As the state of Victoria in Australia has declared a “state of disaster” due to rising Covid infections, with the city of Melbourne even announcing a strict curfew, this article does a good job of explaining how much worse the situation in the U.S. is, compared to Australia. 1/
To build on that, let’s zoom in on a comparison between the state of Victoria and the state of Maryland – because I used to live in MD and have family in Victoria, and because they’re both similar in terms of population (6.6 million for Victoria, about 6 million for Maryland). 2/
On Sunday, Victoria registered 671 new infections – overall, they’re up to 12,000 confirmed cases and fewer than 150 deaths. Maryland, meanwhile, has been hovering around 1,000 new cases per day, and has seen over 90,000 cases and 3,500 deaths total. 3/
In every respect, the situation in Maryland is worse than what Victoria is experiencing – and yet, the Australians are reacting with severe counter-measures, which is absolutely the right thing to do! You cannot allow the virus to get out of hand! 4/
And of course, Maryland isn’t even one of the hotspots, with the situation in many regions of the U.S. being much worse. What an utter failure. /end
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ICYMI on the weekend: I wrote about how Project 2025 broke through the noise and became a toxic brand.
There is an important lesson here about how to cover and discuss the radicalizing Right.
Some thoughts from my new piece (link in bio):
🧵1/
Project 2025 not only remains an excellent window into where the Right currently stands ideologically, it also focuses our attention on who the people leading the reactionary authoritarian charge are – a toxic bunch, driven by the desire to dominate others. 2/
Trump has publicly lashed out at Project 2025 – not because they differ on substance, but first of all, as a way or (re-) asserting dominance: a mob boss reminding everyone to stay in line; and secondly, because Project 2025 has become an incredibly toxic brand. 3/
Weekend reading: Mass deportation plans, attempts to incite a pogrom against immigrant communities, and JD Vance gets to decide who is an “illegal alien.”
I wrote about the Right’s desire to cleanse the “homeland.”
Flashback to the Republican National Convention: While delegates wave hundreds of “Mass Deportation Now!” sign, JD Vance declares that America is not an idea, but a white Christian “homeland,” and those who are bound to it by ancestry and blood decide who belongs. 2/
What we saw at the Republican Convention was a party devoted to an ethno-religious understanding of America as a land defined by white Christian patriarchal dominance – the self-presentation of a political movement committed to blood-and-soil nationalism. 3/
The Right is committed to an idea of America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic.
Inciting a pogrom in Ohio is part of that project.
New piece (link in bio):
🧵1/
I wrote about the Right’s defining political project: A blood-and-soil nationalism that is fundamentally incompatible with multiracial, pluralistic democracy. It has come to dominate the Republican Party, and the elevation of J.D. Vance captures this perfectly. 2/
There is a direct line from J.D. Vance’s “homeland” speech at the Republican Convention – an open embrace of blood-and-soil nationalism – to what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, where Trump and Vance are trying to incite a pogrom. 3/
The Right is committed to preserving America as a white Christian homeland. They are determined to purge the nation and radically redraw the boundaries of the body politic.
Inciting a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio is part of that project.
New piece (link in bio):
I wrote about the Right’s defining political project: A blood-and-soil nationalism that is fundamentally incompatible with multiracial, pluralistic democracy. It has come to dominate the Republican Party, and the elevation of J.D. Vance captures this perfectly.
There is a direct line from J.D. Vance’s “homeland” speech at the Republican Convention – an open embrace of blood-and-soil nationalism – to what is happening in Springfield, Ohio, where Trump and Vance are trying to incite a pogrom.
One reason to be skeptical about anti-Trump Republicans is that they tend to propagate a diagnosis of Trumpism as a mere aberration from an otherwise noble conservative tradition. Such self-serving mythology misleads the political discussion.
My new piece (link in bio):
🧵1/
If America is to claw its way out of this crisis to something better, it must do so on the basis of an honest assessment of what Trumpism is, what fueled its rise, and where it came from. The anti-Trumpers, however, are offering something very different. 2/
In their standard tale, Trump executed a hostile takeover of the GOP and turned it into something that has nothing to do with the party’s former real self, that supposedly venerable “Reagan Republicanism” anti-Trumpers almost invariably invoke as their ideal. 3/
Democrats are, finally, asserting their right to define the boundaries of normalcy – and their claim to be defending the nation’s true ideals against the reactionary assault.
Some thoughts from my new piece (link in bio):
🧵1/
I wrote about why the “These guys are weird” messaging matters: It crystallizes a central fault line – who gets to define “normal” America? – and catalyzes a significant shift in how Democrats handle (and finally reject!) Republican assertions of representing “real America.” 2/
Since the late 1960s, Republicans have successfully weaponized the idea that they represent the norm that should define the nation. This assertion (in)famously crystallized in the “silent majority” notion Richard Nixon popularized early in his presidency. 3/