these people will substantively address Anton's article which went viral and drew blood.

Instead, they increasingly hurl names at their opponents like bratty schoolboys—fascist, racist, etc.—and this increasingly what the $ wants. Then rally 'round each other each time they move further towards normalizing talk of the death of their enemies.

Everyone involved knows better, deep down. But the incentives are all in one direction, and the strength of the bubbles they live in grows daily. And everyone needs a paycheck. But what we need, in truth, is a counter-revolution that breaks free of this entire dynamic.

This will require breaking the cultural power of the ruling class. And in a very real sense, that is what this election is about & why the opposition is so frenzied from the top. Elites freaking out—Trump wins again & they lose cultural power. Writerly class might freed up...