@ImaniBarbarin@disabled.social Profile picture
Sep 21, 2020 12 tweets 3 min read Read on X
So, this thread by @/ztsamudzi got me all excited because I very rarely get to talk about what I actually have training in other than to stay alive as a disabled person.

So, let’s talk about conservatives’ attachment to the evangelical church with the lens of why 45 chose
To run as a Republican rather than a Democrat or independent: Branding.

After the passage of the civil rights act, the Republican Party could no longer rely on racial division as the party’s brand strategy so they made the decision to court evangelicals who were mostly
Not ardent voters.

When We consider this as a calculated brand strategy, things very quickly become clear.

To explain exactly how this is achieved, I made a tiktok (yes, I know) about something in place branding known as the “Bilbao Effect.”

timesfreepress.com/news/life/ente…
Very simply put, it is influencer branding for institutions and places. Brands rely upon an existing set of beliefs regarding physical signifiers and can utilize certain symbols to bring consumers into their brand world.

It’s the exact reason when you see a Starbucks or a whole
Foods move into a certain area, you not only think things will gentrify, it’s almost certain they will because the physical presence of the institution signals to both residents and gentrifiers a shift in culture and value.

Attaching to an existing, centuries old brand with a
Set of rules, beliefs and assumptions like the evangelical church provided the GOP with an immense amount of both external and internal branding.

It married political beliefs with religious ones so that if people outside (or even inside) the faith questioned them
It was likened to questioning a belief system, not a policy. It also helps that there’s a perpetual martyrdom narrative amongst western Christians that tells believers that they are constantly tested by a secular world. Despite the fact that even as the number of Christians
In the United States has been steadily declining, they still make up a majority of the country at 65% (as of 2019).

pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-…
The last thing I’ll touch on here is that under even the slightest of scrutiny, many conservative viewpoints as expressed by the GOP crumble. People are perplexed by the fact that they don’t seem to reflect actual Christian beliefs.

This is why they rely upon slogans as
That don’t really mean much and are more about branding what they are not moreso than what they stand for.

“ProLife,” “All Lives Matter,” and even “freedom” shouldn’t be considered actual beliefs but the branding of their opposition to what they consider secular depravity.
So if you’re still perplexed why the GOPs relationship to the church, it’s really all just branding. It’s why Tru*p chose the GOP, because he cares about nothing more than his brand...
*in the second tweet of this thread, it should say that they couldn’t *openly* rely on racial division. But as we can see *gestures at everything*

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More from @Imani_Barbarin

Jan 18
TW: suicide

By the way, you all fundamentally do not understand the stakes: people are not afraid of your threats of fascism because they feel that their greatest relief would not be Biden, but death.

Have you been paying attention? Do you hear how people are talking about
Suicide? People lament waking up and not dying in the sleep in the form of jokes. They see no advancement in their lives, they see themselves being worked endlessly until death.

People are hanging on by a fucking thread and you’re chomping at the bit to punish them for not
Voting for Biden with fascism and concentration camps? They’ll kill themselves before that happens.

They see no hope in the future you’re advertising (assuming you have any plan for the future to communicate to begin with).

People can’t buy a home, they can’t afford it.
Read 6 tweets
Dec 30, 2023
I’m just posting this for posterity: but the thing that pisses me off with how disabled people are treated every single election cycle is when people offer or organize rides for disabled people to vote.

Most disabled people struggle with freedom of movement, it is extremely
Hard to get anywhere when you have a disability and that is even in cities with existing transit infrastructure. Even still it can be a demeaning process and there’s no assurances.

Never mind if you live in a rural or suburban area where transit options may be scarce or
Nonexistent.

So, whenever people, particularly liberals find themselves with all the organizing prowess in the world to make sure disabled people have rides to vote, I think about all the times they didn’t.

Did they have a ride to go hang out in town? To go to the doctors?
Read 4 tweets
Dec 29, 2023
The sad reality is that COVID is likely to be one of the greatest political blunders in the history of the U.S., let alone the globe.

And, for the “resistance” crowd, the fascinating part is how you all seemed to miss that the spread of Covid was literally a part of the plan.
Jared Kushner signaled in 2020 that they WANTED Covid to spread, specifically to “Blue” states so that Dems would shoulder the political brunt of the fallout—only for democrats to walk head first into that themselves when Biden took office.

We are only at the very beginning of
NBC article titled Did Trump and Kushner ignore blue state COVID-19 testing as deaths spiked? It's easy to get numbed by this presidency's cascade of awfulness, but, even by Trumpian standards, the amorality of such a suggestion is breathtaking.
Selection from NBC article that is highlighted and reads: Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner's team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. "The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy," said the expert
Seeing the impact of COVID on global politics. We are in its infancy.

And while Long Covid rates appear to be on the decline, the reality is still that millions of people are struggling/will likely struggle—and we haven’t even begun to fully unravel its impact on future gen’s.
Read 5 tweets
Dec 22, 2023
While I will never tell a person with a disability how they should describe themselves, I mostly hear the phrase “differently abled” from nondisabled people speaking about disabled people and the use does more harm than good.

Firstly, it releases society of any responsibility
In making an accessible society but rather puts the onus on the disabled person presenting societally disabling barriers as merely difficulties that do not need to be systematically addressed.

Also, people, while you can be gentle with introducing disability into their
Personal identity, need to be able to use the word, particularly when applying to services and supports that legally require use of the word for grant funding and service targets. As much as Nondisabled people may think “differently abled” helps, it can materially keep people
Read 4 tweets
Dec 22, 2023
Ableism is wild because it is quite literally the accelerator for almost all oppression.

Racism: look up the logic behind “bodies made for labor.

Sexism: see “hysteria”

Homophobia: the same architects of conversion therapy designed autism therapies.

Fatphobia: “why are you
Eating your way to a disability?”

Xenophobia: the western gaze presents nonwhite cultures as unintelligent at points implying they’re intellectually disabled.

Classism: poor people are presented as too lazy and not fit for society

Imperialism: mass disabling events that
Prohibit freedom of movement, filter people through inadequate medical systems and present any violence and disease that happens to victims as “just something that happens!”

So when Gavin Newsom and democrats reinvent the systems of institutionalization that has historically
Read 5 tweets
Dec 9, 2023
There’s not a single person on the left that thinks Trump would be a better president, but most know that Democrats would be better people, organizers and advocates under Trump.

Most on the left have come to the conclusion Dems would rather perform opposition and “resistance”
Than actually invest in the progressive policies people want and Dems have the capacity to move forward when in office but don’t because they only adopt progressive platforms—appropriate them is the better term because they actually come from grassroot movements and marginalized
Communities— to collect marginalized people who see hope in those policies.

Which means dashing people’s hope over and over again for votes and rarely, if ever, delivering.

Then when people speak out against that tactic, Dems fear monger about things getting worse and/or
Read 5 tweets

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