Thread by @PnictogenHorses

Mr. Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) blithering away about the good old days when exterminating heretics was socially acceptable, is a reminder that the Western right wing has its own imitation academia, with its own imitation academics. it's a vast ecosystem.

(cont'd)

Mr. Dougherty advertises membership in two right-wing propaganda mills: the @NRO, the online offshoot of the "National Review" created by celebrity bigot William F. Buckley Jr. the other is the "American Enterprise Institute", @AEI, also home to racist @charlesmurray.

(cont'd)

conservatives created places like the @AEI and the @NRO for a vital reason: their ideologies cannot withstand intellectual scrutiny. people like @charlesmurray and @michaelbd believe nonsense—artfully disguised and polished up to mimic legitimate intellectual activity.

(cont'd)

I recommend reading the Wikipedia page on the @AEI; it will give some idea of the corporate connections (and corporate money) that keep the propaganda flowing. the AEI board overflows with elite corporate executive, current and former #CEOs.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_…

(cont'd)

and quite possibly, long-discredited "race scientist" @charlesmurray is @AEI's star; he's certainly a king in comparison to @michaelbd, whose only star quality as a fascist propagandist is that he's a traitorous Irishman. (this also works for @sullydish, as it happens.)

(cont'd)

*this* is the real "Deep State", in plain sight—it's not the murky antisemitic conspiracy-theory trash that @elonmusk and @mtaibbi sell to their gullible fans. Musk and Taibbi and @NateSilver538 and other peddlers of right-wing nonsense exist to distract us from @AEI.

(cont'd)

corporate CEOs don't *need* to do back-room deals with politicians in order to corrupt American discourse and American politics—although we can be sure that the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi crowd are in fact doing a lot of back-room deals with Republican politicians.

(con'td)

why go to the trouble, when you can fund and run an *imitation university*? for that's what @AEI really is, at bottom: a right-wing mimic or parody of a legitimate academic institution. it's a place where even a racist failure like @charlesmurray can feel professorial.

(cont'd)

the "American Enterprise Institute" (it almost sounds *important*, doesn't it? like the "Franklin Mint" or "The Greatest American Hero") has fastened upon @michaelbd the following title:

"Visiting Fellow for the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies division"

(cont'd)

oh my! a "Visiting Fellow"! I'm sure that @michaelbd feels very important, and very Irish, in his American Enterprise way.

truly Dougherty, like @sullydish, in fact has no real nationality. he's a little Irish, a little British, a little American, a little Catholic....

(cont'd)

in other words @michaelbd is a shapeless sack of snobberies and bigotries and petty hatreds, who's learned to sound "smart" mostly by declaring that everything he doesn't like is [insert slur here]. this creature is not, in any way shape or form, a legitimate thinker.

(cont'd)

and he's quite typical of right-wing intelligentsia. compared to (say) @JackPosobiec or @MattWalshBlog, @michaelbd is Socrates—and that's exactly why he's on the @AEI payroll. he exists to give right-wing bigotry a veneer of sophistication and intellectual snobbery.

(cont'd)

(@MattWalshBlog, amusingly, *also* clings to the intellectual snobbery, though he has no visible intellect. he's like an unleashed id; I'm not sure I've seen a single reflective moment from the man.)

~Mona Drafter of Pnictogen