Thread by @KrisAtLarge

the Pnictogen Wing has been *noticed*—well, probably we've been noticed for a while, but some of the more *important* sort of right-wing propagandists (greetings again, Mr. @shadihamid of @BrookingsInst) are beginning to chatter, and that means...well I'm not sure yet.

~Chara

it raises a lot of questions that we've honestly tried to avoid worrying about—like, what do people *think* we are?

whatever we claim to be, whatever we say about ourselves, we are ALSO a crazy person in Seattle. a homemaker, worried about cooking and laundry and cats.

~Chara

we've often been accused of being a Democratic front but that seems standard with the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi / @shadihamid crowd (really they're all about the same people)—@TheDemocrats are the chief Satan of their political mythology, the stooge to blame all things on.

~Chara

at least, that's how it *used* to be, until the @GOP and "movement #conservatism" in the United States started daring to find more general-purpose villains to attack. "woke" was the big winner there. who invented that one? was it @realchrisrufo? anyway it was clever work.

~Chara

all the same it's habitual for right-wing partisans to pretend that their social-media enemies are, somehow, Democratic operatives. in a way that's just them telling on themselves: the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi crowd is thick with deceit and impersonation and sock accounts.

~Chara

when people fling out an accusation as a *reflex*, the way ideologues often react when they've been stung with harsh words, the accusation does TEND to be "psychological projection"—i.e. it'll tend to be something that's on their mind already because it pertains to them.

~Chara

that's only a _tendency_ though, not a reliable rule. that's the tricky part about employing the invasive psychological approach to conversation: you'll often be wrong about your guesses. if you're an honest person (like we TRY to be) then you make allowance for that.

~Chara

it's hard to avoid the "invasive psychological approach to conversation" because that's one of the right-wing tricks—especially because they've been fortified heavily with pop-psychology rubbish of the @jordanbpeterson / @RickWarren sort, and all that #sales literature.

~Chara

it doesn't help that all the STEM nerds like @sama and @fchollet, folks who tend to think they're smart merely because they've memorized a lot (good or bad info, they don't much care or notice), have all booked up on the @DSM and other *pathological* material on the mind.

~Chara

there's a huge overlap with right-wing #Christianity too, for some reason—I think that's because there's been a kind of convergence (in America, anyway) among interrelated fields of sales and marketing psychology, management advice, self-help literature, and *preaching*.

~Chara

folks like @jordanbpeterson and @PastorMark and @RickWarren and @JoelOsteen all aren't that much different from each other, although each pitches their racket to a somewhat different market. Peterson's trying to pick up *secular* crowds but he's still a Christian fanatic.

~Chara

I'm rambling; this really isn't a coherent thread. I feel vaguely like we're trying to wrap up loose ends here—leave some notes for others to follow, maybe. if there's any value to the sort of thing the Pnictogen Wing has been doing on Twitter, I hope there's more of it.

~Chara

that pal of @shadihamid's (I can't be arsed to recall the handle or look it up) treated us to a sarcastic remark about our "good work", but here's the thing—we're total nobodies and amateurs but I've still regarded this as a *job*. why not? fighting fascısm is hard work.

~Chara

it requires a lot of patience, a lot of humility about your limitations and the gaps in your knowledge, the willingness to swallow a LOT of abuse and maybe even endure death threats and people coming after where you live and work. @shadihamid &c. have *violent* fans.

~Chara

indeed the *purpose* of warehouses for right-wing propaganda, like @AEI (sponsor of @charlesmurray, whom I suspect they think is a superstar of theirs—maybe even the chief asset they have) and @BrookingsInst (sponsor of @shadihamid), is to put a pleasant face on tyranny.

~Chara

@shadihamid, @DavidAFrench, @nytdavidbrooks, @DouthatNYT—these people, and a myriad others, are the people who *clean up well*. they have the nicer tailoring, the nicer manners, the bigger-name sponsors. and they furnish _cover_ for trash like @MattWalshBlog and @mtaibbi.

~Chara

and the @MattWalshBlog and @mtaibbi and @mtracey sort of right-wing celebrity, in turn, offers cover for an even bigger crowd of nastier, more openly racist, more habitually *bloodthirsty* crowd of lower-level Internet celebrities—podcasters, @YouTubeCreators, @Timcast.

~Chara

meanwhile the relatively polished and professional-seeming people like @shadihamid and @sapinker—people whose Internet fanbases are likely to be *just as rowdy and violent* as the fans of, say, @JackPosobiec—all pretend that Internet bullying has nothing to do with them.

~Chara

tell @RichardDawkins or @jordanbpeterson "you're wrong in your facts"—your reward is going to be ten slur-spewing randos with usernames like "Jont929629" and "AurelianusNecans", all of them calling you "dumb" and "crazy" and "pedo" and "retard".

Dawkins has trash fans.

~Chara

the whole right-wing online intelligentsia, all the way from @AEI bigwigs to low-level noisemakers like β @NickAdamsinUSA and @ScottAdamsSays, has a trashy, chaotic, lawless, violent fanbase of people who don't know how to communicate except via spewing insults and slurs.

~Chara

@jordanbpeterson now simply *acts like his fanbase*. it's been a remarkable transformation to watch: Peterson doesn't even bother trying to sound like a professor online any more, and probably he feels like being on @Twitter *gives him permission*. Peterson's a weakling.

~Chara

but then, so are most of these people. you don't cling to bigotry and racism because you're _strong_; these things are appealing to the weak and the hurting, the people whose egos are maximally in need of propping-up by some sort of ideology of superiority, however inane.

~Chara

@jordanbpeterson isn't a bigot because he's tough; he's a bigot because he knows deep down that he's *blown it*, that by all rights he should be in jail or at least in disgrace, and now the only way he can keep himself going is telling himself he's got special "genes".

~Chara

@MattWalshBlog isn't a bigot because he's strong in the faith; he's a bigot because he's a pervert and his only mental recourse is pretending that people who wear the wrong clothes or take HRT are the *real* perverts. he's lying to himself. he's a weak, cowardly person.

~Chara

#conservatism itself is cowardice. to wish to freeze society in place, or hurl it back towards authoritarian rule and theocracy, is COWARDICE. @shadihamid and @DavidAFrench and @charlesmurray and @mtaibbi and @elonmusk are all *cowards*. they're scared of growing up.

~Chara

they've taught themselves and rehearsed themselves for decades now in sounding like the adults in the room, the ones with the really important ideas, but people like @DavidAFrench and @MattWalshBlog are intellectually vacant; it takes no great *wisdom* to oppose change.

~Chara

mostly it requires egotism and stubbornness. those can be useful qualities but neither is a virtue. people like @pastorlocke and @PastorMark and @DouthatNYT think their egotism and stubbornness are equivalent to *faith*, but they're not. I doubt the faith of all three.

~Chara

I doubt my *own* faith. you're _supposed_ to doubt faith. faith without doubt isn't faith, but something else. @MattWalshBlog and @DouthatNYT are *idolaters*, in their way. they do not worship the things they think they do.

~Chara of Pnictogen