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Sluggardo Profile picture
@eurosluggard
Aug 2, 2018 • 9 tweets • 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Tearing my hair out at well-meaning people who keep saying Alt-Right controversialists & Brexit advocates are “stupid” because they say factually wrong, obtuse or offensive things. They are *not* stupid; they are part of a highly sophisticated network running rings around us👇
We keep making the mistake of applying our standards and our rules to them. They are NOT trying to win a fact-based argument. They are not trying to convince most people that what they’re saying is true. Here’s what they are (successfully) doing:👇
- dominating news cycle & setting theme of national conversation

- generating outrage (authoritarianism, or fascism if you prefer, thrives in a climate of anger, polarisation & shouting)

- dogwhistling to a tiny radicalised minority

- grooming another susceptible minority
How to respond? Well, it’s not easy but some pointers in these two threads...
This one about Trump & co
And this one about those trying to ensure that Brexit happens, despite growing evidence that it will be an utter shitshow:
tl;dr - be aware of what they are trying to do; don’t fall into their traps; stay focused; don’t react in raw anger but calmly; dismiss their distractions swiftly & contemptuously then pivot back to the points that we want to talk about and to which they have no answer.//
PS Try to resist temptation to quote-tweet with some snarky smart-alec putdown proving what they said is wrong/stupid. They don’t care! All you do is amplify their influence on social media (algorithms), preach to the converted in your bubble & entrench views of their followers!
Take a screenshot and tweet it with your putdown instead. #UseHashtags: don’t tag (@) them. #UseScreenshots

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More from @eurosluggard

Sluggardo Profile picture
Aug 7, 2018
THREAD: Ahead of my semi-retirement from Twitter tomorrow, I’m going to be self-indulgent & re-up some of the stuff I’m proudest of from these past 3 years. (Spoiler: nearly all about Brexit: a mix of analysis, advice & scathing, sweary invective). [1/x]
2/
 My time on Twitter has been a journey. I started out naively arguing for what I believed in, assuming our opponents were similarly acting in good faith. I’ve learnt a lot. Along the way, I’ve had fun, made friends, & valued the sense of community here when things felt bad.
3/
 There’s not much to say about my first 18 months on Twitter. For the first year, I was living in Japan so it was my way of feeling connected with the politics of my home country. I felt the looming EUref was big. I argued with Leavers, including Julia H-B & Louise Mensch.
Read 25 tweets
Sluggardo Profile picture
Aug 7, 2018
THREAD: Ahead of my semi-retirement from Twitter tomorrow, I’m going to be self-indulgent & re-up some of the stuff I’m proudest of from these past 3 years. (Spoiler: nearly all about Brexit: a mix of observation, analysis, advice & scathing invective). [1/x]
2/
 My time on Twitter has been a journey. I started out naively arguing for what I believed in, assuming our opponents were similarly acting in good faith. I’ve learnt a lot. Along the way, I’ve had fun, made friends, & valued the sense of community here when things felt bad.
3/
 There’s not much to say about my first 18 months on Twitter. For the first year, I was living in Japan so it was my way of feeling connected with the politics of my home country. I felt the looming EUref was big. I argued with Leavers, including Julia H-B & Louise Mensch.
Read 14 tweets
Sluggardo Profile picture
Aug 3, 2018
Announcing my Twitter semi-retirement as of 8 August. Holiday, then a demanding new job; so I’m deleting Twitter from my phone. I’ll observe/like/retweet a bit & may tweet occasionally, but after 3 years it’s time for me to cut back. Thanks & best wishes to all you lovely people!
For avoidance of doubt, my views on Brexit remain unchanged: it’s a terrible idea for all the reasons I listed in this thread back in April 2017.
Ideally, it should be stopped for the sake of the country. And if it can no longer be stopped because of the scorched-earth tactics used by the zealots who promoted it to lock in their narrow EUref victory, it should be softened a) to limit the damage & b) to teach them a lesson.
Read 5 tweets
Sluggardo Profile picture
Aug 2, 2018
Big problem with BBC’s justification for giving a platform to the Alt-Shite (“we don’t agree with them but they speak for a significant minority; we must let consensus be challenged”): after EUref, BBC shut down the views of those who still thought leaving the EU was a bad idea.
BBC clearly decides that *some* views which are held by a significant minority of the population, and which challenge whatever right-thinking people have decided is the new consensus are just too inconvenient and divisive to be heard. But others are not.
I just find it a bit weird that the minority view that gets frantically shut down is the one in favour of international cooperation & upholding the (admittedly shaky) consensus of the past 40 years while the one that gets airtime is the one that rests on sowing polarisation.
Read 4 tweets
Sluggardo Profile picture
Jul 30, 2018
THREAD: We are now well & truly past the stage of Brexit where satire has any meaning. There’s nothing we can do to make Brexiters’ words & ideas more ridiculous than they already are. You simply need to quote them as they are presented in supposedly pro-Brexit newspapers. (1/x)
Take this article: “May’s ‘no-deal’ Brexit stance is kamikaze say Leavers” in the ERG fanzine formerly known as the Daily Telegraph...
2/
“Brexiteers had hoped that the publication next month of dozens of documents setting out Britain’s No-Deal planning would show the impact it would have on the EU as well, giving the Prime Minister leverage in the negotiations.”
3/
Read 9 tweets
Sluggardo Profile picture
Jul 27, 2018
THREAD: I’ve got an idea. (1/9)
Let’s have a referendum on whether we should all live forever, never get old, be millionaires, have great sex lives and be eternally happy.
2/
If people argue against it, saying it won’t work, we can just deride them and shout them down, saying they’re peddling Project Fear and say the country’s had enough of experts.
3/
Read 9 tweets

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