Was GW Bush more fascist than Trump?
This good @michelleinbklyn column highlighted for me why I'm not the left.
Because not only do I disagree with those who say Bush was worse than Trump, I don't think "who was more fascist?" is a useful

Much of left discourse fixates on fascism. Some use "fascism" to mean any right-wing govt, anything bad about govt, or sometimes just "bad thing."
But even those who are more precise fixate on it, which leads them to search for parallels to historical cases and fascist theory
2/x

Instead of asking questions like "closer or farther from a free society?" or "how strong are these institutions?," the fixation on fascism leads to "how much does this resemble 1920s-30s Italy or Germany?" and "how close is this to that scholar's description of fascism?"
3/x

But fixating on the danger of a fascist takeover in America misses the more salient threat of democratic backsliding.
Simplifying a bit, fascism features strong institutions to impose its vision on society while democratic backsliding features weakening institutions.
4/x

So some lefties say Bush was worse than Trump because Bush created DHS after 9/11 while Trump tried to duck responsibility with COVID rather than use it to seize power like an American Reichstag fire.
But it was Trump's weakening of institutions that posed the big danger.
5/x

Supporting the impeachment of President Trump under these circumstances will do great damage to the institutions of government and could invite further violence at a time the President is calling for calm.

If there was a time for America’s political leaders to bend a knee and ask for God’s counsel and guidance, it is now. The most important thing for leaders to do in times of crisis is to make things better, not worse.

The process being used in the House to impeach President Trump is an affront to any concept of due process and will further divide the country.

The President, who will be leaving office in less than a week, has committed to an orderly transfer of power, encouraging calm and rejecting violence.

The House impeachment process seeks to legitimize a snap impeachment totally void of due process. No hearings. No witnesses. It is a rushed process that, over time, will become a threat to future presidents.

Donald Trump’s presidency was defined by multiple financial conflicts of interest and unprecedented abuses of power. Here are some of the most important things we’ve uncovered about Trump’s actions in office — and what we’re still

Trump’s Attacks on the Legitimacy of the Election: Trump’s attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election began long before he lost it. Once it was clear that President-elect Biden had won, Trump made wildly unfounded allegations about the election being rigged.

We’ve been investigating state-level attacks on voting rights, including uncovering communications between state election officials and voting-restriction activists in Florida, Georgia, and

We previously represented Maine Sec. of State Matt Dunlap in his lawsuit compelling the release of records from Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, of which Dunlap was a member.

Those records revealed that the Trump-aligned members of the commission were preparing to issue broad findings of “voter fraud issues,” but had failed to come up with evidence supporting their desired

WHY TRUMP IS
THE JAMES BOND
WE NEED AND HOPE FOR

There is a reason so many people see @POTUS @realDonaldTrump as a mythic, heroic #Agent007 character...

Watch and listen...

1/

He is taking hit after hit, and always re-emerges a savvy winner...

But TRUMP is SO much more...

2/

The DIABOLICAL vote tabulation #fraude proves that GREAT FORCES are against him.

And us.

3/

Right now, President Trump is on his way to the southern border to tout his record on immigration.

It's one of chaos, cruelty, and illegality. Let's set the record straight

The Trump administration has separated over 5,500 families under its draconian “zero tolerance” policy.

Years later, at least 545 children remain separated from their parents

They have delivered tens of thousands of asylum seekers to danger in Mexico, where @humanrights1st has found 1,314 public records of rape, murder, kidnapping, torture, and assault.

They misused public health authority over the objections of senior experts at the CDC to expel children and asylum seekers to danger.

One expelled Nicaraguan dissident frantically ate his 5-page declaration listing his torturers so that the Nicaraguan police wouldn’t find it.

They imposed an illegal transit ban to deny asylum to hundreds of #refugees, including persecuted pro-democracy advocates, torture survivors, and people targeted due to their sexual or gender identities.

A little thread about Trump and the GOP moving forward

The right is currently divided into two factions:
-Traditional Republicans (TR)
-Trumpists

Trump lost because some TRs rejected him

The GA Senate race was lost because some Trumpists rejected the GOP

1

It's similar to 2016 when the Bernie bros didn't show up for Hillary

What did Dems do? They embraced progressivism and wokeness and got the leftists onboard

So the question is what does the GOP do about Trump?

2

Trump generated a lot of votes from groups that have never embraced the GOP

Trump was also incredibly popular among Republicans during his presidency

A lot of Traditional Republicans came to like Trump because he gave them policies they liked and stood up to the left

3

Those on the right calling for Trump's head need to keep in mind that while Trump is fairly toxic at the moment, Trumpism resonates with a lot of people

If they reject Trump, I'm not really sure what their path forward is

Want to go back to Romney-ism? Or Paul Ryan-ism?

4

Also, keep in mind that Trump won't back down

If the GOP goes at him, he will go to war with the party and will succeed in primary-ing alot of traditional Republicans

His core is very loyal and will stand with him

5

@DaveSharma misses the point. The entire world has just witnessed a shocking attack on #democracy. All the #freespeech noise is deflecting focus from the far more important discussion about the staging of a violent coup by the #POTUS #auspol

Trump has not been stripped of his political voice or silenced. He has access to a press agency and the world’s media. He has fallen into his own trap. By dismissing traditional media outlets as “fake news” he has voluntarily limited his own options.

In Australia, with an election possibly on the horizon and growing evidence of a threat from far-right extremist groups, what is needed is calm, objective and clear leadership. We need swift and decisive condemnation of the violent attack and of the #POTUS for inciting it.

Instead, we have @ScottMorrisonMP bucking the trend of other world leaders by refusing to condemn Trump, @M_McCormackMP indulging in his own incendiary remarks and loud complaints from @DaveSharma about Trump being “silenced”.

#Wentworth voters are unlikely to be impressed. @DaveSharma lacks the more considered approach we might have seen from former members. #Wentworth is a moderate electorate where people understand that #freespeech comes with responsibilities.

read this as breakfast heated --

the scuzzy history of enabling the tRUmp era


and by 2021

#TrueStory

on the Raiders in the Capitol

On the incitement

THREAD on @CletaMitchell, @realDonaldTrump and @FoleyandLardner.

Here is the letter I sent today to the @FoleyandLardner attorneys who graduated from @UVA and/or @UVALaw: 1/

Dear Natalie, Edmund, Nanette, Courtenay, Christopher, Julia, Jasmine, Navid, Heidi, Sarah, Kristine, Gregory, Sarah, Michael, Eric, Nicole, Nicholas, Shane, Frank, Libby, Lori, Christopher, Charles, Kathryn, Joseph, Andrew, David, Sommer, Randolph: 2/

i am writing to each of you as @FoleyandLardner attorneys, and fellow @UVA graduates and members of your respective bar associations, to ask that you address your partner Cleta Mitchell's active involvement in the alarming, undemocratic, and potentially illegal phone call 3/

to Georgia's secretary of state that occurred this weekend. I graduated from the School of Law in 2004, and two of my sisters received their undergraduate degrees from UVA as well (go 'Hoos!) 3/

As we all know, it's impossible to graduate from UVA without deep inculcation in the values of the Honor Code. And, obviously, the ethical requirements of our respective bar associations impose on us the requirements to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. 4/

@Franklin_Graham, oh where do I start.

You have every right to share your frustration & outrage towards the impeachment. You still would’ve been wrong, I would’ve criticized you for downplaying our attack on the capitol, etc. But you went further, you compared Trump to Jesus.

Trumps loss, drove these pastors crazy and mad. For 4 years they lived a fantasy and tolerated Trumps immorality, corruption, hatred, racism, anti-life and much more his whole presidency. Scandal after scandal. They built their faith around Trump being called by God and when

Trump lost, it broke them. They didn’t know what they would tell their followers that they were wrong and God allowed this. Some sobered up, many live in denial but some like Franklin, sold their soul for power. They preach a false God and Jesus. They compared Trump to Jesus.

As dangerous Trump has become, Trump is Trump and we expected this. But Franklin, we didn’t. He went against everything he ever taught and preached. He wanted to become greater than his father and be America’s pastor. He wanted to be America’s pope. He was hungry for power.

Trumps loss broke him. I thought Franklin would’ve taken the high road and excepted the reality of Trump being a failure and needed to apologize for the incitement of an insurrection he started. Trump being impeached twice and a few rep. doing the right thing, drove him crazy.

Oh, my. Former FT Editor @lionelbarber defends bothsideism, impartiality, objectivity and other recent journalistic tradition.

In it, @lionelbarber laments the loss of trust in Walter Cronkite; "newspaper of record." That was trust imagined by the institution & limited to white privilege & power. Now, on the net, we hear people never included in the institution, who never trusted it. See: #BLM, #metoo

Barber quotes @WesleyLowery, which is good, but misses his point: that these institutional notions of objectivity, impartiality, trust were fictions those in power told themselves because they had the power to do so. It was journalism's fatal tautology. 3/

The bothsideism Barber defends was an invention, too, aimed at securing power journalism's hold on its claims of objectivity, &c. Of course, I advocate completeness, fairness, accuracy, openness. But then I advocate judgment. 4/

One irony of the age is that journalists are demanding that platforms make judgments that journalists themselves--like Barber--refuse to make. That is not onesideism. It is a sin of journalistic omission. What do I mean by that? 5/

Auch 2021: ARD-tagesschau ist ein Schmierensender, der Lügen über Donald Trump verbreitet

There's growing willingness to acknowledge the ways in which Trump's work of building and clinging to power resemble Hitler's. Good.

But this week the history that keeps flashing in my mind isn't Nazi Germany, it's pre-WWII Japan's May 15 Incident.

A thread. 1/

Japan after WWI was a two-party parliamentary constitutional democracy. The government functioned reasonably well into the 30s, weathering the depression better than its peers in the US and Europe. 2/

But a right-wing anti-democratic cancer took root in the lower ranks of the Japanese military. This cancer led to Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the assassination of a former cabinet minister in 1932. 3/

Then came the May 15 Incident in 1932. A group of young, low-ranking military officers and cadets launched a coup attempt and assassinated the prime minister. But the coup failed, and they turned themselves in and were tried for treason. 4/

The trial of the May 15 Incident perpetrators has come to be recognized as a key event in the disintegration of Japan's constitutional government and its descent into totalitarianism. 5/

DEVELOPING: Trump chooses declassification option, readies epic doc dump

Trump's border record: A brief, incomplete history w. links and numbers. Thread -->

1) Border wall construction. CBP recently touted over 400 miles of construction. Only 80 miles is actually new wall, but the construction has nonetheless caused great harm to native lands and cultural sites, to the environment, to people whose homes are nearby.

Links:

2) The border has been the site of family separations. Over 5,000 children were separated from their families at the border. The rollout was chaotic, and the trauma, immeasurable.

The administration forced families seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while their cases wound through imm courts. Then the court hearings were suspended. ~60,000 people were placed in this program, in shelters and makeshift camps in Mexico, waiting indefinitely.