Thanks for bringing attention to this — the “Dirtbag Left” worries me and the politicization of clear reasoning is a tragedy. Your point about the limitations of rational argument in politics is well-taken, and we don’t even need to bring in an evolutionary debunking story. One further response Burgis might make is that even if rational argument doesn’t always succeed through its intended causal channel, it still might be important to raise the status of rational argument and lower the status of irrational nihilism of the “against facts, evidence, and reason” stripe. And perhaps rational argument is more likely to succeed in the intended way in a context where it has high status.