I took these screenshots yesterday, before the chickening out tweets happened. If this is typical of how Joe approaches answering a simple question, he is
fucked.
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I really think J has been able to get away with this shit his whole life: using dumb, cringe sophistry to weasel his way through arguments, and then deciding it's a "win" when the other person gives up in boredom or disgust. Only the midwits are fooled.
He's also extremely cowardly; he simply can't defend a contradictory opinion once it's attacked from his own side. He didn't expect a backlash from the TRA crowd, and he is incapable of either standing up to them or admitting that he did something stupid and backtracking. So you see this performance where he pretends he thought Helen was a fascist this whole time and
it was all part of his plan guys, because
god forbid he actually holds firm to an opinion on something.
I'm quite fascinated by the way Joe seems to conceive of opinions in general. To him, they're not reflections of personal values, and they are
definitely not things that have effects in the real world that you might have to consider. To Joe,
one's opinions are performances to get you in with the right crowd. There's no values underlying these opinions, and none of them are "real" in the sense that they should affect your behavior: they're just particular lines that you say to make sure you fit in with your desired social class.
Remember the way Joe reacted when he posted about eating a bunch of meat on Instagram and someone commented about greenhouse gases or something? He was completely surprised and baffled. Like it hadn't occurred to him that his uber-liberal beliefs might be something that some people apply to their daily activities (by doing something like reducing meat consumption). It was not just that he
disagreed with that particular behavior; he had apparently never even thought of the concept.
That's why he is spinning like a helicopter blade right now. He tried to do something that would please the right crowd, but "the right crowd" is upset with him. He is incapable of standing up for his choice to debate Helen (because he has no concept of sticking to individual values that might be separate from those of one's desired ingroup) but he is also incapable of admitting he was wrong (because that would mean that his beliefs didn't align with the group in the past, which to Joe is mentally unacceptable, because beliefs
are what gets you into the group). So he's performing an elaborate dance of "yes, I meant to do that all along! I always thought Helen Joyce was a Nazi murderer who eats trans women for breakfast! But it was, uhh, part of my plan! I am bringing down the TERF media complex! I am very smart! Please stop disagreeing with me! I am one of you!"