Thread by @MuellerSheWrote

THREAD: I am convinced there's an op against our justice department designed to divide us and exhaust voters in the interest of advancing authoritarianism. Sit back, pour a glass of wine, and allow me to explain. As always, I have receipts. 1/

There are strong forces at work, and millions in dark money being spent to steal your vote. The GOP and foreign bad actors do this in two ways: the first is by physically blocking or intimidating voters. There was a LOT of this in 2020. 2/ nytimes.com/2020/09/19/us/…

The second and more sinister way is to convince you to throw your vote away. They accomplish this in multiple ways. 1. Telling you that both major party candidates are equally bad. Here's an example from Russian State Media: 3/

2. Exploiting your vulnerability through issues that emotionally impact you. 3. Persuading you that a 3rd party vote or a write-in vote will teach the establishment a “lesson” while insisting your vote doesn’t matter. 4. Making you believe voting is too hard. 4/

And 5. Blaming institutions (SSCI, Mueller, DoJ, DNC, IC). Which brings me to my point: I think there’s an effort in the news and on social media to exhaust you out of voting by pitting you against government institutions, and I think Merrick Garland is a target. 5/

First of all, DoJ is an easy target. We're all exhausted by covid, the trump crime syndicate, the big lie, the insurrection; we're all ready for some accountability and that's the job of the DoJ. 6/

The DoJ is also duty-bound to keep quiet, and what they do takes a long ass time. What a PERFECT set of circumstances for baddies to slip in, rile us up with some hashtags, and divide us even further. 7/

And that's the goal. Divide democrats, because a united democratic party is the only thing standing in the way of autocracy. We have examples of this. The Russian Internet Research Agency did it with Black Lives Matter. From the Mueller Report: 8/

And of course no one is suggesting Russians or the GOP started BLM or the tea party or the progressive caucus or the NRA, but boy did they exploit the shit out of those causes to divide us. Some issues to divide GOP from dems, and others to divide dems from other dems 9/

There are valid criticisms we can make about the DoJ & Garland, and I've made some. He only released half of the Bill Barr Memo. He is defending the office of the president in the defamation case brought by E Jean Carroll. Here's a rant from me: 10/

But take a minute to search hashtag FireGarland and you'll see there are a handful of accounts that seem to spend their entire day hurling insults at Garland and the DoJ. There are some super-obvious Russian memes and hashtags like "MagaGarland" 11/

Those are well-known RU hashtags modeled after similar ones used in 2020 to get us to hate Biden such as "blueanon" and "blueMAGA". These accounts even blame the DoJ for not doing things it can't do or has already done. 12/

One example I've seen is accounts demanding Garland be fired for not handing over the unredacted Mueller report which has been out for a while. Which brings me to the media. They aren't trying to get your vote tossed out like political operatives, but they want you angry. 13/

Did the media blast the mostly unredacted Mueller report across the airwaves? NOPE. They need anger and division if they're going to get clicks and eyes now that donald is out of office and the war in Afghanistan is over. 14/

Remember the media coverage of the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Something most Americans wanted, not to mention nearly 130,000 were airlifted out of Afghanistan in one of the largest mass evacuations in U.S. history, yet the media divided us over it. 15/

They divided us over infrastructure, too. Back when Biden gave his first 100 days speech to a joint session of congress, he laid out a plan for two bills that would total $3T. We were all starry eyed over the prospect, yet here we are with $3T and somehow pissed about it 16/

To the media, you're not the consumer. You're the product. And think of the BRASS BALLS it took for major media conglomerates bent on pissing you off to report on Facebook's transgressions giving more weight to the anger emoji in their algorithms than the like and love emojis 17/

The media knows, as do the socials, that hate and anger are where the money is. You are the product, and your anger is their bottom line. Same with the forces trying to steal your vote: apathy and division are the way autocrats win. 18/

They did it to Mueller, and they're doing it to Garland. Valid and constructive criticism of the DoJ has turned into an all-out assault on the institution, which is something Dr. Timothy Snyder warned us about in "On Tyranny." 19/

"It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. So choose an institution you care about and take its side." 20/

In 2017 it was the Mueller probe. Now I'm going to defend the DoJ. I can hold two thoughts in my head: It's possible to criticize Mueller & the DoJ AND defend them as institutions. I've done both for years, and I will continue that effort in the face of looming autocracy. END

PS: OH HEY! And not four hours after I post this thread, we get this news: