At the time of writing, several public references to this theory from prominent conservatives have been removed. But the cloaked story will likely survive indefinitely as a point of reference, an underground “truth,” like the leftist conspiracies of yore.
One of those deleted tweets was from Elon Musk, Twitter’s new impresario, and it inevitably became an exhibition in the event of liberal panic over his takeover: what could be more indicative of the platform’s imminent descent into a democracy destructive hellscape than conspiracy theories spread by the Chief Twit himself?
“Trust no one” has become ingrained Republican thinking: David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in The X-Files.Credit:Twentieth Television
But the alternative to Musk’s rule was clarified by the second recent illustration of our left-right reversal: a story of The Interceptionby Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein, discussing the Department of Homeland Security’s migration to social media surveillance and the pressure the Department has tried to put on Internet companies to flag and censor content according to the rules set by the favors the national security bureaucracy.
At first glance, this is not a partisan story: The Interception is a left-wing publication, and the current version of the DHS’s anti-disinformation effort began in the Trump administration.
But everyone understands the current ideological value of those efforts. The war on disinformation is a crucial Democratic cause, the main lawsuit filed against the Biden administration on these issues comes from the Republican Attorney General (along with doctors critical of public health), and the most well-known The flashpoint remains the social media censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which Fang and Klippenstein suggest followed what you might reasonably call a deep press campaign.
Meanwhile, according to a DHS draft report obtained by: The InterceptionThe list of online topics that the department is particularly concerned about includes “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of the US support for Ukraine” – usually in areas where the populist right, whether in wisdom or folly, is more likely to deviate from the established position.
Meanwhile, Democrats have come to love the national security state. The flags of the United States and the United States Department of Homeland Security.Credit:AP
And especially for the future of Twitter, it is remarkable that the intercept The story first points out that a committee that advised DHS on its disinformation policy, including then Twitter’s head of legal policy, trust and security, Vijaya Gadde, then notes that Gadde was one of the first people killed by Musk. were fired. It’s a tacit nod to the left-right switch: Under Musk, the social media giant is widely seen as “right,” but that could mean he’s less entangled in an arm of what was once George W. Bush’s national security state. .
The point of emphasizing this reversal is not to suggest that either side is likely to return. The evolving attitudes of the right and left reflect their evolving positions in American society, with cultural liberalism much more dominant in elite institutions than it was a generation ago and conservatism increasingly infamous, representing smaller constituencies and outsider ideas.
But a stronger awareness of the flip can help temper the temptations that plague both parties. For progressives, that could mean recognizing that the Department of Homeland Security’s disinformation wars, its attempt to join hands with the Silicon Valley superpowers, would have been seen as a dystopian scenario on their side not too long ago.
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So is it really less dystopian if the targets are Trumpistas and Anthony Fauci critics rather than protesters from the Iraq War? And if it’s a little creepy and censorship and un-American, doesn’t that make some of the paranoia evident on the right these days a little less inscrutable and fascist, even a little more recognizable?
Then Fox Mulder’s right might benefit from recalling what conservatives – or at least these conservatives – found most insufferable about the anti-establishment left, and that was not his skepticism but his gullibility, not the eagerness to stories, but the speed at which unlikely alternatives take root.
This is the main issue with the right today, whether it be the 2020 election or the COVID vaccine debate or the attack on Paul Pelosi. Not the base of skepticism, not being attuned to weaknesses and inconsistencies in official narratives, not being open to elite self-dealing and conspiracy and cover-up scenarios, all of which emphatically exist.
It’s the rapid replacement of skepticism with certainty, the search for a story – even if it comes from Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell – to justify your original theory, the refusal to accept that even institutions you reasonably distrust sometimes do things right. .
World Upside Down: American Politics Today.Credit:AP
Or to put it in terms of Musk and his Twitter hopes, the ideal virtual town square would be a place where conservatives could discuss speculative, even conspiracy theories about the day’s events, but also a place where they could be persuaded to to give up bad theories. when the evidence solves them.
Social media and tribal incentives, as they are, seems extremely unlikely. But if I’d just paid billions to own a social media platform — and become both the protagonist and arguably the most important right-wing figure in American life, in anticipation of the Donald Trump-Ron DeSantis brawl — I would consider what it would assume that a spirit of contrariness and rebellion is directed not only at transgression, but at the whole truth.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.