Thread by @slansky

This is a long thread but worth your time. Former Republican @SteveSchmidtSES on MSNBC on Tuesday, summing up the direness of the current situation with the kind of clarity, passion and outrage that we wait in vain to see a single leading Democrat manage to muster. Go, Steve:

1) “There`s the famous scene at the end of [1984] where Winston is being tortured and the party official is holding up four fingers and says to Winston, 'How many fingers am I holding up?' And Winston, being tortured, in tears, says, 'I only see four. I see four.'

2) And the party official says, 'It could be three or it could be five, it's what the party tells you it is.' And so, it's not just that Trump is assaulting objective truth, this is a political strategy. This is about a demand for obedience.

3) This is the transformation of a smaller Republican Party into a cult of personality where what the leader says is true is true. What the leader feels to be true is true.

4) And if you can subordinate reality at the command of a political leader, you are no longer functionally living in a democracy, whether it's inside the United States or not.

5) For a faction of this country they have surrendered their sovereignty, their intellectual autonomy, to Donald Trump.

6) “Now, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a psychologist, I can't explain why, if you were to join a cult, why he would be the cult leader that you would line up and follow. That being said, though, when you're able to convince somebody what is certainly true is not ...

7) ... when you can embrace the big lie with the same type of effectiveness that fascist movements used it, that Hitler used it, that Mussolini used it, that Soviets used it, then you are well on your way to doing grave and lasting damage ...

8) ... to the fundamental institutional pillars of a Democratic Republic like the United States."

Then, after a clip of Sarah Hucka BS: "It's not just that there's no other spokesperson for the executive seat of power in a Democratic Republic anywhere in the world ...

9) ... where you see that type of lying. It`s that there has never been a spokesperson for the executive seat in power who is such a prolific liar as Sarah Sanders. She is straight out of Baghdad Bob. It's truly remarkable the magnitude of her daily lying.

10) But look, this is all part of a political strategy and I've talked about it before.
Trump uses mass rallies and constant lying to incite fervor in a political base. Two, he scapegoats minority populations and casts them to be blamed for every problem in the world.

11) Three, he allows for his supporters to feel victimized, to feel victimized by the scapegoated populations. Everyone is a victim in Trump Nation by design. It's part of the fuel. The [fourth] thing is the conspiracy, the coordination of the conspiracy ...

12) ... between the deep state, the nefarious sources ... And then, lastly, the assertion that Trump is above the law by Trump himself, that Trump defines what is reality, that Trump defines what's truth and that Trump asserts heretofore unasserted powers ...

13) ... for the executive in the United States that have never been asserted in history before. These five things are happening, they're happening on a daily basis. The assault on the press, on the free media.

14) We still have a First Amendment in this country, but he is as hostile to the free media as any president has ever been and any president could conceivably be in the United States. And so, all of these things together are not isolated, it's part of a pattern ...

15) ... it's part of a strategy, and it's going to do grave damage to American democracy. And this is a moment in time where Republican leaders who have been complicit, have been silent, have been cowardice, are called on to defend the institutions ...

16) ... not of conservatism, not of the small ‘l’ liberalism that the Democratic Party embraces, but the fundamental pillars of a liberal democratic society which he is weakening every day."

The End