Oh wow this analysis

This is the kind of analysis I typically resist but I'm actively gobsmacked at how Sarah Ditum successfully derailed Owen Jones' argument about exposing cleaners to infection risk into one about whether he, personally, hates/disrespects working mums https://twitter.com/HealthUntoDeath/status/1258328953158336512

And IT WORKS, and in the gleeful pileon to call Owen a He-Man Woman Hater everyone starts quietly coming around to the idea that YES, we SHOULD expose cleaners to the virus by making them come back to work, or at least "empathize" with the people who want them to

But if you try to engage with that idea itself - with how monstrous it is on the face of it, and how monstrous it is to call it "feminist" to put poor women at physical risk because it benefits wealthy women - suddenly YOU'RE the one changing the subject, which is now Owen

You're "swooping in to defend Owen like always"

You're one of Owen's "legion of followers" out to "protect his reputation" and "obscure his record of misogyny"

Like we all suddenly agreed Owen was the topic at hand, like we're here to be the jury at his trial

I don't CARE about Owen, no offense to him

We were never talking about him as a human being, we were talking about lifting work restrictions in the UK due to the pandemic

The people who will die if we do that don't give a shit about Owen Jones or your opinion of his character

Why are people in the UK so fucking concerned about Owen Jones

Why aren't you concerned about Boris Johnson, why doesn't he catch this smoke from you

Why don't I get to ask you why you're caping for Boris and defending his policy and covering up his record of misogyny

This is just such an extreme example of what Extremely Online Types - to cite a video about this topic I recently watched - call the "Mascot and Meme" strategy

Reduce an entire political position/tendency/community to one person, the mascot

Reduce that person to just a few of that person's objectionable traits, past actions or unfortunate utterances (real or imagined)

Don't bother arguing, just spam the meme of the mascot

It's an ancient routine going back to the first equivalent of schoolyards and schoolyard bullies

But shit this is an absurdly extreme example, especially because the supposedly respectable sober British press is totally addicted to it

I wanna say "If Owen said the house was on fire then burning to death would be an act of feminist solidarity and firehoses an antisemitic conspiracy"

But it's not even that

It's that if he said it you would STAND IN THE BURNING BUILDING ARGUING ABOUT *HIM SAYING IT*

Like you wouldn't actually defend standing in the fire, you wouldn't even bother

You'd just start psychoanalyzing Owen in a snotty voice

"Why you so afraid of staying indoors, Jones? Got issues with strong women? Mummy grounded you as a boy?"

The Mascot and Meme strategy is so awful and so effective because it means we're not having a conversation at all anymore

We're just punishing Owen for sticking his head up and talking at all, and warning anyone else if they become the new Owen they're next