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Matthew Chapman Profile picture
@fawfulfan
Sep 15, 2020 • 3 tweets • 1 min read • Read on X
All this panic from conservative pundits on how a unified Dem govt would nuke the filibuster, pack the courts, admit new states, etc, totally overlooks the fact that the GOP could prevent all this by, y'know, respecting the popular will and compromising on legislation.
The only reason any Dems are talking about doing any of these things is because the GOP has become a radical minoritarian insurgency that has spent years consistently grinding the system to a halt to impose their will against democracy, and there's no expectation they'll stop.
I mean, people like Ted Cruz were straight-up saying in 2016, if Clinton won, they'd reject her legitimacy, keeping Scalia's seat vacant 4 years, even immediately starting impeachment!

If the GOP doesn't want democratic rules rewritten, they could start by ... not doing that?

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More from @fawfulfan

Matthew Chapman Profile picture
Feb 10
I just want to add here:

Even if the Supreme Court ruled every state must stop accepting mail ballots at the end of Election Day, that would not necessarily mean states with infamously slow counts like California would suddenly count the vote as fast as states like Florida.
That's because the deadline for mail ballots is only one of many factors that determine how fast a state can count votes.

Another reason California counts slowly, for instance, is it has a much more burdensome verification process for ballots, since so many more arrive by mail.
Yet another factor is how long a window the state gives voters to cure defective or provisional ballots.

In Florida, for instance, voters get just 2 days to do it. In California, voters have until 2 days before the results are certified, which means it can literally take weeks.
Read 9 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
Sep 15, 2025
The government's promotion of suburban homeownership destroyed this rail network, but not necessarily for the reason you might think.

It wasn't because the suburbs were too spread out for rail to be successful. That wasn't the main problem.
First of all, you have to understand that the passenger rail network from the 1830s to the 1970s was almost exclusively a private industry — like the modern airline industry, it was a patchwork of private companies, not a nationalized entity like Amtrak.
And that presents an immediate problem: these private companies have to make money. And frankly, the economics of the railroads weren't *that* much different back then than today — all but the busiest trunk lines ran at an operating loss.
Read 10 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
May 29, 2025
So. This weekend, I went to see the Lilo & Stitch remake with my wife, niece, and nephew.

I thought it was bad. But the more I sit on it and think about what I saw, I didn't just not like it, I'm actually angry how badly Disney mutilated the original message of this movie.
And yes, I'm about to drop a big spoiler, but who cares. You should not see this movie. If you liked the original, the ending of this movie completely destroys it. I am doing a public service by spoiling it for you.
I could go on and on about the problems with this movie.

The fact that it was both somehow too fast-paced AND too bloated. The fact Lilo and Stitch had their personalities sanded off. The fact Nani's relationship with Lilo feels much colder and has almost no chemistry.
Read 15 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
Feb 4, 2025
This is absolutely insane.

If scientists aren't allowed to use the term "women" or "female" when applying for NSF grants, that basically rules out any human clinical trials of anything.

"Disability" is blacklisted too? There goes a lot of medical research.
If you can't use the word "bias," that would make it pretty hard to apply for a grant for any study that involves statistics.

Also, sorry immunologists, but you can't say "systemic." And tough luck if you're studying emergency medicine, you can't say "trauma."
Want to apply for a grant to study crime? That'll be tough since you can't say "victim," although to be fair statistics are vital to criminology so the ban on saying "bias" already made your job pretty hard.
Read 6 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
Jan 9, 2025
This situation is now even more insane. WV Republicans are now moving to assert *they* in fact have the right to appoint De Soto's replacement, even though he formally defected to the Democratic Party before being vacated and under the law that would give Dems the replacement.
Here they've announced applications for the seat, even though the WV SOS office listed De Soto as a Dem before the resolution vacating the seat.

Basically we have an antipope situation, with both Dems and GOP claiming the appointment is theirs. Could a court fight be looming?
Honestly, this probably doesn't matter much, as even if Dems win this fight the GOP still has a supermajority and the heavily red seat will autoflip in the next election.

But it's still a crazy situation. And a legal case over this would be interesting.
Read 4 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
Jan 9, 2025
I know those who just lost their homes are in no mood to talk about the politics of it right now, but this is yet another reason California's ridiculous zoning practices need to be reformed wholesale.
Climate change has made many outlying suburbs of L.A. simply too dangerous. Some can be rebuilt with better fireproofing, but some others will simply never be insurable and can't be built back.

Which puts greater urgency on allowing more density in the inner and coastal suburbs.
At the end of the day, some NIMBYs will have to be forced, kicking and screaming, to make more room in their neighborhoods, because as long as their obstinacy forces sprawl into the dry brush hills, we will have more people lose their homes to fire.
Read 4 tweets

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