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LONG DECADE-IN-REVIEW SELF-PROMOTION THREAD: This was the decade that my views on how to achieve liberal social change, changed.

It began with the research and writing of this oped in 2011, published by the NYT in 2012 nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opi…
That piece was largely ignored at the time. (Published today, it would have destroyed my mentions with copious "neoliberal" insults.)
But the process of writing it sparked a new interest in history and a re-thinking of old assumptions, which put me on a different path from the professional, online activist world I was then in.
The next big freelance piece I wrote was about the little-known history of peacemaking by NSA surveillance. That was published by @POLITICOMag in 2014. politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag That piece also didn't get much attention at the time, but it began my relationship with @POLITICOMag, which continues to this day.
@POLITICOMag At Politico, wrote a lot about the 2016 primaries, and early on, I got a big thing wrong: I assumed the bases of the two parties hadn't changed much.
@POLITICOMag Based on the last several primaries (Bush, Dole, Bush II, McCain, Romney), I assumed GOP voters retained a sense of caution and would settle for Jeb. (Leading to this infamous piece, written before Trump announced politico.com/magazine/story… )
@POLITICOMag And I didn't initially pick up on how far younger Democrats had moved left and how deeply critical of the Democratic establishment they had become, leading me to downplay Bernie's entry politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag But I caught up on what was going on, and wrote some 2016 analyses that remain relevant today, including one about the Dems' generational divide politico.com/magazine/story… and one about the Democratic history of winking at white racial grievances  politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag I haven't spent as much time analyzing the GOP in the age of Trump (so many others are covering that space nicely) but early on I dubbed him The Culture War President politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag Also, my painstaking ranking of Trump's first 100 days holds up, with the worst day when Michael Flynn admitted he had discussed sanctions with Russia before Trump was inaugurated politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag Having freed myself from a progressive pack mentality, I began to assess activist tactics in a new way. For example, I correctly counseled Democrats to avoid a shutdown over DACA, and instead play for time in the courts.  politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag (Yes Dems may ultimately lose at SCOTUS, but in the interim, DACA has been issuing two-year permits that will last the duration of Trump's term.)
@POLITICOMag I counseled Democrats repeatedly, when it was not popular to do so, to keep Pelosi as leader, because of her fierce pragmatism: 

realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/…

realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/…

politico.com/magazine/story…

politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag I recognized right away that there would be friction between Pelosi and AOC (and that you should probably bet on Pelosi) politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag I warned Democrats early that a tight embrace of single-payer would cause problems (several candidates who didn't listen have now paid the price):

realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/…

politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag While in 2015 I missed the rise of democratic socialism among young Ds, in 2018 I correctly analyzed - from the day AOC won her primary - that moderates were limiting the rise (and helped win the midterm)

politico.com/magazine/story…

politico.com/magazine/story…

politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag I also warned Republicans that tax reform would not save them in the midterms (drawing from the history of the 1909 Payne-Aldrich tariff reform) politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag Perhaps the piece I had the most fun writing was my summer 2018 takedown of the Chapo Trap House book, something else that has yet to bring about the socialist revolution politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag Most notably, in May of 2019, I warned the left, and the Democratic field, not to misread the ideological makeup of the Democratic electorate -- a warning that was not heeded by many politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag I've written several analyses of the presidential candidates, and we'll see soon enough how well they hold up...
@POLITICOMag "How the Beto Bubble Could Burst," back in Nov. 2018, correctly warned him against running for president politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag Back in 2017, I speculated that a Biden run would be premised on "anti-populism" politico.com/magazine/story…

In April of this year, I warned Biden would have to reconcile the two competing narratives about his career politico.com/magazine/story… .
@POLITICOMag In June I defended Biden's optimistic view of bipartisanship and corrected false narratives of the Obama record politico.com/magazine/story….

In Nov. I explained the real history of FDR's relationship with big business to Sanders, Warren and their supporters politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag In May I cautioned that "big ideas" candidacies like Elizabeth Warren's usually fail politico.com/magazine/story… 

In August I warned she should nip in the bud an emerging narrative about her honesty  politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag In October I accurately predicted Warren would have to offer details on how she would pay for single-payer realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/…
@POLITICOMag I was tough on Yang's UBI math politico.com/magazine/story… and sharply questioned the early money rush for Buttigieg politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag Perhaps the best reported piece I wrote was my deep dive into Bernie Sanders' foreign policy record politico.com/magazine/story…
@POLITICOMag Perhaps the piece I wrote that got the most positive feedback was my exploration of wine trackers (like Warren & Buttigieg) and difficulties of pivoting, which included an interview with Gary Hart & the campaign managers of Paul Simon & Paul Tsongas politico.com/news/magazine/…
@POLITICOMag Overall, the 2010s was a decade of massive professional growth for me. I've become a better writer and a deeper thinker. I certainly don't always get it right, but I'm always learning...
@POLITICOMag A huge thanks to all the editors who have given me the opportunity to pontificate on their platforms and make my writing good enough for public consumption:

@blakehounshell @sbg1 @suellentrop @sfheuser @EFRalph @KatelynFossett @williamduryea @zackstanton @CarlCannon
@POLITICOMag @blakehounshell @sbg1 @suellentrop @sfheuser @EFRalph @KatelynFossett @williamduryea @zackstanton @CarlCannon (Apologies if I've left anyone off)
@POLITICOMag @blakehounshell @sbg1 @suellentrop @sfheuser @EFRalph @KatelynFossett @williamduryea @zackstanton @CarlCannon And thanks to all who have taken the time to read my work and engage my ideas. Happy New Decade everyone. --30--
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Bill Scher
@billscher
This analysis is all politics and no governing, and the political analysis is bad. A short thread...
1. Democrats, in general, want to spend more, and Republicans less. This deal spends more, despite a Republican president and Senate. On governing, a win for Dems.
2. The political analysis presumes whichever party holds the presidency when the debt limit ceiling is reaching is being handed a live grenade.

This is nonsense. Debt limit "hostage takings" are rare, and do not necessarily succeed...
Read 11 tweets
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Bill Scher
@billscher
While we're looking back at Democrats and race in the 1970s, I shall now repost/update a 2016 tweetstorm that I never properly threaded about the 1976 Jimmy Carter campaign...
...In the wake of Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" comment, I had written about the history of Democratic presidential candidates winking at white racial grievance... politico.com/magazine/story…
...I included this controversy during the 1976, when Carter defended whites "who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods" and opposed forced integration by the federal government
Read 16 tweets

Related threads

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Ramanuj Mukherjee
@law_ninja
It's not just end of a year, today we say good bye to an entire decade. Today is the last day of teenage for the twenty first century. From tomorrow, it will be twenty plus!

#decade #investments #time #lawyers #laws #lawsikho
I am sure we are all going to party tonight. And reflect back at the decade we are leaving behind.

It would perhaps take a few years to understand what this decade was all about.
For India, 90s were about economic liberalisation, globalization, rise of engineering and IT, the first computers and ridiculous bollywood movies we fell in love with.

90s was the decade when love marriage began to become the aspirational thing.
Read 13 tweets
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Dave Magill
@davemagill
1) A #thread about the end of a #decade. A ramble at times but hey ho.
2) As we draw the 2010s to a close it is natural to reflect on what has gone before and try to sift through the memories, both good and bad, to form some lesson to take into the next decade. What a ten years it had been.
3) I started this decade with almost every area of my life barely holding together whilst delivering what I believed was an Oscar worthy performance of ‘successful man in his late twenties’ for all to see.
Read 34 tweets
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Melyn McKay 🐍
@MelynMcKay
A #thread on my recent social media in Myanmar report with @SydneyUni_Media for @SaveUKNews:
Anthropologists get really excited when someone asks us to design research, so when Save the Children #Myanmar contacted me about this project I was thrilled. There are a lot of truisms about internet use in Myanmar that haven’t really been tested empirically.
For instance, the idea that ‘Facebook is the internet’ is so prevalent its hardly ever questioned. We wanted to design a piece of research that would actually enable us to look into people’s digital worlds, to see how they constructed and maintained them.
Read 30 tweets
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Hidetaka Hirota
@hidehirota
How are you writing your dissertation? How did you write yours? How do you write your books? This is my method (so far). Note: I’m a historian. #writing 1/
My approach consists of 4 separate stages: 1) gathering sources, 2) reading/analyzing the sources I have collected, 3) organizing the sources and making a top down writing outline, 4) writing. 2/
Some people do research and write one chapter, and then do the same process for another. Others do research while writing. I don’t adopt these approaches. 3/
Read 14 tweets
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Kenneth Ifeanyi (Rabbi)
@kenifeanyii
How To Change Your Life

#Thread
"...As we look at the glory of God in a glass (mirror),we are changed into that same image... "

Beautiful.

This simple verse encapsulates all we need to live a glorious life here on earth as saints of God .

Let's dig deeper.
It says "as we look"...look at what? "The glory of God ".Where? "In a mirror". What happens ?"We are changed".

When are we changed?
When we look at the glory of God in a mirror.

Not when we look at ourselves.

Change comes from looking at the glory of God in a mirror,not urself
Read 18 tweets
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Sami Schalk
@DrSamiSchalk
Wow, that last #thread really took off. Let’s try another. I want to think with folks about how we can talk about #SurvivingRKelly outside the logic of the prison industrial complex.
Many of the people who responded to my last thread engaged in carceral logics saying some variation on “his ass should rot in jail” if not calls for his death. Are there other ways we can imagine justice, accountability and healing?
Prison abolitionist Mariame Kaba has said, as ppl raised w/ carceral logics it’s hard for us to imagine or desire alternatives. The #prisonindustrialcomplex has limited how we think about justice—even though other nations do things differently.
Read 14 tweets

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