Thread by @jholbo1

theamericanconservative.com/dreher/live-no… The 'live not by lies' crew collides with: people who won't stand for lies. Something's got to give.

What is actually going on in this little playlet? 'Concern about voter fraud among Democrats', as a response to Biden's acceptance, is ... a lie. 1/

And a disrespectful one. In the abstract, sure, somebody's job has to be worrying about voter fraud. But since everyone who has studied it certifies it cannot be - hence isn't - perpetrated at scale, all allegations to the contrary are, ahem, incredible lies. 2/

Now: suppose people on the other side - the leftists - are not willing to live by lies? As seems not unlikely. It's not clear what the punishment should be for living by lies, out loud, in the workplace, like this guy. Maybe everyone else should just roll their eyes. 3/

But: if you open with 'vote fraud among Democrats' you cede the moral high ground by seizing the moral low ground of lies. Liars like that don't get to offer 'vanilla critiques' of BLM motives. They don't have standing, crawling along on their lying bellies. Facts is facts. 4/

Maybe sensitivity training - live not by lies! - is too moralistic. But: this problem could have been avoided if the guy didn't ...live by lies. And yet, rather than Dreher saying 'well, if we want to preach 'live not by lies' we can't live by lies,' he's all 'poor guy'. 5/

Dreher concedes, implicitly, 'you can't ask conservatives to give up lies they live by.'

What is the proof this is what Dreher is saying, sotto voce? 6/

The proof is that everyone who has spent 5 minutes looking into this - a class that surely includes Dreher - knows the situation is this. There is no evidence - none whatsoever - of serious fraud. We know why the Trumpists push it. They can and they want to, hence will. 7/

But neither 'they can' or 'they want to' has anything to do with having a good reason to, or a basis for doing so. Dreher is saying 'he's not 100% sure' but that's a polite lie. I mean: it could turn out we are all trapped in the Matrix. So, yea, not 100%. 8/

But normally if you say 'I'm not 100% sure' you aren't making the skeptical point that 'even though I know of no reason to doubt this - yet there might be some reason to doubt I haven't thought of, and no one else has thought of, though people are wracking their brains!' 9/

Dreher is part of a system - American conservatism - that doesn't let you live otherwise than by lies, even if you are not a fully paid-up GOP footsoldier, as Dreher is not. Like Havel's greengrocer, you've got to put up the sign: 'Dem voter fraud'. Or you're in trouble! 10/

So at the very moment is he saying "we on the Right do ourselves no favor when we choose to believe things not because of evidence, but because it suits our ideological preferences," he is doing the very thing he warns against. 11/

Dreher is scrupulously omitting to mention something he knows: his letter-writer has gone insane, to suit ideological preferences. His letter writer lives by lies. If he is not a liar, he is so caught up in a web of right-wing lies that it comes to the same. 11/

'You can't silence dissent from the official story' is a euphemism for 'you have let conservatives live by lies'. Dreher surely knows the official story is the only one anyone has any good reason to believe. (Sure, it could be false for some reason no one knows, but ...) 12/

Why should this man's coworkers NOT find it infuriating to be lied to? Again, maybe sensitivity training is not the thing, but it's a lot to ask that they put up with a noxious cloud of conservative lies in silence. Dreher should give thought to that sort of dynamic. Argh. 13/