BC POLITICS
Saved by @jay_millerjay

The Republican Party is an authoritarian power structure.

For decades, it embraced greedy nihilists in order to win elections.

In the last 10+ years, a well-funded insurgency has infiltrated and captured it.

They are now threatening & purging any remaining opposition.

 We can’t address the threat they pose to democracy without addressing the methods by which they maintain popular support.

This requires action across multiple fronts.
In terms of public policy, we are working on the right things:

-Bills to eliminate the GOP’s counter-majorian control (voting security, eliminating vote suppression)

-Exposing dark money networks who are funding them (forcing transparency for anonymous shell companies)
-Addressing the immediate socio-economic pain that places people in anxiety-laden debt traps, makes them feel isolated, and makes them ripe targets for disinformation/authoritarian messaging appeals (fighting Covid with a plan, financial relief, genuinely empathetic leadership)
Biden and the Dem Congress are working on all of these things already.

This is moving us in the right direction, and shows that they get what needs to be done here. This is good.

There are three areas that still concern me, that I have been trying to call attention to...
1) Republican capture of the courts.

Many changes that we need to enact may be thwarted by a judicial branch that is controlled by private interests and authoritarian elements.

Example - what happens if they use the courts to enshrine *rights* for anonymous shell companies? https://t.co/qWVm061TQ6
Biden is working on this already as well, with a commission to review options to balance the court.

This may be the solution, and it may be enough.

But it still concerns me, as I am not sure if it is aggressive enough.

IMO, we also need to review impeachable activities.
The FBI background investigation into Kavanaugh was controlled and limited by the White House, and dozens of ethical issues were dropped when he was confirmed.

These need to be investigated, along with Ginni Thomas’ involvement in efforts against the US government.

Impeachable?
Which necessarily leads to the fact that impeachment can’t occur without a 2/3 Senate vote.

The GOP insurgents are emboldened by the power they have now.

If we can expel Senators who had roles in the insurrection (via 14th amendment), this may allow decent GOP to act & vote.
This is not, and cannot be, a witch hunt.

This is about finding the truth, determining whether specific people acted in support of an insurrection against the United States, and enforcing the law and the constitution without fear or favor. Period.

Unsure how likely this is.
As I said, Biden’s commission on rebalancing the courts may prove to be enough to address this.

Even so:

A) We should still hold officials accountable, and

B) We should be working on multiple fronts (plan Bs), and not placing all our eggs in one basket (our opponents don’t).
2) Right wing media

This is a harder issue to tackle, without trampling 1A protections, but we have seen that lawsuits work very well (e.g. Dominion).

We need more of that.

There is also no easy way for public officials to sue media outlets.

Can we do that? I don’t know. https://t.co/zTh8iPaI9B
3) This is the most difficult problem we face: Too many Americans hate and fear each other based on false narratives that have poisoned our politics - and it has crept into our every day lives.

Authoritarian support depends on having enemies.

What is acceptable in our politics? https://t.co/h05ZQgM7QI
Electing Joe Biden was a big part of the antidote to this.

His moderate & unifying approach to politics, while still enacting progressive policies that help working class Americans, completely short circuits right wing fear mongering about ‘evil socialist plots.’

Between that,
and lawsuits that hold media outlets accountable for spreading false/defamatory information (plus exposing their dark funding), we may well be on the way to turning back the tide.

But we have to be helpers here also.

We have to show our friends and neighbors who we are.
In order to do this we have to find a way to stop arguing about facts and details so much, and connect with each other on a human level first.

Some may be too far gone to ever turn back, but you may be surprised.

We need to connect with the elephant before addressing the rider. https://t.co/asioXZFKYT
These are what I see as our major challenges, along with some potential solutions to address them.

It isn’t comprehensive - we also have very real problems like climate change to address - but these seem like our primary log jams and limiting factors (plus campaign finance).
Apologies for the long thread, but I feel that we are at a real inflection point for western democracy, and these are the things that keep me up at night.

I am incredibly happy with the Biden admin’s approach; it shows that they get it.

I am not criticizing; I am pushing. 🇺🇸

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But even if you invented a teleporter tomorrow, WTO terms are so bad, so stacked against us, that a no-deal Brexit will be a total economic disaster


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Trump is a Russian asset, a mob money launderer installed by his mob whoremasters to sow chaos and weaken the US & our allies.

EVERY SINGLE THING HE’S DONE since taking office is to achieve those purposes—that and to enrich himself personally.

[THREAD]


1/ His entire family is part of this. Melania is a fucking crook. Ivanka is a fucking crook. Junior and Gums are fucking crooks. They will all die in prison, except for Kushner, who, if he really *did* trade US intel for money, should be executed for espionage.

2/ Why do you think Trump installs uniquely corrupt & awful people to Cabinet positions? Pruitt, Zinke, Betsy, Rex/Pompeo, Wilbur "Melting Nazi Face" Ross. They are not there to serve us. They are not there to drain the swamp. They are there to BURN THE REPUBLIC DOWN.

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Andy Ngo thinks Antifa are on a level with the Nazis in terms of wanton violence. Furthermore, he says that 'even the Nazis knew to cover their tracks' and that we didn't know about the Holocaust until afterwards.

Wrong, and offensive on almost every level.


Violence had been building for years prior to the Nazis assuming power, and much of it was instigated by the SA.

In 1932 for example, 105 people died in clashes between SA and opposing groups in Prussia alone - that's one region.

SA activity - marching through 'red' neighbourhoods and fighting those who opposed them was a deliberate strategy. The spectacle of violence and the implied 'restoral of order' was the point.


Just think of how Horst Wessel was remembered following his death in 1930. He was turned into a martyr who fell 'bravely in battle' against the Bolsheviks. Violence was inherent to the message - a clash between forces for the future of Germany.


During his time as SA leader in Berlin, Goebbels worked on a strategy of provocation that almost always ended in violence, a form of trolling that would always provide the opportunity for a brawl and the implication that a menace had been dealt with.
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A central tension in our politics is this we have 1 political party that cares about upholding democracy, whereas the other party's aims can only be achieved thru undermining democracy. This is coupled w/ the fact that 1 party cares about people's well-being & the other does not

These 2 facts lead to a situation in which, in order to both uphold democracy & advance well-being, 1 party is dedicated to a functional gov't & the other party is well-served by a dysfunctional government. Such dysfunction is both instrumental & ideological (anti-government)

And then, of course, we have gerrymandering + a cap on the House of reps, 2 Senators per state, & the electoral college. A set of circumstances that gives massively disproportionate power to the anti-democracy & anti-well-being party.

Taken together, the structural issues in our electoral system, deep ideological divides about government/democracy, & the differential investment in advancing citizens' well-being does leave Democrats at a perpetual disadvantage.

A firefighter who is looking at a burning house & trying to decide whether to concentrate on stopping the fire from spreading or to save a child at the expense of a grandmother is facing a fundamentally different set of choices than the person who lit the fire in the first place
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