The Right's Revisionist Race-History

The right has weird ideas about their ideological enemies: we're "groomers," we're secretly on a billionaire's payroll, we hijacked education to promulgate revisionist histories, we steal elections, and, of course, w're plotting to take over America and subjugate them. 1/ pic.twitter.com/rWl0veZ91n

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on https://t.co/iSBh8sqXw0, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:https://t.co/KBID33kPah 2/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

The weirdest thing about this is that it's the right that engages in revisionist race-history:https://t.co/nsYJqvzVSb

And it's the right who stole a presidency:https://t.co/kbavjYgENk

Election-rigging is a right-wing specialty:https://t.co/b0qDiZ4U8X 3/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

It's the right who pay for fake grassroots activism:https://t.co/lz50gqZLcl 4/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Any time some right-wing politician comes out against queers and calls them groomers, chances are good that he's spending his free time on Instagram, sending fire emojis to naked boys:https://t.co/pqLEH16YmW 5/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

That's especially true when we're talking about evangelical youth pastors:https://t.co/mtcr4liESv

It's almost like that old playground rebuttal, "I know you are but what am I?" contains a deep political truth:https://t.co/Hv1ZiuHqzt 6/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Of all the absurd libels of the right, the weirdest one is that leftists are secretly funded by woke billionaires spending dark money to foment the overthrow of the USA. 7/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

The idea of "leftist billionaire" is laughable on its face: how did this imaginary billionaire make their billions while paying a living wage and providing decent working conditions? 8/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

But it's easy to understand how a group of people who are so positively *aslosh* in dark money - people whose every political maneuver is a carefully planned scheme to separate terrified xenophobes and rubes from their money. 9/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Every right wing scheme is peddling something: "alternative" covid therapies, apocalypse-ready MREs, "sound money" gold coins, and so. much. culture. war. nonsense. 10/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

What I'm trying to say is: when the right accuses the left of being driven by cabals of shadowy, crepulent billionaires and their pathetic lickspittle Renfields, it is because the right is indeed in the thrall of those crepulent billionaires. 11/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Meet #LeonardLeo, a crepulent, shadowy billionaire. Leo was last seen around these parts when he was revealed to have been the bagman behind the ultradark money group #JudicialCrisisNetwork. 12/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

After spending $27m to block confirmation for Obama's #SCOTUS pick, #MerrickGarland, they spent tens of millions more on campaigns to seat #Kavanaugh and #Gorsuch. 13/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

#ConeyBarrett was seated thanks to a $15.9m campaign to make an unqualified, unhinged ideologue seem like a viable lifetime member of the highest court in the land:https://t.co/8UKa123jBO 14/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Leo controls the Judicial Crisis Network, which worked with the #FederalistSociety to allow Trump to appoint a whopping 28% of all US federal judges - lifetime appointments for slavering Renfields who'll follow his political lead. 15/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Witness the firepower of a fully operational billionaire.

Leo's post-Trump side-hustle is a "Federalist Society for everything" - a secretive, lavishly funded cabal aimed at taking over campuses, corporations, news outlets with an army of "under 40s" conservative operatives. 16/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

It's called #Teneo, and it was a secret - until its internal memos, videos and other materials leaked to @Propublica. 17/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Propublica's @AndyKroll and @AndreaBNYC collaborated with @ItsDocumented's @NickSurgey to report out the leaks, describing how Teneo when from "a dinner club with partisan overtones" to a dark-money juggernaut. 18/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Teneo's annual donations grew by leaps and bounds (2017, $750k; 2020, $2.3m; 2021, $5m):https://t.co/0w5ZBVQzle 19/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

These financial good fortunes are not the result of excited small-money donors hoping to help Teneo with its good works - it's a handful of ultra-wealthy sociopaths hoping to use a minority of willing lackeys to project their will over all of us. 20/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Teneo's network members are a Monster's Manual of the wildest wingnuts in public life, from #JoshHawley (who wrote its founding manifesto) to #JDVance to #EliseStefanik to #BenShapiro to three of #RonDeSantis's top aides. 21/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Also: federal judge who struck down Biden's mask mandate and the heads of the Republican Attorneys General Association, Republican State Leadership Committee and Turning Point USA. 22/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

The stated goal of Teneo founder Evan Baehr (a tech bro turned conservative organizer) was for Teneo members to infiltrate "the House and the Senate, as governors — one might be elected president." 23/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

In a leaked video, Baehr identifies the "woke" enemy he seeks to vanquish, describing a hypothetical meeting between "a billionaire hedge funder, a film producer, a Harvard professor and a New York Times writer." 24/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

These four cook up a plan to give middle-school kids "free access to sex-change therapy paid for by the federal government." The filmmaker promises to make a documentary to support the project. 25/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

The Harvard professor promises to falsify studies to reassure people that the therapies are safe. The *Times* reporter vows to "profile people who feel trapped in the wrong gender." 26/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

This irony is that this unhinged conspiratorialism was hatched by someone who was and is actively conspiring to take over the country with members of his secret society. After years in the wilderness, Baehr connected with Leo, who turned on the money spigots. 27/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Together, they recruited an "inner core" of #FedSoc members "and recruit[ed] them for either specific roles to serve as judges or to spin up and launch critical projects." 28/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Other shadowy billionaires piled in: @HomeDepot's trumpy founder #BernieMarcus, #CharlesKoch, and Betsy #DeVos and her family. 29/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

The new "Teneo 2.0" sought to "to help members find jobs, write books, meet spouses, secure start-up financing or nonprofit donors and learn about public service."

Their vision is to create "Silicon Valley of Conservatism..." 30/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

"A powerful network of communities where the most influential young leaders, the biggest ideas, and the most leveraged resources come together to launch key projects that advance our shared belief that the conservative worldview drives human flourishing." 31/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

They funnel money to speakers from the absolute depths of the swamp: Erik "Blackwater" Prince, David Brooks, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. 32/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

New members are assured that their involvement with Teneo is "private and confidential" and the group has kept a low profile - Propublica asked Sheldon Whitehouse - a bitter critic of Leo's - about the group and got a blank stare. 33/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Teneo's latest project is to recruit "state attorneys general, state financial officers, state legislators, journalists, media executives and best-in-class public affairs professionals" to fight ESG policies. 34/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

All the froth you've encountered about the evils of ESG are the result of this secret, coordinated project.

(To be clear, ESG *is* bullshit, but not because it's bad for capitalism - ESG is a dumpster fire of greenwashing:)https://t.co/B4kbW94Ugm 35/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

Teneo organizes donors for members who run for local, state and federal office. Will Scharf, who's hoping to become Missouri's next attorney general, has received donations from dozens of Teneo members, giving the maximum allowable donation of $2650. 36/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

The paranoid style in American politics never went away. From the Witchfinders General of New England to Joe McCarthy and the John Birch Society, there has always been a rump of Americans who are very rich and very frightened and who want to put us all in their place. 37/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023

For these fevered schemers, the Jack Chick tracts that depicted secret Satanic societies seducing innocent kids through Dungeons and Dragons games were hard-hitting documentaries, and as far as they're concerned, they're fighting fire with fire. 38/

— Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr) (@doctorow) March 10, 2023