Thread by @KrisAtLarge

it's difficult, very difficult, to accept that you're a pawn.

Western mainstream culture tries hard to keep people from thinking of themselves in such terms—that's one reason the fascıst narrative peddled by the QAnon / @elonmusk / @mtaibbi crowd have such sales appeal.

(1/x)

the essence of the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi marketing pitch is something like this: "you USED to be free, long ago in a glorious golden time, but then THEY came. the Democrats / the 'Deep State' / a vague Jewish cabal. THEY took your freedom away and now you're their pawns."

(2/x)

and meanwhile @elonmusk poses as the embodiment of a glorious golden *future*, one that claims to be a restoration of past glory. #ElonMusk, God-King of #Mars, will restore the Universe to peace and light, with @mtaibbi &c. as his loyal courtiers (and court stenographers.)

(3/x)

but @elonmusk is merely one in a long line of fake fascıst futurists—single solitary men (and it's *always* men) relentlessly marketed as Great Leaders who will bring back the glories of the past. @RonaldReagan was sold this way; @realDonaldTrump was sold this way.

(4/x)

@TheDemocrats, faithfully imitative of every @GOP marketing trick, have followed suit; @BarackObama and now @JoeBiden are like miniature Reagans themselves.

but the Republicans have always been WAY more into this sort of thing—because of extreme right-wing #Christianity.

(5/x)

that's one of the *many* reasons, by the way, how you can be absolutely sure that @mtaibbi is full of shıte—he pretends that the @GOP hasn't already been doing, for decades, all the things that he pretends now make @TheDemocrats untrustworthy and authoritarian.

(6/x)

the mere fact that he's unable *even to acknowledge* that the @GOP has done all the same things that he pretends only @TheDemocrats ever do is enough to show that @mtaibbi's been coöpted. he "seeks truth" and yet can't acknowledge truth when it's pointed out to him.

(7/x)

if it's any consolation to Mr. Taibbi...I don't think he really has a lot of control over the narrative that he's been assigned the job of bringing to the public. I've said it before and I'll reiterate: the @elonmusk / @GOP conspiracy could have used *someone else*.

(8/x)

we've already seen, in plain public view, that @elonmusk has gathered round him a carefully selected band of conspirators, people whom he's given (probably illegally) privileged access to @Twitter information. @mtaibbi is simply one of a modest crowd of other crooks.

(9/x)

there's @AbigailShrier, peddler of absurdist penis-policing theories; there's @MrAndyNgo, who both snitches for the @PortlandPolice and acts as a go-between among the various fascıst paramilitary formations in Oregon; there's @bariweiss, who loves @Israel's genocide.

(10/x)

one is irresistibly reminded of the pseudo-intellectual trash who gathered round the NSDAP in '30s Germany. Goebbels was a failed poet and playwright; Rosenberg was a failed philosopher; Himmler dabbled in science and occultism and attracted like-minded mediocrities.

(11/x)

and one is also reminded of @RonaldReagan's disastrous cabinet—Ed Meese, Caspar Weinberger, James Watt, and John Poindexter were among the crowd of @GOP crooks and troublemakers that were drawn into the Reagan gang. fascıst figureheads attract such tenth-rate people.

(12/x)

@elonmusk's gang is of like caliber.

@mtaibbi was probably chosen as the vector for the #TwitterFiles because he was the most salable as an "independent" figure—certainly far easier to stomach than the infamously bigoted @bariweiss or @stillgray. and he was semi-famous.

(13/x)

but it didn't *need* to be @mtaibbi; his own part in the conspiracy could _easily_ have been filled by someone else. the only personal quality he really needs for the role he's playing for @elonmusk is *stubbornness*.

anyway, back to the movie I'm watching.

~Chara of Pnictogen