Thread by @Cajsa

In an early preemptive strike against Kamala Harris, the @NYTimes, the protector of the status quo, published a character smear by Lara Bazelon in the opinion section which meant it did not have to meet regular journalistic standards.
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@nytimes This assault was immediately weaponized by Bernie's supporters and campaign. Just like Karl Rove, Bernie's people sought to turn Kamala's strength into a liability. This Kamala is a Cop hashtag is the 2020 Swiftboat campaign and Lara Bazelon is a Swift Boat Vet

@nytimes Worse, though, that the damage to the Harris campaign. Bernie's thugs created the message that reforming the system from within was essentially being the system. A perfect example from yesterday is this claim

@nytimes Consider the damage this rhetoric does.

Any Black or brown person who joins the police, joins the Dept of Justice, runs for District Attorney, becomes a prosecutor, or works in corrections as a parole officer or a guard is now anathematized politically

@nytimes The Dept of Justice, Emily Bazelon (who did not do a hit piece on Kamala), and John Pfaff among others identify the role of prosecutors as the most important role that must be reformed to address over-incarceration and racial disparities in the system.

@nytimes 95% of DAs are white. And DAs are the ones who decide whether someone who has been arrested gets diversion or a prison sentence. The whiteness of DAs has a profound effect on those decisions. Most cases are settled out of court, the DA making the sentencing decision

@nytimes But the Kamala is a cop narrative is a warning to people of color, telling them if they have political ambition they must stay out of the DAs office, out of the police force. Only white people should apply... if they have ambition

@nytimes But is anyone really surprised that the candidate who voted for the Crime Bill remains unscathed for that while someone whose job was to enforce the laws is lambasted for doing so?

@nytimes Unfortunately for all of us. American "journalists" are pressed for time, underpaid, and required to do promotion, write frequent articles, and given very little time for enterprise journalism and research. This meant that Lara Bazelon's shitpiece was regurgitated a hundred times

@nytimes And because it was in the Times - albeit op-ed - it was given meritless credibility and so was rewritten and vomited back up uncritically, with reporters doing fuck all to see if it were true.

@nytimes George Soros has been supporting the election of progressive prosecutors with victories in 2018, but Harris began 15 years early. She was working to reform the system before there was the kind of push there is today,

@nytimes So yes, she didn't do the kinds of reforms that people propose now, but she did so many.
1. Implicit bias training for police
2. Transparency and racial justice stats made public
3. Re-entry programs to foster success
4. Actually reducing incarceration rates
& that's just some

@nytimes My question for Lara Bazelon and the Kamala Is a Cop promoters, do you really want all the levers of criminal justice in the hands of white people? Because that is the logical result of your racist and reckless smear.

@nytimes And by the way, the message that fighting for justice within the structures of power is not limited to criminal justice. Remember Bernie's claim that Planned Parenthood is the establishment? So, of course, his supporters defend that idiocy

@nytimes In the eyes of the Jacobin left, those in the stagnant pools of purity, working to change the system is becoming the system. They eschew compromise and coalitions, seeking power only through "revolution" - the authoritarian power that opposes reform as accomodationist

@nytimes Power corrupts, they think, so they seek powerlessness to remain pure. This makes them, effectively, the allies of those who do evil.