One thing you see a lot on here is people pointing out the contradictions in the putative views of Trump’s GOP. COVID is a Chinese plot but also a hoax. The insurrection was antifa but also a tour of patriots.

What's the "value" offered by international relations scholarship?

What does it mean to think about world events "like an international relations scholar"?

Trump's order to withdrawal 🇺🇸 troops from 🇸🇴 offers a useful

This event could be viewed from a variety of angles, from the "micro-level" on up.

International Relations scholars/analysts can and do use each of the following angles, though not all are strictly speaking taking an "International Relations angle".

Let's explore the angles.

The "country-expert" angle entails discussing the event by laying out the situation within Somalia, providing details on key figures involved and perhaps how the conflict has disrupted Somalia's internal governance and

The "Military/Security analyst" angle involves outlining the details of what US troops presently do in Somalia and how they carry out their mission (including equipment, mission, and tactics).

See this @ChathamHouse report by

The "Area Studies/Regional Expert" angle involves discussing the decision as an event that will impact the Horn of Africa or East Africa more

🇺🇸THE TRUMP CARD

Bombshell My Friends 💣

You might want to read it all.

Right now Trump is sitting on a stack of Trump cards or maybe an Uno Wild Draw 4 (more years) that he's just waiting to lay down like a Royal Flush.

He has court cases still pending that....

1/12

will go to the Supreme Court and thanks to the Texas case, he now knows how to file it under article 3 not 2 so it will force them to hear it.

He has the DNI report on Friday. If it isn’t released it does not matter. He personally has everything that he needs!

2/12

Barr steps down on the 23rd (can now be a witness—he did his job).

Durham is a special counsel (can prosecute in any state). He’s letting civil, criminal, federal courts fail to handle the situation properly so he can use military tribunals.
He has the data (all of it)..

3/12

from NSA, the Kraken supercomputer, the Alice supercomputer, (and a couple others we haven’t heard about yet, too).

He has the dueling electors from 7 states legislatures.
He has Pence as final arbiter of which ballots to accept. Remember Pence is doing a job as a plea..

4/12

deal. Yes he’s not anything you think he might be folks.

Trump also has the Insurrection Act, the NDAA, the national emergency, the 14th amendment, the 2018 executive order, the 2017 very first EO, the Patriot Act, the FISA warrants, the Declassification of everything...

5/12

THREAD: To cap off the Trump era, I interviewed a politically diverse group of constitutional scholars, presidential historians and experts on democracy to put together a definitive list of Trump's ten most egregious abuses of power. Here's what we found.

1) SUBVERTING THE 2020 ELECTION. There is broad agreement that Trump's worst abuse was his relentless effort to undermine the vote and overturn the legitimate results. No POTUS ever tried a political coup like this. It's simply un-American, experts said.

2) INCITING AN INSURRECTION. We all saw what happened on January 6. Trump incited a rally supporters in DC to attack the US Capitol while electoral votes were being counted. He got impeached for it. A permanent scar on his legacy, experts said.

3) ABUSING THE BULLY PULPIT. Different than other abuses because it's speech, not actions. But still, experts said this was a very big deal. His nonstop lying, attacks, racist rhetoric, and fanning of flames was deeply corrosive to our political culture.

4) POLITICIZING THE DOJ. Trump repeatedly crossed lines and violated norms that have been in place since Watergate to create independence between the WH and federal law enforcement. Wielded DOJ as a weapon against enemies and shield for himself and allies.

Mega Thread:

I am so fed up with right wing hardliners on impeachment. I need to go on a rant. The more I interact with these people on here the more I'm pushed away from their position. On 1/6 I was adamant about Trump being at fault. He did not handle that day well IMO 1/

by that weekend, however, I'd started to reflect upon what he'd said and the events and begun to move away from the absolute position that it was all his fault. There were many reasons for this. One was that his rally happened while the break-ins were occurring, 2/

another was that so few people relative to his total followers showed up. Another was the fact that most of his followers I know were similarly outraged and disapproving. Another was that he explicitly said peaceful in all his remarks. And another was that 3/

upon reflection, I realized nothing he said was an escalation in his normal rhetoric, which had never caused any violence beforehand. But now, weeks later, I'm being radicalized in my aforementioned position by the right-wing hardliners who cannot discuss 1/6 4/

without resorting to the most melodramatic hyperbole imaginable. You simply will not gaslight me into viewing a small riot at the Capital as somehow orders of magnitude more grave and dangerous than months of left-wing rioting, or a left-wing insurrection 5/