Thread:
Yesterday, when I saw news of Rs in Congress “storming” the meeting their (D and R) colleagues were conducting, I didn’t tweet my first thoughts. I wanted to give myself a little time to reflect. It’s the next day now. Know what?
It’s really bad. (1/8)
Yesterday, when I saw news of Rs in Congress “storming” the meeting their (D and R) colleagues were conducting, I didn’t tweet my first thoughts. I wanted to give myself a little time to reflect. It’s the next day now. Know what?
It’s really bad. (1/8)
First, it’s a stunt aimed to distort reality. It’s supposed to make people think that Rs are being kept out of a secret D hearing, when in fact there are more than 40 Rs on the investigating committees (Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Oversight).
But that’s the least of it. (2/8)
But that’s the least of it. (2/8)
The bigger problem is it’s an attempt *by Members of Congress* to use physical disorder to block the work of Congress. That’s terrifying. And completely inappropriate. Constitutional government can’t function that way. (3/8)
The Rs who “stormed” the SCIF know that. They’re signaling, yet again, that the President’s camp is willing to do anything—to violate any norm, to destroy any process or institution—to protect its own interests. (4/8)
We’re not yet at Preston Brooks walking onto the Senate floor and caning Charles Sumner senseless. (5/8)
But in one sense what happened yesterday was *more* troubling than the Bleeding-Sumner incident: it was organized. And the people who organized it are probably not planning to stop at this point. (6/8)
As things come to look worse for Trump, he and his supporters will resort to increasingly desperate/destructive tactics. That’s how institutions collapse. (7/8)
To avoid serious damage, powerful Rs need to signal that they will not choose the President over the constitutional system. And they need to do it decisively, and fast. To tolerate tactics like yesterday’s is to invite disaster. (8/8
