Thread by @KrisAtLarge

I ask my few readers to consider the following possibility: ALL "#conservative" ideology these days—whether it's from @GOP ideologues or the @Conservatives' ideologues or #Christian ideologues or "gender critical" ideologues of the @bindelj sort—has a very specific motive.

(1/x)

not the motive you might be thinking!

I suggest that ALL these people—@DouthatNYT, @realchrisrufo, @Docstockk, @michaelshermer, whoever—adapt their ideology specifically according to who humiliates them in arguments the most reliably. because these people *can't argue*.

(2/x)

right-wing ideology can't be supported *logically*, because the core and center of "movement #conservatism" is irrational and emotional: they like old beliefs and old concepts, old ways of wielding power and regulating human beings, and they don't want anything to change.

(3/x)

the typical right-wing ideologue—@MattWalshBlog, say, or @JackPosobiec—feels entitled to a permanent place of power over other people—because they're "conservative". (lately they're wanting to be called something else.)

they think their "side" deserves to last forever.

(4/x)

and yet...they're not able to *argue* for their side.

most right-wing partisans on Twitter have given up even pretending to be able to argue their side—in online discourse, they're mere trash-talkers and vectors for right-wing memes. the typical @elonmusk fan is a joke.

(5/x)

they try to pretend as hard as possible that all politics is a joke—and yet they want to "win" the joke at all costs, which is not how jokes work. if the joke doesn't land, you don't get to pull a gun and tell your audience to laugh. (well, @elonmusk would try that stunt.)

(6/x)

anyway, all of these "rational" and "scientific" and "skeptical" and "free-thinking" right-wing partisans, the @mtaibbi / @bariweiss fans, surely have noticed what people are most apt to shoot their flimsy arguments to pieces—and that's why they HATE the marginalized.

(7/x)

it's people on the margins of society who have had to struggle the most, and that includes struggling with *words*. to be Indigenous or Black or queer or trans, or too fat or short for the liking of Western culture's bigotries, means always fighting to be heard at all.

(8/x)

when fascısts like @realchrisrufo and @GovRonDeSantis blither about getting rid of "CRT" what they really want is to kick all the Black academic authorities out of sight—because those Black authorities are apt to be forcible and convincing in defending their ideas.

(9/x)

the @realchrisrufo / @MattWalshBlog crowd isn't *good* at "forcible and convincing", so they simply want to _cheat_. they want a fascıst government to banish their intellectual enemies to the cornfield—because they themselves are weak and incompetent at rational argument.

(10/x)

they only ever win by *cheating*—and now @elonmusk's here to censor the people who keep hurting @realchrisrufo's feelings. Musk will kiss Rufo's bruised ego and then mumble something to his loyalists within @Twitter / @TwitterDev, and try to protect Rufo from criticism.

(11/x)

the *entire right-wing faction* on @Twitter is treating @elonmusk in just this fashion—they expect him and his gang to grant them special favors and privileged treatment here, because _without_ it? their whole cause collapses. it's not possible to defend the indefensible.

(12/x)

not without a lot of *treachery*, anyway—and the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi crowd are, at the very least, very treacherous.

~Chara of Pnictogen