Thread by @johnastoehr

1. The anti-moral press was at it again Wednesday night. @LisaMascaro, the Associated Press’s chief congressional correspondent, wrote a story claiming the president and the House Democrats have established a “fraught political frame” for 2020.

apnews.com/36f5e67a145c4f…

@LisaMascaro 2. “Racists” vs. “socialists,” Mascaro wrote.

This is anti-moral because it does not, indeed refuses to, weigh the moral difference between two things that cannot be moral equivalents. It’s also lazy and dangerous.

@LisaMascaro 3. On the one hand, the president told four citizens of color (all freshman House Democrats) to go back to wherever they came from. These four citizens of color told the president in return that such statements are horribly racist.

@LisaMascaro 4. One side was wrong, the other right. These are not morally the same. But in equating right and wrong, everyone is just as good, or just as bad, as everyone else, and nothing really matters.

@LisaMascaro 5. On the other hand, the president really is a racist, as are legions of his followers, hundreds of whom chanted last night, during a rally in South Carolina, as if they were cheering on Der Führer.

@LisaMascaro 6. When Donald Trump raised the name of Ilhar Omar, one of the four women of color he besmirched, the crowd broke into chanting send her back!

https://twitter.com/tictoc/status/1151640449884413953?s=20

@LisaMascaro 7. These four women of color, meanwhile, do not represent the Democratic Party, nor are they among the party’s leadership. They have improved the health of our discourse, in my view, by introducing new ideas, some of which are socialist in the most egalitarian sense.

@LisaMascaro 8. But no one in the party, not even these four women of color, represents socialism qua Stalinism as alleged in bad faith by the president and the Republicans. In elevating a clear falsehood to the level of a clear truth, Lisa Mascaro is laundering a smear.

@LisaMascaro 9. The president and the Republican Party prefers an anti-moral press, because an anti-moral press masks the evils taking shape.

@LisaMascaro 10. In targeting a black female Muslim Democrat, in permitting a crowd to chant send her back!, the president is laying the foundation for someone to take matters into his own hands, and that, historically, tends to mean murder.

@LisaMascaro 11. (Indeed, Roll Call reported Tuesday beefed up security measures at the Capitol after Trump’s racists tweets inspired a greater number of death threats.) rollcall.com/news/congress/…

@LisaMascaro 12. But that’s only the most obvious evil.

To understand why the GOP prefers an anti-moral press, to understand the evils masked by an anti-moral press, you have to understand what’s wrong with racism in a republic.

@LisaMascaro 13. Once you understand that, you understand the frame for 2020 isn’t as fraught as the anti-moral press claims. The real frame? Democracy vs. anti-democracy.

That’s an easy choice.

@LisaMascaro 14. What’s wrong with racism in a republic? Racism, like fascism, identifies an in-group and out-group. Within this social structure, nothing matters, not even morality, except who’s in and who’s out.

@LisaMascaro 15. The out-group can do the right thing, but the in-group may hate it, not because it’s wrong, or right, but because the out-group did it.

@LisaMascaro 16. This may sound abstract, but it should be familiar by now, because it has been mainstream since Sarah Palin talked, in 2008, about the need to represent “real Americans.” washingtonmonthly.com/2016/12/22/sto…

@LisaMascaro 17. Some have claimed the president is being hypocritical. Complaining about America is how he won. He vowed to make American great *again*.

@LisaMascaro 18. Critics ask how he can turn around and say to these four women of color, indeed anyone who complains about racism, that they should love America or leave it. Isn’t that, critics ask, hypocritical?

@LisaMascaro 19. To us, yes. To them, no. Why?

Because all that matters is who’s in & who’s out. The in-group’s motives are always good. The out-group’s motives are always bad. Even if the out-group does the same thing as the in-group, it’s bad. Ergo, questions of hypocrisy are meaningless.

@LisaMascaro 20. Think about this.

Think about the impact such thinking has on a democracy. When you believe the out-group always has malign intent, no disagreement can be tolerated. If there is no room for disagreement, it’s a democracy in name only.

@LisaMascaro 21. So if you chant send her back!, you aren’t just being horribly racist. You’re saying democracy is dead to you.

@LisaMascaro 22. This is what the anti-moral press is missing. This is what the president and the Republicans want. They want to see 2020 framed as a choice between racists and socialists.

But the real frame is between democracy and anti-democracy.

@LisaMascaro 23. Chanting "send her back" means democracy is dead to you.
stoehr.substack.com/p/for-2020-its…

@LisaMascaro 24. Editor’s note

I’m working as hard as I can but I can’t do it all.

If you can, please subscribe ($5/mo.) and support my work!

(Just click the red button.)

Many thanks! —JS

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