Thread by @frodofied

For over four years Twitter has been my link to the world. In many ways, my time spent here has defined who I am as a person, an activist, and a writer. To simply call Twitter a significant force in my life would be a gross understatement of fact.

Twitter has been everything. /1

I have forged bonds here so strong that they have come to eclipse those I have made by more traditional methods "IRL." It has also given me the rare opportunity to interact, and sometimes even befriend, those whom I admire most in this world..

I've had to pinch myself often. /2

I have been challenged, lifted up, inspired, honored, and humbled here. And in the final analysis Twitter has made me a stronger, better, more humane, and more intelligent human being.

Those too are not exaggerations. My sincerity is real. /3

That said, there has been no shortage of negativity. There's always been ugly on Twitter and as my following had grown so too has that ugly.. From the infamous Bernie bros (yes, they are a real thing) to run-ins with Stormfront, the dark side of twitter has been ever present. /4

I have been attacked, mocked, hacked, used, doxxed, and been made an example of, and often those were the good days. But I stayed because Twitter has always been worth it and I had always been able to keep my emotional head above water.

I had always managed to thrive. 5/

Which brings me to the point of this thread. Why, given all of these facts, did I suddenly retreat into the margins and nearly disappear altogether? As you might expect there is no easy answer, nor even a single one.

But there is an overarching theme. 6/

I have always operated under the assumption that good always wins out and that most people are inherently good. I have lived as an open-eyed optimist and it has almost always served me well. 7/

"I still believe in a place called hope." William Jefferson Clinton

Those words, which were intended to evoke the then future President's own political, philosophical, and geographical history as he addressed the 1992 nominating convention, have been a political touchstone. /8

It is a metaphor I have clung to throughout my adulthood.

Well, until recently.

Despite the horror and devastation of 2016 and @realDonaldTrump's stealing of the US Presidency, I had somehow managed to hang-on to those words. To say them out loud and mean them. 9/

Though our system had failed us time and time again from 2014 onward I still believed that ultimately it would correct itself. It was incomprehensible to me that anyone or anything like this could happen here.

I was a naive and stupid man. 10/

"This begs the question, what is being hidden?"
- Rep. Elijah Cummings

I didn't anticipate having to do this thread in stages, but we will chalk that up to being just another thing I've gotten wrong.

So, let me repeat,

@realDonaldTrump stole the Presidency in 2016.

11/

I know it. You know it. The press knows it. He knows it. @HillaryClinton certainly fucking knows it. Everyone knows it, especially Robert Mueller.

Only he didn't have the nerve, or possibly even the intent to say it out loud.

The man who was supposed to save us, didn't.

12/

I had never, at least not in the beginning, believed that Mueller was up to the task. I wasn't sure anyone was to be honest.

Everytime I did the global political math I came to the conclusion that any real investigation would unravel everything and cause a global collapse. 13/

But in a hopeless situation the hopeless will latch onto any hope they can.

Enter Robert Mueller.

His investigation was that bit of hope for many Americans, for many around the world, hell for the Republic itself.

And my "the sky is falling" routine began sounding naive.
14/

I had to wonder whether what I was doing here was at all productive. Sadly, I concluded it wasn't, a decision I will always regret. And so I let myself be taken by the idea of Mueller as white knight, a man of destiny perternaturrally capable of facing down Trump and Putin. 15/

"He's not just unprepared -- he's temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility." - Hillary Clinton

She was right, of course. About that and so much more. Almost everything really. And that's not an exaggeration.

16/

I guess I let myself have hope for her too. I had, afterall, spent two decades believing @HillaryClinton would one day be the President of the United States. I had stood with her in 2008 and again in 2016. I had spent the first 72 hours after 11/8/16 in the fetal position.

17/

Yes, I was crying for America and the world. But I was also crying for her staff, which was far more extraordinary than they have ever been given credit for. I was also crying for her supporters, for my dead mother who had so hoped to vote for her, and for Bill and Chelsea.

18/

And for myself. I mourned the hours of work and years of hope. But, make no mistake, I was crying for her too. My admiration for @HillaryClinton is such, and has been present for so long, that it has turned into a sincere, familial level affection.

I love Hillary Clinton.

19/

It absolutely enrages me that she had to concede anything to Trump. Ever.

I did not watch the speech she gave the next day.

And I never will.

So jumping on the Mueller bandwagon also represented my last hope for her.

And it put my great dream back on life support.

20/

But why any of us allowed ourselves to put hope or faith in a system which had proven itself to be so irrevocably broken I will never know. And as a Republican and former FBI director, Mueller was. at best, just another cog in the machine.

21/

And at worst?

At worst he was the willing participant in the most effective and dangerous political coups in history.

It could be decades before anyone is able to answer that question conclusively.

If it is ever answered at all.

22/

I never believed that if Mueler had done what so many of us hoped he would that Hillary Clinton would be handed the job that was rightfully hers when so many had gone to such lengths to keep her from it, but I did see a legal route, dependent on the 14th Amendment & #SCOTUS.
/23

But Mueller's report does not offer the definity needed to inspire a legal challenge of such magnitude. In fact, many wonder if it even merits moving our nation toward impeachment.

Which strikes me as particularly terrifying and possibly the most dangerous byproduct of all.
/24

"In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency." - H.L Mencken

At any other time in our history. Literally any other time this report would have devastated a Presidency. /25

It would have devastated his cabinet and his party too. Any other President would have resigned immediately. In fact, any other President at any other time would have resigned for far less.

Ask Richard Nixon.

But today Mueller's report only merits sighs and shrugs.
/26

"When honor and the Law no longer stand on the same side of the line, how do we choose?"
- Anne Bishop

Which means they have ultimately won the long war. It means that the process of normalization worked.

And it means we are doomed.

/27

If what Trump has done & continues to do is considered to be just an unavoidable part of governing then that means there truly are no barriers to absolute corruption. It means that as long as one wins one can do whatever one wants and to be stopped one must then lose.
/28

28/

Life calls. I will continue this thread and respond to the accumulated comments later this evening... thank you to you all.

And therein lies the problem. We have now greenlit the right of foreign adversaries to interfere in our electoral process. Pretender to the throne, @realDonaldTrump, is now explicitly saying that it's not only legal for them to do so, but also invited them to do so in 2020.
29/

This opens up the very real possibility of an almost permanent single party ruling majority being installed and not representing the true will of the people, but rather that of a foreign political or even business entity.

The bad news does not end there.

30/

Letting corruption run rampant, freely, is reckless enough, but tm then hand its perpetrators all of the mechanisms necessary to ensure their ability to carry on that corruption in perpetuity is riidiculous and is a defining feature of all banana republics, everywhere.

/31

Many of us have been warning that the sky is falling for nearly three years now. Only it's not falling all at once. Only in pieces and if is mainly falling on those least able to withstand the damage.

It is an insidious process that is actually redefining what we are.

32/

BUT, what does all of this have to do with why I have been away from Twitter?

Muchly.

I had transferred a lot of emotional and psychological energy onto the Mueller investigation. Even if I knew that it would end as it did I still allowed myself to believe.

It broke me.

33/

Add to that the fact that this country is now having conversations about who will be given the power to run this nation after 2020 and they all involve only three or four names three of which are white men well over the age of 70.

I just can't.

34/

The last two people I want representing Democrats in 2020 are the two still getting the most media coverage. Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden are both clueless and out of touch.

And both pale in comparison to @HillaryClinton in ways that are literally unacceptable for me.

35/

Add to those facts that a still emerging health concern has forced me to consider how best I use my time and the challenge of building a relationship and the financial strain I continue to exist under and I have had very little inspiration to come back here.

But...

36/

I am back.

I am here.

I still have b things to say and hopefully some of you will still find what I do here worthy of your time.

I need to thank @dcasapwarren who has given me more than you can imagine, in love, help, and faith.

37/

And one my best friends @Solutioneer72 who is helping to provide me the tools I need for self sufficiency.

And @slb42jcb, my dear friend, supporter and constant believer.

And my dearest @revjelowe whose love sustains me through all of it.

And all of you.

Thank you.

38/

The days ahead promise more darkness. It's just how it is.

We have a hard choice before us my friends.

Rome is fucking burning.

Choose wisely.

Always,

@frodofied