🧵In coming days & weeks, a bunch of awesome younger folks will be taking on roles in the Biden Administration, some for their first experience in government. Herewith some free advice, worth what you paid for it. I encourage others to add their best advice below this thread! 1/

1) You may be appointed by the president—but you are taking an oath to the constitution, and you work for the people of these United States. You owe them integrity, honesty, & transparency, as well as your best work. 2/

Take your ethics undertakings seriously. Learn the rules and follow them. Don’t ever think they don’t apply to you. And don’t do or write anything you would be ashamed to see in the newspaper the next day. 3/

2) Government is a team sport. Your job is to help your team succeed. That means help your boss, help your peers, and help your employees. If they rise, you rise. If they fail, you have failed. So start by figuring out who they are, what they need, and what you can offer. 4/

3) Every workplace has unwritten rules, too: what I call “invisible furniture.” You will be bumping into a lot of it in your first months on the job. Make a point of learning it, & remember that it’s never dumb to admit what you don’t know—it’s the quickest way to learn. 5/

With Biden preparing to take office today, a short reflection about being in higher ed teaching media courses the past four years: 1/

One of the core memories I have of the 2016 campaign were the class discussions. Most of my students feared Trump winning, but didn’t think it’d happen. He was a clown. Voters weren’t that dumb. Etc. 2/

What that belief did is create space for privilege that came out in discussions (bear in mind a lot of my students are white). I had a *lot* of students disaffected and ambivalent about the choice. They didn’t read political coverage. Both sides were the same. A lot of that. 3/

The morning after the election, I had a lot of distraught students. I had about 15 in a class of 30 email me that they weren’t sure they could come to class that. I was distraught myself. I couldn’t blame them.

So I want to tell you a story I haven’t told anyone before. 4/

About an hour before class, my then-colleague Dr. Imaani El-Burki came into the office. She has since taken another position, but at the time she was our joint appointed professor in journalism and Africana Studies.

She’s an amazing person and I wish you could know her. 5/

1/13
I have watched every presidential inauguration that I can remember, since I was a little boy, and long before I ever imagined I would live in America. But I had never watched one the way I watched the inauguration of Joe Biden. #velshi

2/13
I’d never considered the details leading up to an inauguration. I watched this one like a nervous parent, making sure everything went as planned. #velshi

3/13
Thanks to the last four years, everything is different, now. Our demons are on full display, our Union is certifiably imperfect. Our nation is divided. #velshi

4/13
After a year that takes first place in our history for death, destruction, fear and injustice, normalcy is struggling to regain its place. One thing with which we will struggle in this new day for America is the death of shame. #velshi

5/13
In addition to the other norms the former president destroyed, he turned lying - deliberate, casual and often with the force of law - into an art form and, with that, contributed to the death of shame. #velshi

My prediction: the Biden era will be the inverse of Obama era. Obama was seen as a progressive in the last phase of the Reagan-Clinton era. Biden is a moderate in the beginning of a post-neoliberal era.

He will represent a transition between neoliberal hegemony and new ideas.

Did the Biden inauguration really have to start with "This Land Is Your Land," an ode to land theft, settler colonialism and Indigenous genocide? (No matter how well-intentioned Woody Guthrie may have been.) YOU ARE ON NATIVE LAND!

Every presidential inauguration has in effect been a celebration of Indigenous land theft & genocide, whether directly stated or not. Settlers exerting the power of their settler government and "ownership" over Indigenous lands.

At John F. Kennedy's 1961 inauguration, poet Robert Frost began: “The land was ours before we were the land’s…Such as we were we gave ourselves outright (The deed of gift was many deeds of war)." That settler white "We," justifying and erasing genocide, slavery, history.

At Teddy Roosevelt's 1905 inauguration, he had 6 famous
chiefs on horseback to give the people "a good show." The chiefs came hoping to appeal for justice, but instead were displayed to represent what TR & others viewed as the complete subjugation of Indigenous peoples & lands.

The chiefs included Quanah Parker of the Comanche, Buckskin Charlie from the Ute, Hollow Horn Bear and American Horse of the Sioux, Little Plume from the Blackfeet and the imprisoned Apache warrior Geronimo, who pleaded in vain with Teddy Roosevelt for the release of his people.

Anyone who thinks I'm hounding Biden on government ethics because I want him to fail or want to play "gotcha" with him is wrong. Let me tell you what you can expect from me and what you *should* expect from him for the next 4 or (hopefully) 8 years. /1

I put my money where my mouth is. I stood up to Trump and, in doing so, destroyed my govt career. In Sept., I quit my job to help Biden unseat Trump and prepare to lead a strong ethical administration. I'm not permitted to tell you what I did, but I went 5 months without pay. /2

Someone asked me once how much I donated, I told them I couldn't tell them how much I gave because I wasn't allowed to say. But I gave up five months of pay and had to pay COBRA, so I'd say that's more than most people gave. I am committed to his success. /3

But he was swept into office on an anticorruption platform, and strong government ethics is the ONLY way he will succeed. So, I -- and, I hope, you -- will hold him accountable for delivering strong government ethics. This is what he owes America. /4

We spent four years demanding that Trump's allies put country over party. They failed to do that. Now it's our turn to live up to our own demands. We must in all things put country over party. And that means demanding strong government ethics -- from the start! /5

Biden was like my 5th pick in the primaries, he’s a moderate where we needed a progressive, and it was also so much work and so hard to get even him. I hope everyone can take a few minutes today and appreciate the hard fought victory. Winning even a little is hard, but we did it.

Rather than be discouraged by a moderate President, now is a time to count our wins and plan for more of them, recognizing what can be achieved when we talk to our neighbors, when Black and Brown and East Asian and Indigenous folks are activated within a movement.

I hope also that ppl understand that by fighting like hell in Georgia, folks there not only dethroned Mitch McConnell but also handed Bernie Sanders chair of the Senate Budget Committee, and while I know many are disappointed he is not president there is so much he can do there.

I truly believe that if we do not learn to celebrate victories we will not be able to win.

For so many people, the general election was life or death. For folks whose family members feared being kidnapped off the streets, the folks on federal death row, the communities hit hardest by COVID 19 ... Biden is not a savior but many more people will live. That’s a victory.

Ammo Rant: Things aren’t going to get better. Biden won and the Dems hold all power and that would have sent people flying to the store to get ammo in and of itself. But you have so many more factors than the usual historical shift of power to an anti-gun rights party.