Thread by @PnictogenHorses

#loyalty.

loyalty is prized most by the habitually disloyal, just as love is craved most by the unloving and unlovable. @mtaibbi's new friend, @realDonaldTrump, is infamously treacherous and prone to backstabbing his associates—therefore, he demands constant loyalty.

(1/x)

loyalty is an expression of #trust. if you are loyal to someone, you trust them implicitly, i.e. without needing to affirm the trust in words—remember this, when dealing with anyone (say, a bad boss like @elonmusk) who is constantly demanding explicit promises of loyalty.

(2/x)

true #loyalty does not need to be tested or propped up constantly with ritualistic affirmations and extraction of promises to be loyal.

there is a *false* loyalty, that bears some superficial resemblance to true loyalty; it's the enforced loyalty of a criminal conspiracy.

(3/x)

members of a criminal gang need to stick by each other but the reason isn't spiritual kinship or mutual trust; it's mutual *distrust*. any one member of the gang (e.g. the @GOP, or the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi / @bariweiss gang) is capable of betraying and breaking the group.

(4/x)

American right-wing politics is dominated by extremist #Christianity, and Christians habitually pretend to be the only people in the Universe who esteem noble values and morals; #loyalty is just such a lofty principle. but their esteem for morality has no real substance.

(5/x)

the typical right-wing #Christian into @GOP politics—the @dalepartridge / @MikeLitterous4U sort of "Christian"—is a profoundly *immoral* person: greedy, deceitful, cruel, intensely bıgoted. they're bullies who look for society's weakest, and kick them while they're down.

(6/x)

such persons have totally internalized the vicious, self-interested, worldly values of social climbing and #business success. in this domain, it's "kill or be killed", and nothing matters more than personal survival and personal gain. #loyalty is impossible in this world.

(7/x)

how can loyalty even exist in a cutthroat society where the weak are mere food for the strong? a weak person (@mtaibbi, say) would be a fool to promise loyalty to a stronger person (@elonmusk or @realDonaldTrump) since the stronger party has no reason to honor the promise.

(8/x)

@elonmusk or @realDonaldTrump, if they ever got to suspecting that @mtaibbi was a liability to them (or was likely to turn coat), would sacrifice Taibbi in a heartbeat: survival comes first, #loyalty be damned.

this is one reason *cults of personality* exist.

(9/x)

a rational actor wouldn't dream for a second that @realDonaldTrump or @elonmusk were capable of true loyalty. they would reach the same conclusion that I have said: "this person can only be loyal to himself, never to his underlings." so how can Musk or Trump gain loyalty?

(10/x)

the answer is that @realDonaldTrump and @elonmusk both appeal to _irrational_ forces. they seek the completely unthinking, heedless loyalty of a cultist to a cult leader, someone who presents himself as humanity's sole saviour. Musk and Trump pretend to be *prophets*.

(11/x)

I have no idea if @mtaibbi himself believes in @elonmusk's message of technological salvation, or @realDonaldTrump's message of...whatever. but let's say, for the purpose of argument, that he's a true Musky believer.

*disloyalty* would now be unthinkable for Taibbi.

(12/x)

breaking faith with @elonmusk would now have the nature of a *sin*, a vile heresy. the values of #Christianity still pervade American society in secularized forms; people still think in terms of sin and heresy. @mtaibbi might feel that abandoning @elonmusk was *immoral*.

(13/x)

(I am amused at the thought of @mtaibbi pretending to have moral scruples, but I digress.)

@elonmusk and @realDonaldTrump and other crooks who have surrounded themselves with cultlike admirers go to great lengths to *frighten* their followers into keeping the faith.

(14/x)

Musk and Trump both picture themselves as the Future, glittering and full of plenty; outside the sphere of their benign influence, there's only darkness and chaos and the gnashing of teeth. #Christians are very familiar with this talk; non-Christians freely imitate it.

(15/x)

I myself do not think that a man as relentlessly self-interested as @mtaibbi is a true believer in @elonmusk or @realDonaldTrump; in fact I think he's likely to regard these people as inferior to him. they have what he now needs, but he hopes in future to do without them.

(16/x)

hence if any #loyalty cements @mtaibbi to the @elonmusk / @bariweiss / @GOP conspiracy to use @Twitter to smear @TheDemocrats, it's going to be the purely negative sort—the loyalty of a criminal gang, the "loyalty" of mutually assured destruction. a slip could be fatal.

(17/x)

undoubtedly @elonmusk (and the @GOP figures whom @mtaibbi is doing errands for) have some hold over Taibbi. probably he's a drug addict; there's also tales of past sexual assaults. incidentally, this keeping of *dirt* on members is also typical of cults like @Scientology.

(18/x)

the cult leaders extract *confessions* of past sins from their members, then threaten to blackmail wayward members with them. let us hope for @mtaibbi's sake that he isn't bound to @elonmusk in such a fashion.

~Mona Drafter of Pnictogen

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