Christopher F. Rufo  ⚔️

[THREAD] 1/ In the space of a few weeks, one conservative (@realchrisrufo) did more to slow the momentum toward institutional embrace of critical race theory than three years of IDW howling on Twitter and in Quillette.

2/ Whatever the IDW's strengths — and it has been very good at diagnosing the Great Awokening and raising awareness about it — it's really lousy at actually getting results in the “real world,” or at least the *political* realm.

3/ Look at what happened to its first explicit foray into electoral politics (Unity 2020), a ramshackle affair that almost instantly fizzled. This is unsurprising since the IDW is comprised mostly of cranky individualists drawn from the world of academia and the media.

4/ There have been a few exceptions to this. For example, @toadmeister's Free Speech Union looks to have great potential to help protect the free speech rights of people caught up in cancel culture. Also, the "grievance studies hoax" had an impact.

5/ I marveled again just a few moments ago at what @realchrisrufo has been able to achieve in such a short period of time when I saw this tweet. Almost immediately after Loudoun County schools brought a threat to its teachers' 1A rights, Rufo tweeted this.https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1311823656461373440 …

6/ This is called “getting things done.” It requires not just strategic thinking but also people who are connected to (or at least savvy about) existing power structures and ways of doing things in the real world. I'm hoping the IDW is taking notes.