Hi, @tedcruz
I read your thread about guns, the Bible, self defense, and black rights (which made no coherent argument).
You don’t like "playing politics" with guns.
You left out how you, the NRA, and Russia use guns to play politics and to further your own goals.
chicagotribune.com/entertainment/…
You see, Ted, outsiders (like Russians) understand right away that the idea that gun ownership equals freedom is nonsensical👇 chicagotribune.com/entertainment/…
I don’t mean the obvious stuff, like all those GOP politicians taking money from the NRA. businessinsider.com/nra-political-…
Or how the NRA pumps money to Texas politicians like yourself. texasmonthly.com/politics/texas…
“What’s a reactionary?” you ask.
According to this study: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.111…
“reactionism” is “a forceful desire to return to the past.”
Reactionism “draws on conservative values and an aversion to what is new.”
Underlying reactionism is “anger, fear, nostalgic hope, betrayal, and perceived injustice.”
Violent political action requires guns.
Reactionaries are thus angry, believed they’ve been wronged, harbor resentment— and they’re dangerous.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.111…
That’s why so many of the angry shooters are white.
Those with a paranoid style “feel dispossessed” and that “America has been largely taken away from them and their kind.”
They therefore adopt extreme measures.
They will stop at nothing to prevent what they see as an impending calamity.
(See the connection to guns, Ted?)
A “crisis of legitimacy” happens when people don’t think the government governs on their behalf.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…
This is why reactionaries seek to destroy our political institutions.
Why?
Resentment over the fact that white (Christian) males are losing their dominant status in America.
In the 1970s, the NRA undertook a concerted legal and propaganda campaign to persuade conservatives that liberty meant unfettered access to guns.
Evangelical Christians also joined America’s right wing extremists. They don’t like that white male Christians are a shrinking part of the electorate.
So they, too, want to destroy political (secular) institutions.
playboy.com/read/in-billy-…
Quoting the Bible appeals to them, even if the argument makes no sense. Because it doesn't have to make sense.
About this time (quoting Prof. Timothy Snyder again) Russia “beckoned” (Snyder’s word) to America’s far right wing, presenting Russia as the savior of white majority rule.
See👇
More and more NRA-Russian ties are being exposed. theguardian.com/us-news/2019/m…
Butina entered the US with a persona perfectly calibrated to appeal to America's reactionaries.
abcnews.go.com/Politics/maria…
abcnews.go.com/Politics/maria…
The GOP fell for it.
The GOP base still falls for all the nonsense.
But most people don’t . . .
For that matter, most Americans don't have a desire to destroy.
They want to build and preserve.
Your base, Ted, is rapidly shrinking.
Do you really think it's a good idea to put guns into the hands of the angry white men who get even angrier when Trump stokes their rage?
Meanwhile, pictures👇You might find some of your friends posing with Maria Butina.
H/t @runswith
thetrace.org/rounds/maria-b…
"Ted Cruz, the Bible, the NRA, and Russia"