Yesterday Trump retweeted that he should get 2 years added to his term.
Friday Trump told Putin about the “Russian hoax” and didn't tell him to stop interfering in our elections. cnn.com/2019/05/03/pol…
The GOP is fine with this.
Spoiler: The Trump-GOP springs from a deeply entrenched authoritarian tradition in America.
They think they're saving America.
Yup, even with all that Trump-Putin love.😍
It may also help with what we can expect from impeachment hearings.
America was founded as a representative democracy, which sounds great.
Except for one big problem.
Only white men had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Slavery was authoritarian.
Jim Crow was authoritarian.
Paternalism (deeply entrenched in much of American culture) was authoritarianism.
Prior to the 1930s, industry was almost completely unregulated.
White men could basically do what they wanted.
They could grab! see👇
Brown v. Board of Education, the1954 desegregation case, ushered in a time of rapid change: The Civil Rights, women's rights, and 1960s upheavals.
The problem is that democracy requires compromise. “Our way or we burn the place down” is authoritarian.
McConnell carried out that refusal to compromise.
It’s hard to go backwards. A lot of laws are in their way.
So they want to destroy those laws. Tear it all down!
When Trump said “all our laws are stupid and corrupt” 👇he meant all those laws preventing him and his pals from grabbing and taking.
expo.mlive.com/erry-2018/04/b…
If you didn’t know America’s far right wing has long been “looking to Russia with hopeful eyes. . .” see👇
They'll cheer him for trying to save America.
Okay. Now let’s talk about all that shock and outrage.
Prepare for your mind to be blown. Snyder—an expert in European history and fascism—says, among other things, that Trump is a “talented politician.”
For conservatives, the myth was: Capitalism brings freedom, so more capitalism (fewer regulations) means more freedom. Oops! Instead of freedom, they got Trump.
History teaches us that all such stories “break.”
People who don’t know this are shocked when the story breaks.
Both myths contain the idea that the future is predetermined.
It’s natural to shift from, “the future will be more of the same no matter what we do,” to “we’re doomed, no matter what we do.”
I'm seeing a lot of "we're doomed" out there.
The future takes the shape it does because what we do in the present.
Being continually shocked is a luxury. It's a way of saying: “This is all new, so nobody knows what to do!” “Shock is pre-helpless.”(@TimothyDSnyder)
It's paralyzing.
I did.🙋♀️
This isn’t the Nixon era. The Nixon era wasn't this polarized.
Nixon didn’t have Fox, Breitbart, or Infowars. John Dean suggested that if Nixon had Fox, he may have survived👇
politico.com/magazine/story…
Look at Trump's approval ratings over the past 2 years. I prefer the 538 aggregate (to avoid focus on outlier polls)
For 2+ years, Trump’s approval has hovered around 40%.
Let’s not fool ourselves.
Much of that 40% sees exactly who and what Trump is.
They've always been with us. They insisted on a Constitution that allowed slavery.
If Trump stays at 40%, 2020 will be a bloodbath. It's enough to compensate for cheating.
Landslides happens when a candidate wins with 58% (Reagan)
Some say that Graham, McConnell, and others support Trump because they're compromised. Yes, the GOP hacked their emails, too.
But Russia doesn't need to blackmail allies.
Yes, Graham said this in 2016👇
I suggest he just didn’t yet realize Trump could be openly racist and still win.
I suggesting that it might not be as much as people hope.
We've been fighting the same fight for 243 years. We’ll win the same way we won in the past: Working for every inch we gain.
For what you can do, there's a tab on my blog called "Things to do."
End/
Which reminds me. It's time to get working on voter protection and election protection. See my list of things to do: terikanefield-blog.com/things-to-do/
I think Democrats erred in the past in writing off red states. No more! Go find and energize those who hate Trump.