Thread by @donmoyn

Today, as the vast majority of Republicans incorrectly believe that the election was stolen, can we agree that "the way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away" is a normative principle, not an empirical statement.

One one side of this issue, you have experts who study elections, election officials, fact-based media, and a series of evidence-based court decisions. On the other, you have the President, one of the two largest political party, partisan media, and organic conspiracy theorists.

So both sides have a big platform, both sides are presenting their ideas and the evidence they rely on.

But bad ideas have not been defeated. Instead, the conspiracy theorists have moved from the fringe to control one of the two major political parties. vox.com/2020/11/18/215…

There are lots of reasons why bad ideas are not defeated. People consume media that does not challenge the bad ideas. Partisan identities shape how we process now information to fit with our priors.

But it seems clear that giving bad ideas a big platform helps to spread them.

There has been elements of the paranoid style in American politics for decades. But through Clinton, Obama and Trump conspiracists became indulged and accepted. GOP party leaders refused to denounce this. Instead, they said nothing, winked along, or championed insane stuff.

There are conspiracy theories on the left too. But they seem to be fewer, and have not been indulged in a systematic way by party leaders. And so they are kept in check, and offer no serious threat to democracy as those on the right do.

It is absolutely and deeply important that people living in the fact-based world continue to push back against the conspiracy theories.

But it's not enough.

Republican leaders need to start to explicitly reject conspiratorial thinking, even if it costs them votes.

The people who control platforms need to stop pretending that airing conspiracies will lead to their demise.

Thats a nice idea, but it's not an empirical reality.

They need to take some responsibility for letting disinformation damage our democracy.

Agree, and the comparison the court is instructive. Courts require claims to be supported by evidence, and has rules about what constitutes evidence. Such rules help to sort out the bullshit from real concerns, and are why Trump keeps losing there.

https://twitter.com/nickfleisher/status/1329803356991328257?s=20