Bret Stephens. After lending credence to racist ideas about Jews promoted by white supremacist “race science” last week, he casually perpetuates the myth of the “clean” Wehrmacht by referring to Erwin Rommel as a “worthy adversary” in his latest column./1
As @DavidAstinWalsh points out in this great thread, it takes quite the mixture of laziness and ignorance to not know and understand how thoroughly debunked this myth of the honorable and respectable German fighting force is – and has been for decades./2
@DavidAstinWalsh I’m also struck by the ways in which Stephens evokes Nazism and the Second WW. Think back to August, when he equated someone mocking him on Twitter with Goebbels, and the criticism he received with the dehumanization of Jews as prelude to genocide./3
@DavidAstinWalsh It’s not only uninformed – it’s also entirely opportunistic and in bad faith. Not only does he not have a firm grasp of what he’s talking about, he also clearly doesn’t care. In his columns, history – even that of genocide and total war – is just a convenient prop./4
@DavidAstinWalsh There’s never any deeper reflection inspired by the past to be found, no honest questioning of the present derived from past example. Stephens obviously thinks citing the past makes him sound educated, and evoking Nazism is supposed to give weight to his nonsense. That’s it./5
@DavidAstinWalsh At this point, it’s simply disgraceful for the NYT to hold on to this man. I also want to mention, again, how unconscionable it is for Germany’s leading weekly magazine @DIEZEIT to provide Stephens with an additional platform./6
@DavidAstinWalsh@DIEZEIT It shows how much harm the NYT is causing by championing Stephens, and not just to the political discourse in America. Internationally, Stephens is just known/presented as an acclaimed “NYT columnist,” which guarantees a huge audience. What a joke. /end
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There has been a ton of attention lately for Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led planning operation for a more efficient, more ruthless rightwing regime - peaking in reaction to Trump pretending he doesn’t know anything about it, which is an obvious, brazen lie. 2/
Public attention is necessary: In a very real sense, these plans are on the ballot in November. However, it’s also turned “Project 2025” into a bit of a catchall term - when we should be precise about what it tells us about Trump’s role and about the Right more broadly. 3/
Trump is not the mastermind behind Project 2025. It’s worse: The rightwing establishment has radicalized to the point where their plans are entirely in line with his vengeful desires.
My new piece (link in bio):
🧵1/
I wrote about the relationship between Trump and Project 2025, between the inner circle of MAGA world on the one hand and the institutional and intellectual elites of American conservatism on the other: A radicalizing alliance against democratic pluralism. 2/
Donald Trump lied when he declared he had nothing to do with Project 2025 and knew no one involved in the operation. Not exactly shocking, I know. But there is something more interesting and revealing going on here than just habitual lying. 3/
I took a deep dive into the “Promise to America” Heritage president Kevin Roberts has offered in his foreword to the "Project 2025" report: It perfectly captures the siege mentality, self-victimization, and grievance-driven lust for revenge that are fueling the Right's plans. 2/
Kevin Roberts is not a moderate imposter who pretends to be hardcore so that he can blend in with the MAGAs because that is the direction the wind is blowing. He is a reactionary Catholic and part of the Religious Right – a true believer in the reactionary political project. 3/
An argument I’m trying to make here is that a second Trump term would be worse not only because the radical Right would be better prepared, but also because they would be operating under much more favorable circumstances.
With a much more extreme Supreme Court, for instance.
Back in power, the radical Right could count on a reactionary supermajority on the Supreme Court - something they didn’t have during Trump’s first term.
Today’s disastrous, truly extreme immunity ruling should be an urgent reminder of what an absolute game-changer that is.
Additionally, this would not be the same Right that came to power in 2017. That starts with Trump himself. The idea that he has always been the same, just Trump being Trump, is massively misleading and obscures the rather drastic radicalization of the Right’s undisputed leader.
I wrote a three-part series about the worldview of the people behind “Project 2025,” the policy agenda and detailed plans it has produced, and what all this tells us about the radicalization of the American right.
It is difficult to convey how much establishment conservatism has been taken over by anti-democratic extremism.
“Project 2025” is actually helpful in that sense: Rightwing leaders are maximally clear about the reactionary vision they want to impose on the country. 3/
I got to talk to @chrislhayes about “Project 2025” on his #WITHpod
If you want more, I wrote a three-part series on the Right’s radical plans to use government as an authoritarian tool to impose a reactionary vision on America. Some thoughts:
Part I focuses on the worldview of the people behind “Project 2025.”
They see themselves as noble defenders of “real America” against a totalitarian “woke,” “globalist” assault. “Project 2025” is their declaration of war on multiracial pluralism: 2/
In his foreword to the "Project 2025" report, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts offers his “Promise to America”: It perfectly captures the escalating siege mentality, self-victimization, and grievance-driven lust for revenge that are fueling the Right's plans. 3/