Y'all need to hear what he's is trying to tell you. He's afraid the right has more power than we do. He's afraid that they'll use these tactics to attack the things he cares about. It's reactionary and wrong. But understanding his reaction to his fear is useful.
There is a set of people who will always make the case that we shouldn't fight because the other side is meaner and they're afraid of getting hit.
It's important to acknowledge what @NateSilver538 is saying. He's willing to discard one of the few tactics that is creating consequences for the harmful rhetoric on the right. He's willing to allow that rhetoric to flourish because of some *imagined* threat to him.
We can also tell this comes from a place of fear and not reason. The idea that the right just doesn't know about this tactic yet is absurd. They had people cutting up their Nike's earlier this year. He's grasping at straws painting this dire "what if" scenario.
The important part of this is the trap he's falling into with imagining that the right is following the "rules". There's an argument that says "if we make this okay, then they'll take it to extremes". The fatal flaw is the presumption that they're waiting on our permission.
Nate Silver is telling himself a story about why the right hasn't yet attacked us this way. Examining that story unpacks why a lot of people don't understand what's happening in this moment. Their ideas about cause an effect are entirely out of whack.
Among other things, you see where these ideas of "decorum" and "civility" originate from. And you see why it only applies to liberals. Nate legitimately thinks that restraining ourselves somehow magically puts restraints on the opposition as well.
You also see why people fall victim to "both sides" rhetoric. He sees advertisers as dumb pawns in this battle. He assumes they can be manipulated to support or reject any message regardless of context. And he assumes it only takes a loud minority to do so.
If all these things were true in a simplistic way, we would already be entirely screwed. The right has been way more effective at mobilizing and creating noise about any issue. Nate Silver should know this quite well. Again, this is fear, not reason.
Meanwhile, all these people are in his mentions talking about how he's "smarter than this". Y'all need to stop giving these dudes the benefit of the doubt. They're not here to fight. He's fearful af and he's not gonna save us. All he does is keep score.
