Beware of people using bad faith delegitimisation tactics

Before we even get started let's be absolutely clear that I'm not saying centrists are the same as the modern day extreme-right. I'm not doing that, so don't even dare try to misrepresent my point to pretend that I am.

Yes centrists wilfully collude with the extreme-right in preference to working with the left, as in the Lib-Dem pact with UKIP to take control of Bolton Council, or the Centre Party's fateful decision in 1933 to seal their own destruction by elevating Adolf Hitler to German Chancellor. And yes both ideologies revere capitalism. But nobody is pretending that they're the same.

What I am going to point out is that centrists and the modern day extreme-right have a tendency to use the exact same cynical debating trickery to delegitimise their critics, or anyone who dares question the groupthink of their ideology.

The extreme-right continually present their critics as being motivated by hatred of Britain and hatred of (their utterly warped interpretation of) "British values". They also regularly claim that opponents of their ideology are the victims of "brainwashing".

Centrists use the exact same tactic, repeatedly insinuating that criticism of their beloved ideology is motivated by hatred, bitterness, or insanity, and delighting in the accusation that anyone supporting the anti-austerity, anti-privatisation, pro-investment politics of the Labour left is a "cultist".

If you don't believe our propaganda, you're 'brainwashed'.

If you don't believe in our unquestionable centrist groupthink, then you're a 'cultist'.

It's the exact same delegitimisation tactic, and it's absolutely commonplace in both ideologies.

The point of it is to deter people from even considering the critique of their own ideology by labelling the critic as dangerous, unstable, insane, brainwashed, motivated by hate, or whatever other slur they can think of.

They don't want people actually debating the topic at hand, so they concentrate all of their effort on delegitimising the source, in the hope that others will not even bother looking into what the argument is actually about.

It's the tactic of bad faith cowards who know that they'd lose the argument if the debate was conducted fairly and decently, so they resort to cynical delegitimisation trickery to prevent that from happening.

Lib-Dems

I think it's important to criticise the Liberal Democrats for their role in helping the Tories enforce the living standards destroying austerity fanaticism that laid the groundwork for Brexit, then cashing in on the crisis they helped create by posing as glorious saviours who are going to rescue us all from the madness by ... errr ... printing up "Bollocks to Brexit" T-shirts" and begging for another referendum with no deal Tories running the show so they can totally rig the ballot by picking the options, wording, and timing of the vote to their own advantage.

It doesn't matter how much you base your criticism on facts, evidence, logic, and links to verifiable sources, the Lib-Dem response in the comments always consists of the same barrage of evasions, deflections, straw man misrepresentations, whataboutery, excuses, absurd Lib-Dem fairy stories, outright lies, and cynical delegitimisation tactics.

The strategy is to deflect debate away from the actual criticisms, and undermine the critic with claims that they must be insane, brainwashed, hysterical, deluded, or motivated by hate to even dare trying to criticise the ideological groupthink.

Ian Dunt

If you're not on Twitter you probably won't be familiar with this guy, but he's hot shit in the centrist and Remainer echo chambers like FBPE.

He's one of these noxious Remain Ultras who gets off on sneering at left-behind working class communities (rather than reaching out to try to explain that the living standards collapse they experienced was caused by domestic austerity fanaticism, not immigrants and the EU), smearing all Leave voters as horrible right-wingers, and constructing bizarre fantasies that the UK was some kind of magnificent utopia under the Tory/Lib-Dem Austerity Coalition, before Brexit arrived, out of nowhere, and ruined everything.

He's a toxic Remainer who does more damage to the Brexit-sceptic cause with his wittering than good, and if other Remainers had any vague understanding of the strategic need to actually attract people to the cause rather than driving them away with toxic groupthink nonsense, they wouldn't revere and retweet him so god-damned much.

So the Guardian columnist Dawn Foster wrote an exceptional article in the Guardian criticising the Labour deputy leader Tom Watson for his campaign of internal wrecking tactics, and having a dig at the kind of centrist groupthink that Dunt and his ilk absolutely revel in.

Obviously Dunt hated it, but his Twitter response was absolutely telling.

Instead of critiquing any of the actual points raised in the article, or presenting anything even remotely counter-evidence, he resorted to ridiculing it as "off planet" insane, before questioning the fact that the mainstream media would allow such opinions to be published at all!

1. Refuse to debate or critique any of the actual points raised, simply deride opposing opinions as insane "thought crime".  

 2. Demand the mainstream media only ever promote the 'correct' groupthink worldview. 

 How is this mentality any different from the mentality of the far-right?

How is it even remotely possible to consider this kind of delegitimisation of non-conformist views, and craving for media censorship as any kind of liberalism?

Conclusion

As I said in the introduction I'm not arguing that centrism and the extreme-right are the same thing, so don't even try to pretend that I am.

What I'm saying is that their ideological adherents are prone to using the exact same delegitimisation tactics to deter people from even listening to their ideological opponents.

From deriding non-conformist opinions as insane, or deluded, or hate-motivated "thought crime" to demanding that the function of the mainstream media is solely to endlessly and unquestioningly repeat their own approved groupthink mentality.

Their politics may be different, but the illiberal and intolerant mindset, and the cynical debating trickery are very often exactly the same.

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