I’d love to see a takedown of some of those linked and earnest statements - though I suppose folks can be close-minded about “facts” as well (statistics can’t lie, right? /s)
I don't think that's accurate at all. She explicitly states that she's critiquing his reasoning and spends the vast majority of the essay doing that.
Although it's worth pointing out that a conclusion being incorrect is good evidence for either the reasoning or the premises of an argument being incorrect.
I don’t necessarily agree, but I understand why she’d think so.
A good example comes from Cialdini's "Influence". He describes a study where they had someone come up to somebody using a library copier and ask to use it. Compliance went up significantly if the asker gave a reason, even if that reason was, "because I need to make some copies." That statement obviously ads no new information; the circularity makes it invalid as an argument. But it's effective persuasion. It's not even wrong, because it doesn't rise to the level of trying to make a decent argument.
Another clear example is America's foremost bullshiter, Trump. He clearly doesn't care about being right. His goal is not to make an intellectually coherent argument. He cares about influence. Like Siskind, his goal is manipulation, not the shedding of light.
My critique, in turn, is that this behavior is self-evident to anyone who is willing to recognize it, a legitimate basis for decision making to rationalists, and irrelevant to folks who are only interested in agreeing with whatever conclusions they see in those murky essays.