17 January 2020 #MAGAanalsis #Overturn

Will He Or Won't He, That Is The Question

We'll begin and end today's contemplations with J.E. Dyer
@OptimisticCon's recent work. If you haven't yet, please head over and read her fantastic analysis,

21 December 2020 #MAGAanalysis #HeMightBeRight

A Shocking Theory - He Might Be Right

Today, we'll finish General Mac's interview with Sarah Westall, here at Twitter: @westall_sarahw. I've made it up to 26:51 in notations and responses so far.



2) As a student of how studying works, I was deeply surprised by yesterday's work. The interview up on one screen, my thread up on the other, I was able to start and stop comfortably. I could look up sources by pausing the interview. I enjoyed it. That shocks me.

3) Mind, I'm NOT saying I did a good job. It was the first time I've ever done that sort of commentary and real time research simultaneously. It's all kind of weird to me. You know, old dogs, new tricks, not easy, but so much fun!

4) From then till now, however, I've noticed an explosion of confusion in our nation over what's actually happening. We're in a fantastically sensitive moment in our history. Who's voice do we listen to, now? This is a tremendous question. Who's voice?

5) Most people don't care as much about theory as I do. I am a theoretician. Some fighting part of me knew, back in 2016, that almost no one was working off a very specific theoretical base. Maybe Trump was right. Allow me to shout:

MAYBE TRUMP WAS RIGHT

That is a theory.

Prepping for today's thread, the story of the CURRENT CYBERWAR is clearly overwhelming. J.E. Dyer @OptimisticCon links us to this story. Just one quote to

6 January 2020 #MAGAanalysis #2020Treason

Not From Without, From Within

We'll discuss Neon Revolt's 3 articles below. If you haven't, you should read them now. Before we turn to them, I'll offer my own thoughts about this terrible

2) Neon Revolt has forced a new perception. He has forced me to walk around a beloved topic of mine, of ours, and has forced me to look at it from its hellacious dark side. It's shadow. The topic is our reawakening as a nation of patriots. The slumbering giant slumbers no more.

3) From 2016 until this day, every time I've seen that thought cross my mind's view screen, I have smiled. And I have believed in us, in U.S. This is the sunny side of the street. A new day in America. And I have been grateful, so grateful to our great leader. And not shy either.

4) I will share that it was a dark shadow that my patriotism reemerged from. When I announced my Trump support in social media - Facebook back then - the vicious attack I came under hardened my heart. The lost of consulting revenue enraged my soul. It wasn't right.

5) It was a David Farragut moment for me, damn the torpedoes. I could never have imagined the type of attack I came under during that fateful year. It was this shadow, this darkness of evil that was there at the very moment of my own political awakening.

Ok I was wrong about theHouse. 2 years of legislative gridlock = not fun. Few bills passing.

Control of the House is useless when it comes to keeping Trump from declassifying all the SpyGate docs. Or stopping an Inspector General from releasing a report.

Trump still gets control of judicial appointments so we can expect another 100 judges over the next two years. This time there’ll be no McCain or Flake playing the Maverick role with their swing vote.

That new margin in the Senate is huge if another Supreme Court seat comes open.

So from the responses I’m getting, people seem to think if Trump declassifies the Spygate stuff now, nothing happens.

Are you under the impression federal prosecutors have to wait until CONGRESS finishes an investigation and makes criminal referrals before the DOJ can act?

There’s a federal grand jury on McCabe right now. Did Congress ever finish it’s investigation and make a referral to the DOJ against him?

No.

BUT INSPECTOR GENERAL HOROWITZ DID. On finishing his McCabe leak report.

Funny how nobody remembers that.

(THREAD) The main problem with that @DanDrezner piece in the Post is that it's an international politics prof writing about the field in which I'm a professor—communications. No one in communications would *ever* compare the blogosphere to either Twitter or Substack. Here's why.

1/ Back in the mid-aughts, I was a Koufax Award-nominated political blogger (I don't know what Drezner was doing then; I first heard of him about a year ago). So I was into the blogosphere pretty deep, as I also ran a second high-traffic blog that was focused on the art world.

2/ The "blogosphere" was an outgrowth of MySpace and LiveJournal, inasmuch as in the heady early days of the internet people suddenly realized that they could engage in private diaristic writing—a very specific subgenre of writing—in the public square, and it was suddenly "okay."

3/ So the blogosphere as such had *nothing* to do with journalism, which needless to say was in a different state just 15 years ago (note: unlike Drezner, I also teach writing and journalism at the university level, so this thread is squarely "in my area," unlike his Post piece).

4/ The blogosphere was a manifestation of the transformation of the public-private binary at the dawn of the internet—and *also* connected to the "creative writing" explosion (what I did a PhD on); in the aughts, creative writing was the fastest-growing discipline *in the world*.

1/ A Short Thread About Civility and Calling Politicians Liars.

Nice people are sometimes uncomfortable that I call some politicians "liar". And I don't apologize for it.

But I don't call every politician "liar". Only the ones who deliberately tell provable lies and do so

2/ repeatedly. A lie is different from an accidental misstatement. For example, when @michaelaglasgo lied about her church's carbon tax, it could have been a genuine mistake. But she doubled down by telling other lies. And has since been caught in more.

#cdnpoli #abpoli #ableg

3/ When @KayceeMaduYEG is caught lying, he doesn't do the right thing. He just plows ahead. As if lying doesn't matter.

So which is more uncivil: calling out people who lie a lot OR being in a position of public trust and lying to people in the first place?

4/ I think it's important that once a politician is found to lie repeatedly, like @jkenney , we never forget that anything they say could be a lie. We need to always weigh it. Look for lies of omission.

Civil discourse cannot survive if politicians lie all the time. It can't.

5/ So as rude as it might be, when members of @UCPCaucus tell lies, we should be calling them "liar" every time. As long as they think they're getting away with it, they won't stop. So shame them.

If the politician is a lawyer, report their behaviour to the Law Society.