As 2nd impeachment looms, the Republican Party paved the way to this inevitable end of the Trump presidency by enabling, excusing & abetting an openly racist & authoritarian president who did not hide his contempt for the rule of law or disdain for democracy

Republicans found reasons to excuse Trump after "very fine people" in Charlottesville; "go back" to House D women of color; calling Black Lives Matter "a symbol of hate"; and repeatedly denigrating the intelligence of Black women legislators & journalists.

Rs found nothing to sanction (& often actively supported) as he weaponized the postal service, distorted the Census, obstructed the Mueller inquiry, blocked Congressional oversight, openly extorted the government of Ukraine, pressured prosecutors, dispensed improper pardons.

After the election, 2/3 of House Rs and Republican state Attorneys General backed the lawsuit 2 make him president again by invalidating 20m votes. Rs echoed his spurious claims that the election was stolen in large cities w/big Black populations, even as courts found no evidence

R electeds weren't alone. The conservative media ecosystem slavishly defended Trump. One pundit explained that while elites took Trump "literally not seriously," his common-sense supporters took him "seriously not literally." Another insisted: "There Will Be No Trump Coup."

1/ Why Trump Will Weather This Nonsense: "I view the video, and more than 95 percent of the people who made their ways inside clearly were just drifting and roaming around, walking mostly in single or double file, as in a tour of the Capitol."

First of all, I just passed 6k followers and I’m floored. I am absolutely amazed that so many people find why I say interesting enough that they might wasn’t to here more.

Or the memes make you crack up.

Either way, I thank you all

Recently I posted a ridiculous painting of trump portrayed as a hero... I absolutely suggested that, by portraying him as a hero, the artist should bear some responsibility for inciting violence.

By this I did not mean legal responsibility, but rather a personal responsibility.

It probably will not surprise many of you, but I am an artist.

Art is definitely protected by the first amendment.

I have said

before that those with an audience and any influence bear some responsibility for what they put out. That’s the top of the info supply chain. If you use your influence to peddle disinformation /hate speech and incite violence, then the results are on you.

I hope this helps clarify my intent.

When I was a kid, the news, with the exception of the occasional fluff piece, was terribly boring.
Monotone anchors told the audience about the days events.

They reported facts with no spin on it.

I think news as infotainment

https://t.co/gZbAyf3UBq

If the USA were already surrounded by CCP troops both in Canada & in Mexico, would the government even tell us? Also, if Biden is allowed to be seated as @POTUS would this then trigger the "invasion" Red Dawn scenario? #TheMoreYouKnow @SecPompeo

@Techno_Fog Does Donald Trump lose his Constitutional Rights when he becomes Mr.

Let me say that some of the dark operators have actually seen the Light and are now helping the Alliance and President Trump to carry out the Plan and are working alongside our Light ones. For that, I am truly grateful!

@realDonaldTrump There was an old man from Queens
Who preferred young girls in their teens
Then a gangster named Vlad
Filmed him being quite bad
With some girl he had met at Epstein's

More 👇

As Donny continued his lootin'
There really could be no disputin'
That year after year
It became ever more clear
He was working for Vladimir Putin

More 👇

Old Donny was quite prone to fibbin'
And he lost every chance he was given
So when finally at last
We tossed him out on his ass
He had to find a new place to go live in

More 👇

A dumb man of orange complexion
Pretended there was no infection
But despite all the boaters
He killed too many voters
And that's why he lost the election

More 👇

There was a failed businessman
Who sported an orange spray-tan
He could only get votes
From some old guys in boats
And the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

More 👇

DEVELOPING: Trump chooses declassification option, readies epic doc dump

A little thread about Trump and the GOP moving forward

The right is currently divided into two factions:
-Traditional Republicans (TR)
-Trumpists

Trump lost because some TRs rejected him

The GA Senate race was lost because some Trumpists rejected the GOP

1

It's similar to 2016 when the Bernie bros didn't show up for Hillary

What did Dems do? They embraced progressivism and wokeness and got the leftists onboard

So the question is what does the GOP do about Trump?

2

Trump generated a lot of votes from groups that have never embraced the GOP

Trump was also incredibly popular among Republicans during his presidency

A lot of Traditional Republicans came to like Trump because he gave them policies they liked and stood up to the left

3

Those on the right calling for Trump's head need to keep in mind that while Trump is fairly toxic at the moment, Trumpism resonates with a lot of people

If they reject Trump, I'm not really sure what their path forward is

Want to go back to Romney-ism? Or Paul Ryan-ism?

4

Also, keep in mind that Trump won't back down

If the GOP goes at him, he will go to war with the party and will succeed in primary-ing alot of traditional Republicans

His core is very loyal and will stand with him

5

@DaveSharma misses the point. The entire world has just witnessed a shocking attack on #democracy. All the #freespeech noise is deflecting focus from the far more important discussion about the staging of a violent coup by the #POTUS #auspol

Trump has not been stripped of his political voice or silenced. He has access to a press agency and the world’s media. He has fallen into his own trap. By dismissing traditional media outlets as “fake news” he has voluntarily limited his own options.

In Australia, with an election possibly on the horizon and growing evidence of a threat from far-right extremist groups, what is needed is calm, objective and clear leadership. We need swift and decisive condemnation of the violent attack and of the #POTUS for inciting it.

Instead, we have @ScottMorrisonMP bucking the trend of other world leaders by refusing to condemn Trump, @M_McCormackMP indulging in his own incendiary remarks and loud complaints from @DaveSharma about Trump being “silenced”.

#Wentworth voters are unlikely to be impressed. @DaveSharma lacks the more considered approach we might have seen from former members. #Wentworth is a moderate electorate where people understand that #freespeech comes with responsibilities.

This thread is against attempts to 1) downplay the danger of a coup and/or 2) argue that Trump's Twitter ban is actually what we should be worried about. All posts are directly lifted from today's WSWS perspective, linked at the end.

#CoupAttempt

The claims being made by various pseudo-left tendencies that the seriousness of the events in Washington should not be exaggerated, that it is wrong to refer to a coup, are dangerously complacent.

Jacobin magazine, which is affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, argues against “social media posts and liberal magazines of record [that] immediately characterized the rampage as a coup.”

The danger of fascistic violence, Jacobin claims, is minimal because the ruling class supports democracy. It writes: “The takeover of the Capitol has laid bare the lack of backing, both among corporate elites and within state institutions, for far-right authoritarianism. [...]

[...] Capital, it seems, is still committed to liberal democracy, which has served to safeguard its interests throughout American history.” [end of Jacobin quote]

Oh, my. Former FT Editor @lionelbarber defends bothsideism, impartiality, objectivity and other recent journalistic tradition.

In it, @lionelbarber laments the loss of trust in Walter Cronkite; "newspaper of record." That was trust imagined by the institution & limited to white privilege & power. Now, on the net, we hear people never included in the institution, who never trusted it. See: #BLM, #metoo

Barber quotes @WesleyLowery, which is good, but misses his point: that these institutional notions of objectivity, impartiality, trust were fictions those in power told themselves because they had the power to do so. It was journalism's fatal tautology. 3/

The bothsideism Barber defends was an invention, too, aimed at securing power journalism's hold on its claims of objectivity, &c. Of course, I advocate completeness, fairness, accuracy, openness. But then I advocate judgment. 4/

One irony of the age is that journalists are demanding that platforms make judgments that journalists themselves--like Barber--refuse to make. That is not onesideism. It is a sin of journalistic omission. What do I mean by that? 5/

WHY TRUMP IS
THE JAMES BOND
WE NEED AND HOPE FOR

There is a reason so many people see @POTUS @realDonaldTrump as a mythic, heroic #Agent007 character...

Watch and listen...

1/

He is taking hit after hit, and always re-emerges a savvy winner...

But TRUMP is SO much more...

2/

The DIABOLICAL vote tabulation #fraude proves that GREAT FORCES are against him.

And us.

3/

(1/x) We need to organize to protect each other and fight this while we still have some semblance of freedom. There are police forces across the country with military grade weapons and probably the vast majority are very loyal to Trump,

(2/x) and then the military itself (though I’ve heard mixed things about soldiers’ loyalties to Trump) and national guard. Just like when there’s a BLM protest and the national guard shows up in a day, if there’s a coup, police are *already* everywhere, and then

(3/x) the national guard and military can also be deployed throughout the country within a day. They can also massively ramp up censorship online and increase tracking down and arresting people for their political organizing or news-sharing. All the above, & many very bad things,

(4/x) have of course already *been* happening for the whole course of US history, but that doesn’t negate the fact that living under a dictatorship will be a massive change on a massive scale with violence and repression ramped up even more every way to opposition or even

(5/x) just perceived opposition. This is how dictatorships work. It’s in the history books. I’ve read about it in Chile.

Thread: I'm being conservative (ha!), but say Trump committed 100 appalling, unprecedented, unpresidential, if not inhuman acts a day since the escalator ride. This amounts to approximately 166,000 of them. Things he said or did that were either immoral, corrupt, cruel...1/10

(2/10)...criminal, treasonous, or simply inappropriately offensive, ignorant or otherwise mortifying, as well as the things he omitted to do, the things that amounted to a President's job. This doesn't count the things he did before that: the Birtherism,...

(3/10)...the Central Park 5, destroying Atlantic City, swindling hundreds with his phony diploma mill, etc. I wish I had kept a diary -- I'm certain somebody has -- because that number, as large as it is, doesn't begin to convey it. For most Americans, a majority of Americans,...

(4/10)...it has been like receiving that many SLAPS, every few minutes, every day for four and a half years. A constant feeling of agida and high blood pressure and upset stomach and anxiety and nausea. Every day. Four and a half years. He's the uniter? Families are DIVIDED...

(5/10)...I have numerous friends I have not spoken to since his Presidential campaign began. I think I hate him most for his skunk-like penchant for NEVER GOING THE FUCK AWAY. That's what we've prayed for every day, right? That he would be GONE. Out of our lives, so we can...

Supporting the impeachment of President Trump under these circumstances will do great damage to the institutions of government and could invite further violence at a time the President is calling for calm.

If there was a time for America’s political leaders to bend a knee and ask for God’s counsel and guidance, it is now. The most important thing for leaders to do in times of crisis is to make things better, not worse.

The process being used in the House to impeach President Trump is an affront to any concept of due process and will further divide the country.

The President, who will be leaving office in less than a week, has committed to an orderly transfer of power, encouraging calm and rejecting violence.

The House impeachment process seeks to legitimize a snap impeachment totally void of due process. No hearings. No witnesses. It is a rushed process that, over time, will become a threat to future presidents.

📌How the horrific insurrection of Jan 6th started & who was involved.

Nov 6, 2020: Trump-linked figures have boosted #/StopTheSteal Insurrection

Associates of Steve Bannon and top Trump allies have taken leadership roles and stoked

Also on November 5, Bannon started his own "Stop the Steal" Facebook group; he changed the name to "Own Your Vote" the following day. It was not removed by Facebook, but they did later remove several other pages affiliated with

Roger Stone and Steve Bannon have been in full disinformation mode. Stone has appeared on the show of far-right radio commentator Alex Jones to trumpet groundless claims that Biden is trying to steal the election.

Bannon is echoing similar conspiracy theories on his podcast, calling the election "a mass

"Stop the Steal is a highly coordinated partisan political operation intent on bringing together conspiracy theorists, militias, hate groups & Trump supporters to attack the integrity of our