I've speculated idly in the past, in a few meandering threads, about the problems inherent in attempting to form an *army of cowards*. #conservative and @GOP people have this general problem with their movement: right-wing partisans tend towards blustery cowardice. ~Chara (1/?)

they're egotists and b!gots; such people tend to assign an absurdly high value to their own skins. if you could miraculously drop Mr. @Matt Walsh or Mr. @Dale Partridge on the front line of some battle they'd race for the rear, saying they were "too important". ~Chara (2/?)

because they're cowards they pour out an endless screen of verbiage about how tough and manly and brave they are—for "everyone knows" that #conservatives are where all the tough manly brave people are. they're always "fighting" (i.e. always puffing out propaganda.) ~Chara (3/?)

all the same, though, the right-wing cause may be lacking in bravery but they do have some *boldness*. they've gotten good at scaring people into thinking they're much more powerful and forcible than they really are. Mr. @Matt Walsh's bluster is like...this: ~Chara (4/?)

that's two red pandas trying to scare each other by standing up to their full height, with their forepaws raised. every #conservative gasbag like @Matt Walsh, every reactionary-b!got preacher like @Dale Partridge, every @GOP crook like @Ted Cruz, has their method. ~Chara (5/?)

they all have their ways of trying to sound really tough and intimidating; in fact it's about all they do in public. the most frequent display of fake bravery that you see from dullards like @Matt Walsh is cop-worship and militarism. they love thugs in uniform. ~Chara (6/?)

that's one reason that right-wing chumps like @Matt Walsh and @Dale Partridge are so bad at rational argument: in the back of their minds, their method of "winning" an argument isn't to outlogic their opponent, but to wait for cops to throw the offender in jail. ~Chara (7/?)

all arguments devolve into a variant on "my dad can beat up your dad": to be a #conservative is to believe that nothing matters beyond *raw power*. thus, right-wing partisans like @Dale Partridge and @Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ will never be good at logic: they don't *need* it. ~Chara (8/?)

American police tend to be bloodthirsty, b!goted hoodlums, i.e. just the sort of muscle that Mr. @Dale Partridge or Mr. @Michael Tracey regards as their "winning argument". this hasn't solved the "army of cowards" problem. why? well… American cops are themselves cowards. ~Chara (9/?)

if you challenged some @Chicago Police or @Portland Police hoodlum with *cowardice*, they'd deny it of course—just like Mr. @Dale Partridge would deny *his* cowardice—but one can see the cowardice in the way cops "fight". they gather in mobs, like bandits fighting. ~Chara (10/?)

they show up in great masses, overwhelming force against soft targets, seeking safety in numbers and a huge amount of padding and armor and Lexan screens—and, of course, they empty whole clips into people at the slightest provocation. that's how *cowards* fight. ~Chara (11/?)

that's roughly how @Kyle Rittenhouse decoyed himself into being able to commit willful murder, despite his utter cowardice: he trained his *reflexes* to the point where they would respond with disproportionate violence against soft targets, when he was _scared enough_. ~Chara (12/?)

it was clever—a sort of weaponization of cowardice. that's how American police function as a group: they've turned themselves into live wires who explode into overwhelming violence at the drop of a pin. it's a method that works, but only against the unprepared. ~Chara (13/?)

the #ColoradoSpringsMassacre was another manifestation of *cowardly violence*, violence carried out on an unsuspecting crowd. it's been about the *only* sort of violence that right-wing hacks like @Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ and @Chaya Raichik have been able to take pride in. ~Chara (14/?)

the #conservative obsession with manliness and toughness has put the right-wing propaganda movement into a typically self-contradictory, "doublethinkful" rhetorical stance: they claim that only leftists are violent, while bragging about their capacity for violence. ~Chara (15/?)

cowards like Messrs. @Dale Partridge and @Matt Walsh want to take as much pride as they can in right-wing stochastic terrorism, while also running away from the central truth about the terrorism: it's proof that #conservatives are inclined to *cowardly violence*. ~Chara (16/?)

that is to say, right-wing partisans like @Kyle Rittenhouse or the #ColoradoSprings shooter or a @Portland Police thug are people who (a) enjoy violence and want to do as much violence as they dare, while (b) being cowards about it—going chiefly after *unarmed* targets. ~Chara (17/?)

that might be good for oppressing a populace kept divided and weak, thus vulnerable to terroristic violence of the @Kyle Rittenhouse / #ColoradoSpringsMassacre / @Portland Police sort. but how well are such cowardly methods likely to work against determined opposition? ~Chara (18/?)

the right-wing blowhards, the @Matt Walsh / @Dale Partridge / @Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 / @Tim Pool crowd, heap "soy cuck" derision on leftists 24/7, but that's plainly part of their act: this is how they pretend to be brave. it's *bluster*, and it doesn't mean anything much. ~Chara (19/?)

ultimately they have their hopes pinned to two armies of cowards, one official, one unofficial: the massed violence of American police, and the irregular violence of terrorists like @Kyle Rittenhouse and the #ColoradoSpringsMassacre shooter. they prop each other up. ~Chara (20/?)

the @Portland Police department of @Mayor Ted Wheeler semi-openly regards fascɪst paramilitary gangs as allies, and that's undoubtedly true for all American police. the chaotic street gangs of the extremist right are, in a sense, the cops' *backup*, doing the dirtier jobs. ~Chara (21/?)

it adds up to a formidable number of armed and violent thugs, murderers to the core, even if their cowardice means they're forced to be *sneaky* about doing murders. is it going to be enough, though? there's way more *people* than cops and fash thugs put together. ~Chara (22/?)

what do you think, Mr. @Dale Partridge? Mr. @Matt Walsh? Mr. @Elon Musk? or any other #conservative ideologue who puts their trust in armed thuggery? think there's enough cops and mercs and fascɪst trash to take on the people of the United States? ~Chara of Pnictogen (end)

@Thread Reader App unroll