BC POLITICS
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Pretending that voting for Trump or denying climate change or suggesting the solution to every problem is more guns is a legitimate point of view, worthy of respect is not "how America works." It is how it dies.

 People in a free society are entitled to any point of view no matter how obviously wrong or outlandish or destructive provided they do not impose their views on others.
But suggesting that something ignorant or divorced from reality warrants the same kind of treatment in public debate as something based in fact or at least credible is absurd and when done on behalf of a society in public media or academic settings it is self-destructive.
We would not grant media coverage or much bandwidth at all to a group that argued that unicorns exist or that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet views like denying climate change or basing policy decisions on sweeping, obvious lies, are just as unsound.
Somewhere, somehow, judgments must be made. Some behaviors are wrong and must be condemned. Someone must challenge lies and demand facts. Coddling people who embrace idiocies does not help them no matter how loudly they demand to be coddled.
I was at a dinner party last night when a woman argued that Midwestern conservatives who supported Trump should not be disrespected. Oh no? This is the ultimate consequences of the dumbing down of America. It is granting everyone who shows up a participation trophy in democracy.
It is grossly irresponsible to vote for someone or back an idea that is founded in lies, immorality, or criminal behavior. It is just as irresponsible to treat such candidates or ideas as though they were deserving of even a fleeting moment of consideration.
That's not "fairness." That is a proven path to catastrophe. There were no witches in Salem. The Jews did not poison the wells. One racial group is not superior to another. Trickle down economics does not work.
Somewhere some among us must exercise judgement and stand up for what is. There is plenty of room for reality-based, intelligent debate. But that debate is undermined when anyone can wander in and assert "their truth."
When campuses invite on charlatans selling inflammatory theories contradicted by all evidence, they are not serving freedom of ideas, they're abusing it. When experts on TV shows proffer unfounded, indefensible opinions they weaken all of us & destroy their hosts' credibility.
With our president waging a war against truth and with a party apparatus, the media and many in "expert" communities abetting him, our entire system of government which depends on a thoughtful, engaged, informed electorate, is put at risk.
They do more damage to us than volleys of missiles could ever achieve. We have to demand better. We have to challenge lies when we hear them. We have to directly condemn and opposed the perniciousness of faux-fairness.
We have to be able to call out the intellectually dishonest and lazy and work to stop them from doing further damage because in the end it helps them too and because it is our duty as citizens to do so, to demand more, to seek the truth.
We are faltering right now because we are too ready to give nonsense and deceit a place in our national conversation. Relaxing our standards as we have is the surest way to guarantee a tragic end to America's fragile experiment in democracy.

More from David Rothkopf

David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
I've led a fortunate life, much to be thankful for. I've been to 80 countries. Wherever I went I was thankful I lived in the U.S. where evils like autocracies & theocracies were impossible. Since 2017, we've discovered that's not so. Today's SCOTUS decision underscores that.

If there is anything to be thankful for in it, it is the hope it will serve as a wake-up call to those who do not realize the threats that lie ahead. Recent elections have reminded us how important it is to wrest democracy out of the hands of the donor class that's seized it.

Our recent experiences have also made it painfully clear that our system contains deep imperfections that assure that a minority will have disproportionate power in our Senate, our electoral college and, thanks to the Senate, our courts.

Either we, the majority that elected our next president, will continue our activism & engagement & work to fix what's broken in that system or we will drift further toward the kind of dysfunctionality that has led to so much suffering around the planet.

Our work, in short, has just begun. Removing Trump was an essential step toward preserving our democracy. But it was just one of several such steps. Winning back the Senate, rebalancing the courts, changing our campaign finance and election laws, are all essential.
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David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
Trumpism is no more a thing than Justin Bieberism. It's a fad. 5 years ago there was no Trumpist majority in the GOP. What's enduring is the GOP formula of exploiting the racism/nationalism of rural/suburban Americans to provide political fuel for policies that benefit the rich.

That formula--populism in the service of corporatism--has been with us for ages, was reshaped for the modern age under Reagan and has driven both the widening economic and political divides in America ever since. It will long survive Trump.

Trump weaponized it-fanning the flames of social division so that he could do even morefor a smaller & smaller percentage of the population. The reality was, he has not be very good at it. While he has GOP support, his popularity in polls has lagged all other recent presidents.

At the same time, growing recognition of shifting demographics in the US and the advent of social media have created new opportunities for the most extreme members of the GOP coalition to unite, mobilize and increase their voice.

That isn't just bad for the US. It's a problem for the GOP, particularly in terms of national elections. (The GOP has won the popular vote only once in the past eight presidential elections. While they benefit from electoral college advantages, this is a terrible trend for them.)
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David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
@JonathanTurley suggests the founders would not react so quickly against a president who led an insurrection. Washington led an army of 13,000 people against a small group of farmers who wouldn't pay their taxes on whiskey.

One founder actually did lead an insurrection. His name was Aaron Burr. He was arrested and charged with treason. He walked on technical reasons and was already out of office so impeachment was not the right option, but he ended up in exile for years afterward.

(Beautifully, while in exile Burr lived in a house on Craven Street in London.) Turley also says that Trump's incitement to insurrection was protected speech. This is beyond ludicrous and shows a lack of understanding of the law that would get him kicked out of any law school.

As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes laid out in his famous ruling on this matter in Schenck v. United States in 1919 in which he said there was no right to falsely shout fire in a crowded theater...

"The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."
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David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
I'm under no illusions. @JoeBiden and his team will make mistakes. But they will try to do right. And here's what they won't do:
--Betray the country to a sworn enemy
--Try to undermine the international system
--Put children in cages
--Promote white supremacists & racism

--Seek to undermine our democracy
--Work to undermine the rule of law
--Be corrupt
--Commit crimes
--Obstruct justice
--Destroy our environment

--Use force against peaceful protestors
--Embrace dictators and kleptocrats worldwide
--Promote misogyny (and commit rape and sexual abuse)
--Attack or seek to blackmail our allies
--Lie...and lie constantly...lie more than 20,000 times

--Deny science or history
--Let hundreds of thousands die to protect their political fortunes
--Send the nation into the worst economic and public health crisis in a hundred years
--Go AWOL at the moment that crisis is peaking

--Turn their backs on suffering Americans
--Serve the richest Americans at the expense of the poorest
--Promote division and hatred
--Be the worst administration in American history
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David Rothkopf
David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
This might be a good time for folks to take a deep breath before interpreting election results. We don't know how much of victory was due to Biden's campaign message, Biden's record, Kamala's boost to the ticket, hatred for Trump, Trump errors on the campaign trail...

...the enduring appeal of Trumpism, the effectiveness of GOP campaigns for the Senate or the House, the mistakes made in Dem campaigns for the House, vice versa on both the preceding counts, the role of the GOP disinformation echosystem, COVID, the economy...

...mobilizing progressives, mobilizing centrists, racism, anti-racism, the movement to defund the police, the use of the word socialism, media blunders, voter ignorance, the impeachment process, corruption in DC, campaign finance abuse, the power of the establishment...

...the power of the Murdoch's, the hard right, the evangelicals, the Russians, the young, the old, whites, Latinos, blacks, women, men or any of the other countless factors (divine intervention, etc.) that have been cited in the media, by pols, on social media, in the days since.

For Dems, this is definitely not the time for finger pointing and division. There must be a laser-like focus on winning the run-offs in Georgia. There should be a widespread effort to mobilize the broadest possible support for the agenda of the Biden-Harris administration.
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gwen frisbie-fulton
gwen frisbie-fulton
@gwen_fulton
Today in #GRAHAMNC I went to a permitted March to the Polls lead by Rev Drumwright and others. Starting at a Black AME church, Rev Drumwright started the march by asking folks what our intentions were. TO VOTE the crowd chanted. Its the last day of Early Voting in #NC.


We then marched, escorted by police, about half a mile towards the center of Graham, chanting and singing. We moved slowly, because of the many elderly folks and families with small children. Graham is a small town in #AlamanceCounty.


Alamance County is known as "No Chance Alamance" because of rampant inequality and a judicial system generally known to be hostile to Black and Brown folks, and poor white folks. We believe that we can change that at the polls this year.

As the march approached the center of Graham where a large Confederate statue is, we kneeled in rememberance of George Floyd. His neice and nephew were in the crowd.


Moments after we were done kneeling a police officer started to yell that we had to be off the street. Folks were confused because we had been escorted there and had a permit. I moved my child up onto the sidewalk. They started pepper spraying us. My child couldn't run because
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Caleb Howe
Caleb Howe
@CalebHowe
As usual is maddening how easy this is to understand and how much everyone refuses to understand it. There are two things happening here, and they aren't super hard to understand. There's the asshole administration and the asshole reporter.

The court said asshole administration revoked asshole Jim Acosta's press pass without due process. WH deemed him press, gave him a press pass, then they kicked him out without even being able to say who made the decision or on what grounds.

We want hostile, combative reporters. We **want** that. **You** want that. We want that because the press secretary of every single administration is a liar. Even the ones you like. Lying is their job. They show up to avoid answering, but give the appearance of being answerable.

It shouldn't be easy for government to just refuse to be answerable. It should be hard to dodge. Hard to kick people out. Hard to control the narrative. That shouldn't be easy for the gov't. Not even your most favoritest president.

You, the American citizen, want the truth. Reporters should be there to get it. That means asking questions doggedly, demanding answers. This is not an obscure idea. It should be obvious to anyone who's experienced having a president you didn't vote for. Super rare right?
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Hyon S Chu
Hyon S Chu
@hyonschu
I want to tell you a short story about a man named Joshua Abraham Norton. Born in 1818 and a resident of the city of San Francisco, CA. Joshua Norton in 1859, declared himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States.


In 1819 he sent out a letter to many newspapers, which several of them printed. It read:

> At the peremptory request and desire of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton... declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States.

He held no formally recognized powers, he decreed that elected officials assemble at a music hall to "remedy the evil." He wanted to clear Congress and abolish it as it stood for "fraud and corruption prevent a fair and proper expression of the public voice."

He spent time inspecting the streets of San Francisco in an elaborate uniform, given to him by officers of the United States Army. He doted the city, examining the condition of the sidewalks and cable cars and the state of public affairs.

When a man sent his private security guards to arrest him, the citizens were outraged. Scaring editorials were written in the newspapers defending him, proposing he was more defensible than the other men of his time.

The official police issued a formal apology.
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ℚ𝕌𝔼𝔼ℕ𝕊𝕃𝔸ℕ𝔻𝔼ℝ * * Adam ...
@BenPugsley
I reckon a lot of you probably view me as a crazy left winger. And that may well be fair, but if you’re wondering how I got here , I’m gonna have a crack.
In my 20s I had pretty much zero interest in politics. I grew up in Central Qld, surrounded by conservative influences.

Towards the end of the Howard years I began to feel that what he was doing wasn’t right, probably starting when they changed the rules retrospectively in the wharfie dispute. But it was even more troubling when he began adopting Hanson’s racist immigration views, and children

Overboard was a shameful chapter in racist dog whistling. I was disappointed that he spent the proceeds of the mining boom on Johnny’s Battlers instead of future proofing our economy and building a sovereign wealth fund. His failure to implement any sort of climate policy was

His biggest failure though, in my opinion. Despite that, I admired his guts with the gun reform he achieved following Port Arthur.
It was with renewed hope that I rode the #Kevin07 wave to a change in government. I felt hopeful that Australia was going to be a world leader in

The fight against climate change. How disappointed I was, as Rudd and the Greens completely botched a golden opportunity. Then Rudd showed a streak of cowardice I still cannot comprehend after miners spent a few bucks on tv ads attacking the RSPT. Julia jumped in the hot seat
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Mangy Jay
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@magi_jay
I don't think that "Democrats were cowards and couldn't stand up to McConnell" is the correct framing. Dems clearly made a political calculation. Plenty to potentially criticize about that calculation, but it was informed by factors unrelated to generalized "fear of republicans"

What we largely know now:
-There would never have been enough GOP votes to convict
-GOP had the power to hold up *all* Senate business & that means COVID relief (Dems would have been blamed for this hold up)
-Witnesses were uncooperative & would have had to have been subpoenaed

So I think the correct framing is that Democrats made a political calculation that the benefit of adding witnesses (who would not change the outcome) was not worth the political & moral cost of holding up COVID relief, as well as important confirmations. . . .

This calculation can be criticized on its own merits, but it's categorically different than just being scared of McConnell & the GOP.

For my own part, I think an error Democrats made w/r/t witnesses was not calling cooperative police officers who had been attacked that day. Just a few personal narratives from the police would have deeply embarrassed the GOP. That's a missed opportunity, in my view.
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Do check your “Past life Mastery” which KETU Represents🤞🏻.


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Here native is Great at Financial Planning, Face reading, understanding other’s mind and intention, Driving Fast they don’t like but they are wayyy smooth over driving Fast. This is also great position which can make native Great Surgeon,

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"The End of Poverty, The End of Debt, The Beginning of a New Golden Age!"

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