Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, I followed quite a few right-wingers there. I liked knowing what they were thinking and how they framed their ideas. As longtime readers of this blog know, I often lurk at right-wing sites -- I still sometimes go to Free Republic, and I like knowing what's being said at the Fox News site, at Breitbart, and even at Gateway Pundit.
But I don't see what value there is in engaging social media right-wingers. As The Atlantic's Ali Breland notes, polite debate isn't want social media right-wingers want:
The conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who has successfully seeded moral panics around critical race theory and DEI hiring practices, has directly pointed to X as a tool that has let him reach a general audience....Libs of TikTok seeks to troll liberals and also target liberals, directing right-wing followers' attention to supposed enemies who don't have the means to defend themselves against the right's doxxing, harassment, death threats, and so on. (Elon Musk is now targeting government employees in this way.) Rufo wants to shape the way the entire culture talks about right-wing wedge issues:
The nature of reactionary politics demands constant confrontations—literal reactions—to the left. People like Rufo would have a substantially harder time trying to influence opinions on a platform without liberals. “Triggering the libs” sounds like a joke, but it is often essential for segments of the right. This explains the popularity of some X accounts with millions of followers, such as Libs of TikTok, whose purpose is to troll liberals.
So is pronouns this is awesome we are fighting back we are winning
— Steve (@Steve113875651) August 11, 2023
This isn't debate. This is warfare. There's no reason for liberals to engage it.
However, it's useful to know what these people are saying. Forewarned is forearmed. What we want to know is how they talk to one another when they think the rest of us aren't listening. That's why I lurk at exclusively right-wing sites. That's why I think people who capture and reproduce right-wingers' words to one another -- Media Matters, Right Wing Watch, NewsHounds, Kat Abu -- are performing a vital service.
It's also good to know what appears in the books that right-wing personalities churn out in bulk, because rightists really don't expect us to notice what they say in those books. Jonathan Chait has been reading three recent books by Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump's pick for secretary of defense, and I hope what he found shocks people who think contemporary conservatism is merely an inch or two to the right of Gerald Ford, accompanied by some empty Trumpian bluster. I wish every Democratic politician and mainstream pundit could understand that what Chait found is what all those Trump guys in diners really believe, or at least it's rhetoric that would make them enthusiastically nod in agreement (sadly, Chait doesn't seem to understand this):
Where Hegseth’s thinking begins venturing into truly odd territory is his argument, developed in Battle for the American Mind, that the entire basic design of the U.S. public education system is the product of a century-long, totally successful communist plot....You know who else shares an inabilty to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate political opposition? Everyone in America who binge-watches Fox. They all believe it's illegitimate to vote for Democrats -- doing so, they believe, marks the voter as a traitor to the cause of true Americanism.
The Marxist conspiracy has also, according to Hegseth, begun creeping into the U.S. military, the institution he is now poised to run....
In The War on Warriors, Hegseth makes plain that he considers the very idea of “rules of war” just more woke nonsense. “Modern war-fighters fight lawyers as much as we fight bad guys,” he writes. “Our enemies should get bullets, not attorneys.” He repeatedly disparages Army lawyers (“jagoffs”), even claiming that their pointless rules are “why America hasn’t won a war since World War II.”
... American Crusade calls for the “categorical defeat of the Left,” with the goal of “utter annihilation,” without which “America cannot, and will not, survive.”
... The War on Warriors repeatedly urges readers to treat the American left exactly like foreign combatants. Describing the military’s responsibility to the nation, Hegseth writes, “The expectation is that we will defend it against all enemies—both foreign and domestic. Not political opponents, but real enemies. (Yes, Marxists are our enemies.)” The Marxist exception swallows the “not political opponents” rule because pretty much all of his political opponents turn out to be Marxists. These include, but are not limited to, diversity advocates (“They are Marxists ... You know what they are? They’re traitors”), newspapers (“the communist Star Tribune”), and, as noted, almost anybody involved in public education.
Hegseth’s idea of illegitimate behavior by the domestic enemy is quite expansive. Consider this passage, recalling his time advocating for the Iraq War: “While I debated these things in good faith, the Left mobilized. Electing Obama, railroading the military, pushing women in combat—readiness be damned. The Left has never fought fair.” The most remarkable phrase there is “electing Obama.” Hegseth’s notion of unfair tactics used by the left includes not only enacting administrative policies that he disagrees with, but the basic act of voting for Democrats. The inability or unwillingness to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate political opposition likely endeared Hegseth to Trump, who shares the trait.
Our political culture needs to know what these people think. Every mainstream journalist should at least scan the ragebait headlines at FoxNews.com and other right-wing sites every day, and should watch Fox, or at least Fox clips, on a regular basis to understand how far to the right the GOP electorate has drifted.
But there's no point arguing with right-wingers on social media. They don't want civic debate. They won't total political and cultural domination.
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