Alright, I'm re-upping this because I think it was a bit of alright and because some of the free speech defenses still coming out are not realistic about what's really going on, hence they miss the point. 1/
https://twitter.com/jholbo1/status/1487248911886524418
There are three possibilities:
1) Ilya Shapiro is not racist but he tragically slipped and tweeted something that sounded like that but was totes not what he meant.
2) He's not racist but he's a partisan R so that means dog-whistles/trolls.
3) He seems kinda racist. 2/
1) Ilya Shapiro is not racist but he tragically slipped and tweeted something that sounded like that but was totes not what he meant.
2) He's not racist but he's a partisan R so that means dog-whistles/trolls.
3) He seems kinda racist. 2/
A lot of his defenders are taking the 'Georgetown shouldn't fire him because we know it's 1' line. That's nuts. How could we reasonably think we know a thing like that? 3/
https://twitter.com/Luke_Bunting/status/1487539249478090758
It's not like this is the first time. 4/ lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/01/that-d…
In my thread I defend 2. It's perfectly obvious that he was trolling. He was attempting to smear Biden and Dems as racists. And that sort of thing doubles as ol' fashioned dog-whistle to the R racist base. 5/
Shapiro has got a new statement up of what he meant to say. But, c'mon. We aren't babies. The original tweets were trolls, not serious attempts to help Dems pick the best progressive. 6/
https://twitter.com/ishapiro/status/1487261360446705664?s=20&t=4w8amISEflXJS6FNJ6fdyA
He should be defended. But he should be defended on the grounds that he has the right to be a troll. So even the FIRE statement is a bit off-base, vouching for his character. That's not the issue. The issue is: we can't be sure he's worse than a troll. 7/ thefire.org/statement-from…
The point also applies if we see it as a dog-whistle. I take it that even racist dog-whistles shouldn't be grounds for firing (since how can we be sure he wasn't just trolling?) 8/
Some people seem to think he's a great guy, not a troll or dog-whistler, for partisan profit, or personally racist. That's fine. But it shouldn't be the basis for the defense. Because if you've got to PROVE he actually had high-minded motives to mount the defense - you can't. 9/
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
