the funny thing about "The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away" is that it's one of the most faith-based, unargued and unsupported, wish-fulfillment zombie ideas you're ever likely to see
Which is not to say "exposure, argument, and persuasion" can never accomplish anything. But there's a "your prayer wasn't answered? I guess you need to pray more" quality about this endless invocation of the efficacy of debating by people who enjoy debating and want to do debates
An important pillar of LL's argument here is that pundits insisting that More Debate Will Fix it require (and legitimize) a kind of denial and naiveté about what has changed since The Trolls Took Over: slate.com/news-and-polit…
This is almost lost in a parenthetical, but I think it's an important aspect of the argument she's making: with a critical mass of organized, bad faith trolls in a media space, sometimes neither ignoring nor debating them will be effective. But sometimes removing them CAN be. 
I put a lot of "sometimes"es in that last tweet because the real flaw in the "debate is the only thing that works, silencing never does" is the absoluteness of the assertion.
Take:
"The way to defeat [Donald Trump's army of MAGA trolls] is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away"
I dunno! It seems like literally no one has hit on the silver bullet here, what with Donald Trump being president and all.
"The way to defeat [Donald Trump's army of MAGA trolls] is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away"
I dunno! It seems like literally no one has hit on the silver bullet here, what with Donald Trump being president and all.
this is well put, and reminds me of the asymmetry of our politics: while the center-right blocks for the far right, to use a sports metaphor, the center-left spends its energies tackling the far left
longreads.com/2018/09/18/no-…
longreads.com/2018/09/18/no-…
