Thread by @deonteleologist

It's my honor to announce that, due to my recent article (see QT), I've finally received an overstated, meekly threatening email from @realchrisrufo's "assistant" (bless his heart).

Once unpacked, it perfectly captures the human void of integrity that is Christopher Rufo. 🧵 1/n

Here’s the full text of the email. Subject line: “Your story is false, and we expect a correction.”

What falsehood did they identify in this 4000-word exposition of dozens of Rufo’s lies & distortions?

In fact, they couldn’t find one. So they picked out an “implication.” 2/n

Again, my article identifies dozens of cases in which Rufo's reporting is incompetent at best & (more likely) cynically manipulative at worst.

The best thing Rufo could come up with in response was "you said I might be lying about something for which I provided no evidence." 3/n

Indeed, it is true that I could have asked Rufo for evidence before publishing this. But I follow Rufo's work pretty closely, so I know that he has a fairly consistent habit of not responding or responding with nothing but middle school levels of maturity.

Three examples. 4/n

These are all great pieces of journalism on Rufo. You can read them (order of screenshot appearance):
yahoo.com/now/the-man-be…

nymag.com/intelligencer/…

washingtonpost.com/education/2021… 5/n

What is far more damning here is that Rufo feels entitled to be given such charitable treatment by anyone who writes about him publicly, given that he is the human antithesis of charitable journalism.

Let me give you a few examples. 6/n

He has (multiple times, on multiple platforms) accused distinguished UCLA law professor Cheryl Harris of advocating for literal redistribution of White people's property to Black people as affirmative action. He didn't contact her for clarification. 7/n

This is from one of the very first battles in Rufo’s crusade against CRT, where he tried to portray a completely voluntary diversity event led by Howard Ross as a radical indoctrination training telling federal employees that all Whites are racist.

No request for comment. 8/n

Btw, that lie reached many more than just readers of the NY Post. Rufo repeated these lies on Fox News soon after, in an interview which, he proudly reminds us often, became the catalyst for Trump’s executive order targeting CRT and diversity trainings 9/n

One more example, by far the most disgusting lie Rufo has spread (that I am aware of, at least). He repeatedly accused an Ethnic Studies scholar of promoting genocidal violence against White people (in some places, such as here, White Christians in particular.) 10/n

If any accusation warrants reaching out to someone for clarification, this does. This kind of lie literally gets people killed.

Naturally, rather than make the decision of any decently responsible adult, Rufo decided to spread fascist propaganda on Fox.

When pressed on this, Rufo would not budge. Here he is quoted in a Snopes article snopes.com/fact-check/cal… refusing to accept Cuauhtin’s clarification that he is using ‘countergenocide’ to refer to opposition to genocide.

This is simply evil, I don’t know what else to call it.

Exposing Rufo's dishonesty on this issue was enough to earn @CathyYoung63 a block from Rufo, who claims it is simply obvious that Cuauhtin really does have genocidal plans for Whites. 13/n

Worth adding that Rufo is simply wrong about the restriction of the meaning of "counter-genocide." And worth noting just how influential his propaganda is among reactionaries. Fascist disinformation is a serious, dangerous issue we must combat. 14/n

I'll conclude by noting that whether Rufo is a neo-Nazi or not, he is unquestionably mainstreaming neo-Nazi conspiracy theories and narratives in which White people are the real victims of systemic/institutional racism in the US. See my thread here: 15/15