Categories Politics
Our first thread about John was intended to help protect leftist protest communities from his harmful behavior. Since John’s little stunt at the Capitol during the DC #Insurrection, we have more to talk about.
(1/43)
This is a hella long thread... TL;DR: While it’s still unclear if John's end goal is chaos and confusion or if this is simply a side effect of shameless grifting — it’s clear that he continues to be a threat to protester safety whether he’s on the ground or online.
(2/43)
Frantically cleaning up John’s messes continues to be a waste of time and energy in the nationwide movement for Black lives. So let’s continue to stay ahead of him, establish a national lockout, and wrap up this weird saga so we can get back to work, baby!
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Covered in this thread:
1. General updates (since our 11/26 thread)
2. John’s harmful tactics/behaviors
3. What happened last week (DC, 1/6)
4. Next steps
If you haven’t read our 11/26 thread about John, we recommend doing so for full
\U0001f6a8#SeattleProtests Community Alert:
— Rebellion Baby (@RebellionBaby) November 26, 2020
We have reason to believe that a likely infiltrator/agent provocateur by the name of John Sullivan, or \u201cActivist John,\u201d is attempting to insert himself in the Seattle protest community.
(sorry babe, long thread)
(1/23) #seattleprotestcomms pic.twitter.com/MuxQ74XCJo
1⃣General Updates:
Shortly after our 11/26 thread, Seattle protesters made it clear that John is not welcome at our actions or in our online spaces. He later changed his main account names from “Activist X” and “Activist John” to “Activist Jayden” and “Jayden X.”
(5/43)
I\u2019m sorry it\u2019s just insane that Democrats are like, \u201cwe won everything and our opening position on relief is $1.9T\u201d and Republicans are like, \u201cwe lost and our opening position is $600B,\u201d and the media will be like, \u201cDemocrats say they want unity but reject this bipartisan deal.\u201d
— Meredith Shiner (@meredithshiner) January 31, 2021
First, party/policy mandates from elections are far from self-executing in our system. Work on mandates from Dahl to Ellis and Kirk on the history of the mandate to mine on its role in post-Nixon politics, to Peterson Grossback and Stimson all emphasize that this link is... 2/
Created deliberately and isn't always persuasive. Others have to convinced that the election meant a particular thing for it to work in a legislative context. I theorized in the immediate period of after the 2020 election that this was part of why Repubs signed on to ...3/
Trump's demonstrably false fraud nonsense - it derailed an emerging mandate news cycle. Winners of elections get what they get - institutional control - but can't expect much beyond that unless the perception of an election mandate takes hold. And it didn't. 4/
Let's turn to the legislation element of this. There's just an asymmetry in terms of passing a relief bill. Republicans are presumably less motivated to get some kind of deal passed. Democrats are more likely to want to do *something.* 5/
(Both Lindsay Graham and Matt Gaetz said if the GOP loses this election, they'll never win again.)
GOP is a minority party. If they lose power, they lose the ability to manipulate systems to keep minority control.
1/
Does their life end if they lose an election? Is it worth a complete loss of integrity??
— KM (@Kyarmot) November 10, 2020
The fear is also explained by Richard Hofstader, who wrote the classic work⤵️
Hofstadter reviewed American politics from before the founding of the nation through McCarthyism. He noticed a pattern among an impassioned minority on the fringes of the political spectrum.
2/
He called their behavior the “paranoid style” in politics.
Those embracing the paranoid style of politics believe that unseen satanic forces are trying to destroy something larger in which they belong.
3/
According to Hofstadter, the “something larger” to which they belong is generally phrased as “the American way of life.”
They “feel dispossessed” and that “America has been largely taken away from them and their kind.”
4/
They therefore adopt extreme measures. They will stop at nothing to prevent what they see as an impending calamity.
Remember, Hofstadter published this in the early 1960s.
5/
Even HR1 did not require that jurisdictions give all voters the option to mark their ballots by hand AT THE POLLS. The House has not even warned the public about the dangers of new touchscreen ballot marking devices. Pls do that NOW. TY.
— Jennifer Cohn \u270d\U0001f3fb \U0001f4e2 (@jennycohn1) April 24, 2019
Expert Report: https://t.co/I2EWvFIQEH pic.twitter.com/euekDq65mr
I have not looked at other aspects of HR1. It addresses more than election security. The #SAFEAct shld be the starting point for election security reform in my opinion. 2/
HR1 requires that all voters have the option to mark their ballots by hand. But it does not specify that, for jurisdictions with in person voting, the hand marked (pen & paper) option must be available for in person voting (vs it only being an option w/ vote by mail). 3/
HR1 may still be a good start. But it does not go nearly far enough on election security. Here are my suggestions for election security. Maybe these could be addressed in a later bill, but we shld keep them on our radar. 4/ https://t.co/mNdHrvwHcN
The key section is 1502. IMO, it shld add the following. “For jurisdictions that offer in person voting, the option to mark a paper ballot by hand must be offered at the in-person polling location; giving this option only for vote by mail won’t suffice for such jurisdictions.” 5/
What motivates the motivated reasoning of pro-Trump conspiracists? https://t.co/FyzogB3OyD by @j_timmer
— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) January 16, 2021
First, a modern classic, Barkun's Culture of Conspiracy describes how rejected knowledge makes moving from one ideology (say UFOs) to another (conspiracy, Nazism, MRA),
This happens both because there are people in multiple camps (such as holocaust denying Forteans), and because everything rejected by mainstream information ends up in the same gutter, and people start to wonder about other things stewing about them
The role of masculinity in cryptozoology, especially Bigfoot, has been addressed multiple times. This is probably the most
Buhs argues that with the decline of heavy industry and related jobs, and media changes in gender roles, Bigfoot becomes a representation of the untamed man, a rejection of the encroachment of urbanism, office culture, and other lifeways making men more like stereotypes of women
This whole war with CCP subversion agents is basically just the Crab People episode of South Park, down to the part where they turn all the men gay.
— Derek (Lid on Likes) (#Kraken Emeritus) (@PereGrimmer) December 5, 2020
Once you break the shell, they got nothing. They just run
#lawoffunny
https://t.co/ZFD3BPNEP0
The video broke them. Semantic games are all they have left. https://t.co/rIeAas6Ngg
— The Columbia Bugle \U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8 (@ColumbiaBugle) December 6, 2020
https://t.co/SnJYSYeIsb
Sascha Barone Cohen's PhD thesis is about how predatory communists and gangsters got together to hoodwink blacks and other minorities of their pride and agency and self-respect through the Trojan horse of "civil rights".
— Derek (Lid on Likes) (#Kraken Emeritus) (@PereGrimmer) December 5, 2020
https://t.co/lcGDctmtD2
https://t.co/zkF0xVdkp2 pic.twitter.com/RAWNAaAC80
— Derek (Lid on Likes) (#Kraken Emeritus) (@PereGrimmer) December 4, 2020
Trump wants to pause proceedings to appeal the ruling kicking DOJ out, but for now, it's still on.
Today is an initial telephone conference following Judge Kaplan's ruling that the DOJ can't represent Trump and ordering his personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz back on the docket.
Kasowitz's latest filing from last night: https://t.co/tsTqJanOVe
I'll be covering the proceedings live... in the remote, virtual sense of our era.
.@EJeanCarroll's lawyer @KaplanRobbie is now on the line.
The conference is slated to begin in roughly 5 minutes.