Thread by @Dreamweasel

Welcome to life in 2020, where the lion’s share of what passes for political discourse consists of Explaining Extremely Obvious Things to People Who Refuse to Listen

- Donald Trump ordered the Soleimani assassination for two extremely self-centered reasons:

1. To get impeachment off the front page

2. To attain whatever privileges come with being a wartime President

That’s really it. As always, Trump’s only priority is himself.

- Trump isn’t an expert on the Middle East, and he doesn’t listen to the people who are.

- Not only is he unwilling to consider how the consequences of his actions affect anyone else, he appears genuinely incapable of doing so. One cannot assess his motivations in any other way.

REASONS DEMOCRATS CONDEMN THE KILLING OF SOLEIMANI:

- No Congressional approval
- Iran is motivated to retaliate
- Hezbollah is funded by Iran
- Thousands of casualties likely

NOTICEABLY ABSENT FROM THE ABOVE LIST IS THE FOLLOWING:

- Democrats think Soleimani was a good person

- There is no such thing as a Democratic Party “plantation”. Black people overwhelmingly reject the GOP’s dismissive attitudes toward racism, police brutality, & economic injustice.

- It has been over 50 years since Republicans have supported any kind of civil rights activism.

- “Biased” is not synonymous with “factually incorrect.” It simply indicates a lack of ideological balance.

- When one side of the political divide operates entirely independently of verifiable truth, it is counterproductive to “balance” news reporting to cater to their views.

- The most successful third-party Presidential run in 50 years was in 1992, when Perot won 19% of the popular vote & took zero states in the Electoral College.

- In every Presidential election since then, it has been statistically impossible for a third-party candidate to win.

- When you vote third-party in a Presidential election, you are indeed sending a message: “I’ll just let the rest of the people in my state decide this.”

- If you live in a swing state and you vote third-party in 2020, it means “I’m BASICALLY OKAY with Trump getting re-elected.”

- The people who end posts with “I’LL WAIT” or “I’M WAITING” are invariably trolls who are accustomed to being ignored and/or blocked, so they try to pre-emptively declare victory against anyone who refuses to indulge them. The tactic is similar to “If you block me, I win!”

- Most Trump supporters have no idea what Hunter Biden did in Ukraine, and don’t care.

- “BUT HUNTER BIDEN!” is now a mindless retort for any accusation levied at Trump, period. It’s the “BENGHAZI!” of 2020. Same Whataboutism, different year.

- Trump uses the same strategy every time he is accused of wrongdoing:

1. Deny everything
2. Accuse Democrats of doing the exact same thing

- There need not be any factual basis for the counter-accusation. The only thing that matters to Trump’s followers is that it was made.

- Donald Trump has lied over 16,000 times in office. Adam Schiff has not once been publicly caught in a lie. (A paraphrase is not a lie.)

- Nevertheless, Trump’s supporters accuse Schiff of also being a liar. They have no other choice, really: it’s just in their playbook.

- Schiff did not lie about Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. A full transcript doesn’t exist, so Schiff described it in his own words.

- Schiff’s description wasn’t a verbatim quote, nor was it intended to be. This is as close as Trumpers can come to justifying their accusation.

- With their actions, both Democrats and Republicans appear well aware that calling witnesses to testify in front of the Senate would hurt Trump.

- By their refusal to even call witnesses to testify, the GOP demonstrates that they stand for nothing other than protecting Trump.

- If you care at all about restoring the rule of law to the U.S. government, you have no choice but to vote for the Democrat in November.

- That said, no candidate is above criticism during the primary. Keep personal shit out of it, but policies & accomplishments are fair game.