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Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
, 5 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
So Mitt Romney tells us that Donald Trump is a horrible person. That's good, I guess -- better than a Lindsey Graham-style dignity collapse. But it's also taking the easy way out 1/ washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-…
Any genuinely principled Republican should be asking why such a person retains overwhelming support from the base. Romney in particular should ask why 75 percent of those who voted for him in 2012 approve of Trump now, 44% strongly 2/ morningconsult.com/wp-content/upl…
And the base doesn't like Trump despite the bad things he does; in large part it likes him because of those things. His racism and implicit threats of violence speak to the party's soul; if you don't admit that, you're not facing up to reality 3/
The point is that the essence of Trumpism was central to the GOP long before Trump. Someone like Max Boot gets it. Romney is far from a stupid man. If he doesn't get it, it's because he doesn't want to 4/ washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-par…
Maybe Romney will actually do something beyond deploring Trump's crudeness. But I wouldn't bet on it. 4/
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Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
And another self-own by Trump and "friends" (he has no friends). It must be awful to live inside his head 1/ thehill.com/homenews/admin…
I mean, imagine being so insecure, so needy, that you can't help but lash out in self-destructive ways at anyone who makes you feel inadequate when you're *President of the United States* 2/
But my guess is that this very neediness -- the black hole at the center of his being that obviously eats away at Trump from inside -- is part of how he got where he is. There are a lot of insecure, needy people out there, and at some level they recognized the affinity 3/
Read 6 tweets
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Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
A few thoughts on the Ocasio-Cortez effect on policy discourse, which has been salutary in ways that have little to do with her specific ideas 1/
To be honest, I'm somewhat uneasy about all the attention @aoc is getting, because a lot of it is obviously for the wrong reasons. She's telegenic and her shocking rise makes a good story; but there are lots of impressive freshmen in this class, and she gets all the attention 2/
On the other hand, she's really talented at the modern media game, and is getting a hearing for ideas that more conventional politicians are afraid to touch -- and the reactions of conservatives are pure gold 3/
Read 9 tweets
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Paul Krugman
@paulkrugman
Republicans don't understand marginal tax rates. On the other hand, they don't know anything about history1/
For what it's worth, here's what happened to federal revenues under Clinton and Bush II 2/
But in a way Walker's confident ignorance -- it really is the Dunning-Kruger party -- is typical: I've noted for a long time how Reaganolatry requires forgetting what happened in the Clinton years. 3/
Read 4 tweets

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RynheartTheReluctant
@TheRynheart
‘Trump administration is weighing Afghan troop withdrawal’

•Mattis leaving
•US pulling out of Syria

nbcnews.com/news/military/…
Putin is following the ‘Foundations of Geopolitics.’ In the book, Dugin calls for ‘strategic control of the United States’ and calls Russia the ‘staging area of an anti-American revolution.’ Dugin called for the weakening of ‘liberal values.’

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundatio…
For this plan to work: ‘Military operations play relatively little role. The textbook believes in a sophisticated program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by the Russian special services’
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vakibs
@vakibs
Good essay. But you cannot outlaw private groups, or is it desirable to do so.

We need to think of protecting the integrity of mass communication similar to supporting the body's immune system.

It means *encouraging flow of information in all sides*, not overarching control.
It is easy to think of "destroying the swamps of fake news". But it is a wrong impulse. Totalitarian state is a greater evil than whatever swamps exist, breeding whatever germs that may be harmful.

It is not easy to build trust in a digital society, it will take a lot of time.
People who are concerned about the threats to democracy from social media, please be patient. There are no easy solutions.

If you think some law will fix it, you are wrong.
If you are a tech person who thinks an AI will fix it, you are even further wrong. --> Don't do it !
Read 9 tweets
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Anna Graham Hunter
@annaghunter
Restaurant-gate - @SarahHuckabee getting kicked out of the Red Hen restaurant - plus an interview with @Sethrogen got me thinking about politeness, slavery, date rape, #MeToo, gaslighting, and what it means to be a Southern gentleman. 1/
Politeness serves those in power. As a child I spent much of my time with an extended family of affluent white Southerners who, I came to realize, valued politeness above many other qualities: kindness, honesty, fairness, and justice. 2/
For a long time I assumed my family adhered to politeness because of what Jane Austen believed (according to someone I can't remember) - that manners are the only thing stopping us from killing each other. 3/
Read 37 tweets
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Dᴇᴇʀsᴇᴏᴋ™
@_hobilu
🔞 Minjoon thread fic: sugar daddy/mafia au where Jimin has given Namjoon all he wants but has never laid a finger on him....tonight that's ALL Namjoon wants 🔞
It has become a normal routine for him now. He packs his things after his study session and leaves his dorm for the weekend. It’s the usual black car that picks him up, one that parks away from the streetlight and is hidden to eyes other than his own.
There’s a chill in the air and he thinks maybe he should have worn a heavier coat rather than the old scarf he’s had since he was in high school. He already knows that Jimin is going to scold him, ask him why he wasn’t wearing one of the furry expensive coats he bought him, or
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