Am I glad Trump was impeached again? Not really. I am glad people are catching up with politics - there has been a lot of learning going on - but the future presents some difficulties, and lots of people lack post impeachment, post sedition experience.

[Thread] /2

I see columnists writing with a prophetic eye, tackling the question "What's next?", but they really don't understand what has happened so far. The denials that were registered at the podium by Republicans were BRUTALLY ignorant and irrational.
/3 How do you foresee the future when you deny the past and obscure the present?

Republicans still support Trump. How is that possible?
/4 It is possible only because Republicans have been casting Democrats for years as something less than human. To them, we are all Socialists, Communists, unfair judges, idealistic, and disingenuous. If they let loose of the coattails of Trump, they lose their lifeline.
/5 But it isn't that simple. Republicans embrace their ideology. You don't become a Republican by demonstrating free-thinking independence. You pass the vetting by showing loyalty and your willingness to stand with others rather than stand for others.
/6 For them, if they aren't loyal, they lose everything. They are dependent on their MEMBERSHIP. That is where their power comes from. Some Republicans can stand alone, McCain, Romney, without losing their identity. But
/7 the less experienced are too vulnerable to take even a single step from the protection of the pack.

And now, like pup wolves, they bay for the resignation of Liz Cheney. These aren't leaders of a nation of independent thinkers. They are cowards, hiding in the herd.
/8 The greatest fear for a Republican is that they will be mistook as a Democrat and subjected to the shaming that they, and their colleagues, level at Democrats every day.

More from Trump

1. Yes, Trump will claim to intend to target GOP senators up for reelection in '22 (like he did to Thune with Kristi Noem) if they don't join in @HawleyMO's sedition on Jan. 6, but the fact is, it's not clear whether Trump will be successful in ANY of those efforts & voting yes


2. to hedge off these threats will also create fissures & fractures for these incumbents among other elements of their party that could complicate their renominations. Indeed, what worries me the most about the potential for the country to slip into @anneapplebaum territory is

3. that what should be robust and intense push back from the party establishment against actually ending democracy- bc that's what Trump's request would do, if it was granted, is fairly muted. What we SHOULD be seeing from the mainstream of the party is threats to strip committee

4. assignments, chairs, privileges, even reelection funds, if anyone gets involved in this bullshit- in the House & the Senate, and the fact that you don't see it is more than a story of McConnell & McCarthy being afraid of Trump & his base. Its a story of receptivity, of the

5. level of receptivity the congressional and party leadership is dealing with both within the rank and file membership of the party and within its donor class, and THAT, my friends, is why you find me so concerned. That, and my decision to finally pull @anneapplebaum's book

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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.