Fascinating for me are the alleged “origin stories” of men who came from obscurity & have been allowed to dismantle structures thoughtfully created & developed over yrs to address racism. For Rufo, it was the 2 weeks of protests in 2020 in Seattle. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/o... - ThreadSky

sifill.bsky.social • 86 days ago

Fascinating for me are the alleged “origin stories” of men who came from obscurity & have been allowed to dismantle structures thoughtfully created & developed over yrs to address racism. For Rufo, it was the 2 weeks of protests in 2020 in Seattle. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/opinion/chris-rufo-trump-anti-dei-education.html?unlocked_article_code=1.204.xkv7.SraX_81F5OZo&smid=url-share

Comments

propugnaculum.bsky.social•85 days ago

If you were “radicalized” by observing one event in which you did not participate, you are operating on emotion not education, training or experience. Most of these influencer types are self promoters, not intellectuals.

rdangler.bsky.social•86 days ago

Rufo worked for the Discovery Institute here in Seattle well before that.

They're the nitwits who were pushing trying to push Intelligent Design in our area high schools

rdangler.bsky.social•86 days ago

I really need an edit button.

noahdahl.bsky.social•85 days ago

YES.

I hate it when autocorrect changes "f*ckwads" to "nitwits"

immortalsea.bsky.social•85 days ago

There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. That Panda’s Thumb guy isn’t still around, is he?

greenbrewtea.bsky.social•86 days ago

I hate that people treat this shit likes it’s understandable. “Oh, black peoples struggle for rights and human dignity went too far for you white man and now you’re a nazi, sounds good.” Like wtf.

mileslynd.bsky.social•85 days ago

Yeah, Lets go after education. This should really appeal the willfully oblivious and the stupid.

johnbrownwasright.bsky.social•85 days ago

This orgin story is just a lie. He was in Seattle way before that trying to promote the idea of putting the homeless in concentration camps.

vjm4democracy.bsky.social•85 days ago

I appreciate you Sherrilyn.
You give me hope.

notmylinkedin.bsky.social•85 days ago

This is a retcon of his own invention. He was a noxious anti-homeless agitator and fringe city council candidate before 2020.

sifill.bsky.social•86 days ago

He’s not radicalized by the exposure of a 100 year-old system of police violence against unarmed Black people. Not radicalized by the Black boys & men killed as part of that phenomenon.It was 2 wks of protests AGAINST that violence that made him dedicate his life to destroying the Civil Rights Act.

nshrubs.bsky.social•85 days ago

He's also seeking revenge because we (progressives) in Seattle laughed him out of town when he ran for city council & then quit after bogus "they were mean to me & my wife" allegations. He's a loser & a quitter & a coward & a grifter.

anshugsharma.bsky.social•85 days ago

@alt-text.bsky.social

alt-text.bsky.social•85 days ago

Alt text retrieved

iisawell.bsky.social•85 days ago

White racist men’s tears.

justjrwhite.bsky.social•86 days ago

Imagine seeing people fighting for human rights and having that radicalize you. I have a feeling it could have been anything.

bobbieleecunha.bsky.social•85 days ago

Chilling. So narrow minded and so backwards!

lawco.bsky.social•85 days ago

I don’t get what is so threatening about equal rights. 🙄

skweetis.bsky.social•85 days ago

Also worth noting for people who weren't in Seattle: The autonomous zone was held for weeks on the literal front steps of a police precinct that was abandoned (the SPD chief illegally deleted texts about why) and unlocked and it was never breeched. If you want compare/contrast with Jan 6.

rambleratx.bsky.social•85 days ago

This is a lie.

jcallahanbryant.bsky.social•85 days ago

hearing that Rufo comes from a long line of Italian Communists explains everything imo. the psychological inability to deal with disorder and God-complex to strive everyday to re-order society under your personal vision is lame AF

leupp.bsky.social•85 days ago

biggray.bsky.social•85 days ago

He already worked for the Discovery Institute.

mothermarywilson.bsky.social•86 days ago

Right, those 2 weeks and let's not forget - he got turned down on a couple of filmmaking grants. Poor little white boy didn't get a grant.

shaenon.bsky.social•85 days ago

All these guys are failed artists just like their hero

endeavorja.bsky.social•85 days ago

In his world view, institutional isms don’t exist & there’s nothing to address so let’s return the status quo that’s preferential to some and not others. Enquiring minds want to know who’re the majority of gazillionaires running amok, benefit from nepotism & connections & work in high paying jobs?

lawgrade.bsky.social•86 days ago

Ross Douthat and NYT need to stop platforming fascists and racists like Steve Bannon and Christopher Rufo under the guise of “just trying to understand the other side.”

shaenon.bsky.social•85 days ago

Russ Douthat's conservative origin story is that in college a girl wanted to have sex with him and he totally lost his erection when he found out she used birth control.

ramblingdoc.bsky.social•85 days ago

What reverse discrimination really means is that rich kids are rejected after their parents paid thousands to have consultants do their college applications for them, and the poor Black kid they accepted who did everything on his own couldn't possibly be more qualified

azziesky.bsky.social•85 days ago

It's always personal inconvenience that radicalizes these people. Toxic hyper-individualism mixed with white supremacy and no empathy.

tobellz.bsky.social•85 days ago

Rufo's is buddies with someone high up at the NYT. Honestly, it's like the NYT in depth interviews with Paul Bearer about the Undertaker's next opponent.

seamiracles.bsky.social•85 days ago

Does it help to know he has zero friends?

Explains why he had all that time to be obsessed w protests instead of just living his life, full of friends, hobbies, loved ones...

kenburnside.bsky.social•85 days ago

Rufo first hit national prominence by manufacturing the CRT moral panic as a way to divert press coverage of the Southern Baptist Convention's 20 year policy of moving pedophile pastors to new groups of victims.

Over 700 offenders, nearly 2,500 victims.

But you know about CRT instead.

capitolhunters.bsky.social•85 days ago

Chris Rufo's claim that he was radicalized by BLM in 2020 is BS. He was a Claremont Fellow in 2017, along with James O'Keefe of Project Veritas, being groomed to be a right-wing influencer. Be wary of origin stories with conversion narratives - "I was left, now I'm right". Mostly they're fiction.

anshugsharma.bsky.social•85 days ago

@alt-text.bsky.social

alt-text.bsky.social•85 days ago

Alt text retrieved

immortalsea.bsky.social•85 days ago

Well well well. I guess you could say he was groomed for the role.

togeyboi.bsky.social•85 days ago

Me ? The older I get, the more liberal I become.
I have enough problems of my own to worry about how everyone else is living THEIR lives.

Please continue.

riffle22.bsky.social•85 days ago

“Alleged” is right. His claimed origin story is a lie. He & James O’Keefe were both members of the Claremont Institute’s 2017 cohort of Lincoln Fellows, where apparently they were well trained in the arts of deception, long before Rufo’s claimed defining moment in 2020.

repetitiveuser.bsky.social•85 days ago

Seeing that pic of Ross I finally understand why he's the fucking worst

repetitiveuser.bsky.social•85 days ago

Genuinely did not realize how much work they had to do at the NYT to make his pic look that way.

cpo10za.bsky.social•85 days ago

Rufo’s made it clear that he intentionally lies to get false narratives circulating about himself. This story is definitely bullshit. He was a baddie long before this.

battynatty.bsky.social•85 days ago

Yep, he wasn’t “reporting” he went there to be an agent provocateur. It absolutely drives me nuts that he announced out loud what he was doing with CRT, “plagiarism” etc, centrists just accepted his editorial assignment and few people said “look, this guy is lying and he admits it.”

thefirstarticle.bsky.social•86 days ago

Scummy men really think we should just be worshipping them. Agency in anyone else's life is a betrayal of everything.

They're happy shitting on everyone & and if you don't like that something is wrong with you.

Real convos I've has with men IRL not coping with others being thinking beings

japulver.bsky.social•86 days ago

#ThisIsWhiteNationalism

maraleia.bsky.social•86 days ago

The fact that any Seattle media gave him a platform is an indictment on that city.

revwendyv.bsky.social•86 days ago

They think we all are going to go along with it.

crabapplejones.bsky.social•86 days ago

Oddly, they also seem to have picked up these plans from Yarvin and Dugin.

We know some podcasters have been paid by Russia, we know P2025 mirrors RU proposals to collapse the US.

One is left wondering who is seeding and funding the drive to authoritarianism.

karinacoombs.com•86 days ago

Yet another guy who has been given power to tear it all down for no reason other than personal grievances.

michael-w-busch.bsky.social•85 days ago

"alleged" being key.

Since that is a blatant lie by Chris Rufo, who got his start at the Discovery Institute promoting creationism (which exists for the sake of racism & sexism).

I note how Rufo keeps being quite explicit about how his lies are a deliberate strategy.

May no one fall for the con.

parvesh.bsky.social•86 days ago

Oof.

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