Darrell Rowbottom

Arday's (and his allies') rhetorical response is straight out of the Trump playbook. Clearly their goals are not aligned, but their tactics are. This strategy unfolds in three acts: Act 1: try to distract the public from legitimate questions Act 2: try to flip attention to the accusers Act 3: whip co-partisans into a frenzy ___________ Act 1: distract from legitimate questions In this step, you flood the world with misinformation. You put so many fantastical claims into the ether that it becomes impossible to dispute them all. (This is basically Brandolini's Law in action.) You reinforce your position by changing the subject. Move the conversation to process, to fairness, to tone policing. Anything else will do, really; you want attention to be anywhere but the specific, checkable, documented claims. Put a bow on this step by alleging a vast conspiracy. Instead of "fake news", call it a "coordinated campaign to unseat [you]." Act 2: turn it on the accusers. Focus on accusers' motives rather than on the content of their claims. The charge is never false; it's malicious. Team Trump calls it a "witch hunt." Team Arday calls it a "lynch mob." The words are different, but the strategy is the same. In this act, take a firm position that you are an oracle. You and only you--or, ok, maybe a few in-group members--are able to see through noise in a way that no one else can. Your piercing gaze cuts right through all the riffraff. You are a sage; others are ignoramuses. In this step, it is vital to discredit the institutional referees... but only to a point. Journalists, universities, and investigative bodies are deeply flawed ... unless it's convenient for them to suddenly not be so. When they investigate you and find that you have erred, they are deeply flawed. When they investigate you and find no errors, they are the arbiters of fairness and justice. Act 3: whip co-partisans into a frenzy Cast yourself as the persecuted, so the story becomes what's being done to you rather than what you did. Lead with narratives rather than rebuttals. After all, a story doesn't have to survive a fact-check the way a point-by-point does. Never, and I mean never, focus on the victims of your actions. All of your acts are victimless crimes. You are the true victim. Hence, a specific claim about your specific actions becomes an attack on an entire community. Defending yourself and defending your community collapse into the same act. Supporters are no longer being asked to weigh evidence. They're being asked to prove loyalty. What began as a narrow, answerable question about your conduct becomes a symbolic fight over ideology.