Thread by @mhbx

@LaurenWern While this sentiment is provoking - it reveals more than it tells. What we are battling in the nation now is a full on multifrontal #TrumpsWarOnAmerica. The structures, values, pillars, & customs, norms are under attack.
This is a fine synthesis of one of the major battle lines

@LaurenWern 2/ What he is saying, in essence is a) Money is more important than People. But not just money as a function of transactions & means of trade, but money as wealth, as a function of power.
So it is not "Citizens" but a return to old feudal times of the landed nobility& peasents.

@LaurenWern 3/ b) he is making a quintessential value statement at the level of (and in direct contradiction to) "We hold These Truths to be Self Evident".
Its simply a completely different foundational premise upon which to organize society. It is not "new" in the sense that some form of

@LaurenWern 4/ this "debate" has been going on for years, centuries, and millenia. What is the basic unit of power, and what are the underlying axiomatic premise's that support the structure of the society.
We finally got to work out ideas that elevated the Citizen to a new level - from

@LaurenWern 5/ the original conceptions from the Greek, then Roman versions to eventually the broader ideas of the Enlightenment...
In very terse summary, America is some attempt to synthesize these ideas into a functional form that changed the ancient basis of power & societal structure fr

@LaurenWern 6/ one of Kings, Royalty, privilege, and the power derived from "wealth" to one of power derived from the "consent of the governed".
This battle has been engaged even from the beginning of this country. And now we are met, as Lincoln said of the battle as it broke out

@LaurenWern 7/ in his time...on a battlefield of that great war, to see if a nation so constituted can long endure. They had their wars and battles that came to some tentative conclusions. Never fully agreed to.
And now we are met in the opening skirmishes of our own war, and its battles.

@LaurenWern 8/ One of the precepts being battled over is whether we will in fact continue to be a society governed by the values and principles of the constitution... at root the consent of the governed... or whether that power, already seriously eroded, but not extinct, will be made extinct

@LaurenWern 9/ Trump's great "gift" to the nation is to have consolidated these forces at multiple levels. From the xenophobic, the fearful uneducated, to the very sophisticated who understand the implications of what they do & how they govern - and the changes they are relentlessly working

@LaurenWern 10/ to instantiate while they have the advantage. Here I reference the Supreme Court, as well as what looks like, from one POV, a supine GOP Senate, but from this POV may be better seen as a functional body working hard trying to set their work in concrete before they loose power

@LaurenWern 11/ This is my thesis. This is what I deduce from this seemingly benign and stupid statement. It is not stupid. It is itself the foundational pillar to the "Brave New World" these folks have been wanting to instantiate for a v.long time.

@LaurenWern 12/ It is a statement of who has the power, & who gets to have it.

Which is, IMO, a fairly comprehensive description of the struggles of not only humanity over all time, but in particular the American version of this ancient struggle.

@LaurenWern 13/ It certainly is the question we are fighting over today in many levels and aspects.
Immigration: Who are "they"? And which shall live & who shall die? Who shall remain a family & who torn fr their family?
Living wage. Health care as right or privilege. Function of citizen

@LaurenWern 14/ or possessions. "Socialism"? Is it only bad when it includes citizens? Or what to make of "Corporate Welfare"? And etc.

In virtually every major fight, debate & struggle we are engaged in this question is at root.

@LaurenWern @threadreaderapp unroll