There’s a lot of speculation about what Cruz is up to here. I believe he knows better. But I don’t think he’s just trying to stoke grievances here. Thread 1/ https://twitter.com/jadler1969/status/1266393007781224448
Conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists have become important to the conservative movement.

Sen. Cruz isn’t just interested in the free speech rights of Alex Jones. He’s interested in what Jones can do to drive voters to the polls. 2/
I say this as someone who has been conservative for most of my adult life: the movement no longer wants to make a real appeal based on ideas. They don’t think their agenda of judges and tax cuts will get them far enough with the base. 3/
And I think they’re right. There just isn’t enough there idea-wise. Or policy wise.

They’re filling the gap with chaos and conspiracy theories. 4/
A well-functioning marketplace of ideas is not what they want.

Twitter has its faults. But it can be used to inform. People who know things can communicate them to people who don’t.

*You can learn something here.*
That’s a problem for a movement that has lost faith in its ideas. They know a well functioning marketplace will chew them up and spit them out.
So they’ve moved from complaining about deplatforming, to really taking issue with any kind of rebuttal, counter-argument or fact checking as moderation, claiming that—is, more speech—is actually censorship.
What they want is the right to just inundate forums where ideas and information are exchanged with bullshit. Because those things are bad for their movement.
If you’re genuinely interested in conservatism as a movement that does not rely heavily on culture wars, misinformation, and conspiracy theories you have to oppose what these people are doing.
You can follow @GehringTed.
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