Historian here, with a message for folks arguing against holding people accountable for the siege of the Capitol because "history will be the judge." We are in this mess, BECAUSE people in the past didn't hold their contemporaries accountable. Please don't repeat that mistake.

Nixon was forced out of office, but he was never held responsible for his egregious actions as President. You'll never guess what sort of precedent and example that set for the future President who most shared Nixon's moral turpitude. https://t.co/U5cNtBUvc7
In the 1970s, many "mainstream" media outlets buckled to right wing pressure & lent their platforms to gut bucket racists like James Kilpatrick & Pat Buchanan, rebranding them as "conservatives." We continue to reap the consequences of normalizing racism. https://t.co/029qQ9fXEp
Here's a thread on Pat Buchanan. In the early 90s Charles Krauthammer and Bill Buckley, staunch conservatives both, called Pat a "fascist" and an "antisemite." And yet he still got major media gigs for DECADES. https://t.co/Vmj8wuOwf6
Trump's career (and that of his family) is overstuffed with acts of white collar crime for which no one ever received more than a tiny fine as a slap on the wrist. Everyone one in NYC knew Trump was a morally bankrupt and corrupt crook. But somehow NBC still made him a star.
We had almost a century of Jim Crow from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in 1964-5 because the nation did not hold white supremacists sufficiently accountable to the 14th Amendment.
AIDS activists who tried to hold the Reagan Administration accountable for its deadly, homophobic, inaction were called "divisive." MLK, Jr was called "divisive." Abolitionists were called "divisive." "Divisiveness" is what reactionaries call "accountability." Don't fall for it.
There's an important distinction between retribution or vengeance on one hand, and accountability on the other. Authoritarian regimes reap vengeance on their "enemies." Democracies hold citizens legally accountable for illegal actions.
Now Trump, and his authoritarian enablers, will try to tell you that there's no distinction between legal accountability and political vengeance. They will say any attempt to try Trump for crimes post January 20 "is just political retribution." Don't fall for it.
The way that a community shows that it truly believes in some important ideal is by holding accountable people who try to smash that ideal. If we believe that trying to violently steal an election by seeking to harm elected officials is wrong, then there must be consequences.
Otherwise, we can't say that as a nation we genuinely believe such things are wrong. In which case, they will just continue to happen. Because authoritarianism is an effective route to power, especially for groups that can't win over their fellow citizens with reasoned arguments.
One last detail to illustrate this point. The P**ud Buoys who were key in instigating the violence on Wednesday start every meeting with a reading from a 2001, fascist book by Pat Buchanan. Oftentimes, the past is prologue. https://t.co/sao6dCuONO
Pat Buchanan had such a big platform because we gave it to him, even though the overwhelming majority of us (even conservatives) thought his ideas were a threat to our democracy. There was no reason to put him in jail. But we didn't have to put him on PBS and MSNBC!

More from Seth Cotlar

It's important to note how deeply rooted & completely canonical these kooky ideas are in the US far right, & how dangerous it is that a sitting president is giving legitimacy to them. It's like Father Coughlin, the John Birch Society, and Geo Lincoln Rockwell had an orange baby.


Thanks (I think) to @z3dster for bringing this batshit tweet to my attention.

There's a long history of the American center-right and center-left laughing at this kind of stuff. It is indeed laughably ludicrous. But it's important to know that to millions of people, this is their truth. This is how they see the world. And now the President is condoning it.

One hallmark of fascism is that it defines "communism" as its enemy. One can be opposed to communism without being a fascist. But it's impossible to be fascist without being obsessed with the existential (and often hysterically overblown) threat of communism.

Every significant, US variant of fascism has depicted itself as a movement of Christian patriots defending the US from anti-American enemies of Christ. One can be a Christian and/or a patriot without being a fascist, but fascists almost always call themselves Christian patriots.
This reminds me of a 2010 poll of Tea Party supporters in which 84% said that "the views of the people involved in the Tea Party movement generally reflect the views of most Americans." Only 20% thought Obama shared the values of most Americans.


Full polling data here. I was asked to give a talk on campus about the Tea Party in 2010, and one of my main points was that it was a weakness of the movement that it had such a delusional perception of the American people. Oops.

Anyway...the dynamic described here has been a long time coming.


That's the weird, seemingly illogical, thing about the right's culture war. They simultaneously think of themselves as speaking for the majority of Americans, AND they think that they are the saving remnant protecting a decadent society from ruin.

What squares this circle is the assumption that "the real American people" consist of straight white, rural or suburban people, & anyone not in that category doesn't really count as an American. That's how right wing culture warriors can both be the "majority," and a minority.

More from Legal

By corrupting global institutions, promoting hysterical data, publishing fraudulent science, and deploying propaganda on an unprecedented scale, Beijing transformed the snake oil of lockdowns into “science,” the greatest crime of the 21st century to

2/ The purpose of this letter is to request an expedited federal investigation into the scientific debate on major policy decisions during the COVID-19 crisis.

Downloadable PDF:
https://t.co/gOX6sTSFbT

Archived Medium article:

3/ In early 2020, the public turned to the advice of scientific authorities when confronted with an apparent viral outbreak. Soon after, most nations followed the advice of prominent scientists and implemented restrictions commonly referred to as “lockdowns.”


4/ While the policies varied by jurisdiction, in general they involved restrictions on gatherings and movements and the closure of schools, businesses, and public places, inspired by those imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hubei Province.


5/ SECTION 1 - LOCKDOWNS ORIGINATED ON THE ORDER OF XI JINPING, GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY, AND WERE PROPAGATED INTO GLOBAL POLICY BY THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION WITH LITTLE ANALYSIS OR LOGIC
More severe police injuries and deaths on that one day of rampaging Trumpers than in five years of Anti-Police protests.


You can tell a lot about the stance of a angry crowd by whether they come with shields or pitchforks.

If people protesting police brutality for years had wanted to use their large numbers to attack, maim and kill police, they damn well could have.

But they came to resist police.

Which is completely different.

Why did the police suffer more at the hands of those who claimed to support them and waved their flags than at the hands of those who think they should be defunded or abolished?

Because one group is literally arguing for human dignity and the other glorifies violence.

The people who uncritically support police brutality are those who believe that instrumental violence should be a standard tool in response to those standing opposed to you.

Once you accept that... WHO is standing opposed to you doesn't matter much.

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