There are now just 40 days until not just the most important election of anyone's lifetime - but in my view, the most important political moment the entire Western world has faced since the war. And the reason for that is because of what's going to follow.
Winter is coming.
Ahead of any US presidential election, I'd normally be looking at the polls, the forecasts. Who's up, who's down? I'm not doing that this year - because I think it's going to be irrelevant.
I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death was, very likely, the moment American democracy died.
The Republicans' disgusting hypocrisy in immediately demanding her seat is filled isn't just to turn the conservative majority from 5-4 to 6-3. It's entirely so they can fix the election. That is the plan; that is what they're going to do.
Whose supporters are, because they're more responsible, more aware, much more likely to use mail-in ballots during a global pandemic? Biden's.
Whose supporters are much more likely to vote on the day - and intimidate any Democrats doing the same thing? Trump's.
Trump's plan is based around the following. It's not about who wins the electoral college based on the total votes. It's about if there's a difference between the mail-in results, and the on the day results. Which there inevitably will be.
And if (when) there is, the response will be: "See? The difference means this was rigged! These results are a fraud! I'm going to the Supreme Court!"
Which, with its huge conservative majority, will simply do whatever he wants. That's what happens in autocracies.
The reason RBG's death was so pivotal is: I don't think Chief Justice Roberts - who does respect the constitution - will play ball. But the other five (including whoever the new justice is) will. They're beholden to Trump, who is like a mafia boss.
Then think of what the fall-out will involve. There are already protests sweeping the US because of police brutality, racism and total unaccountability: confirmed yet again by the horrific failure to prosecute anyone for Breonna Taylor's murder.
Well - Trump fixing the election would turn what's currently a frozen civil war into something rather hotter. And as law and order collapses, in will go the military alongside the police. Much death and violence will be the result, as the world looks on in horror.
It is - and has always been - absolute cloud cuckoo land to imagine that a criminal gangster and his criminal family will just walk away from office if they lose an election. The stakes are far too high for them to do so. If they walk away, they'll go to jail.
Authoritarians do not respect democracy - and the courts do their bidding. That's always been the case; there's nothing new in that. What's new in this case is that the United States is about to have its democracy forcibly removed.
And if that happens, then think of what it'll mean for the world. The US is, by a million miles, the world's strongest military power. So its traditional allies will, at least to some extent, also have to play ball... or else.
The US won't wake up to 2021... but to 1933.
Because when you remove democracy and accountability, you can do entirely what you want, to whoever you want.
- To journalists
- To political opponents
- To activists
- To anyone non-white
And fascism descends, with much blood, as the conversion to dictatorship accelerates.
Last week, something extraordinary happened in Britain. Ahead of a democratic election in a much more powerful allied nation, it is borderline unheard of for a governing party to openly side with its government - because you have to work with whoever wins that election.
"What are the Tories doing?", we wondered. "How can they afford to alienate the Democrats at a time like this when they desperately need a trade deal?"
Well - maybe the Tories already know what's going to go down. Maybe they already know that Trump will stay, no matter what.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
When I was a kid, such was the sheer quality of the news coverage on British television, I thought journalists told the truth. And were motivated by exactly that: holding truth to power, essential to any flourishing democracy.
I watched Newsnight and Channel 4 News avidly. I read the Sunday Times news review every weekend.
And the BBC's coverage of conflict in the Middle East, through fearless reporters like Jeremy Bowen, Orla Guerin and John Simpson, was consistently outstanding.
Back then, there were next to no fears on British journalism's part of being denounced as 'antisemitic' for telling the truth about Israel's conduct.
Media whitewashing went on all the time quite disgracefully in the US - but not in the UK or across Europe.
THREAD: The Supreme Court, trans rights, and the left.
Many times over the last 4 or 5 years, I've warned again and again about the ludicrous rabbit hole of its own making which the contemporary left was disappearing down over trans rights and women's rights.
A rabbit hole which would inevitably be exploited by the far right for its own appalling ends. As is currently happening, to the horror of so many looking on, in the United States and elsewhere.
I had hoped the Supreme Court's clarification would help the UK left see sense.
The Labour Party, thankfully, gradually has: bit by bit.
But the online left, very left wing Labour MPs, the Greens, large swathes of the SNP and of the US Democrats haven't at all. It's all too plain that hardly any of them have learnt anything.
That's not to say I'm in any way oblivious to the insane levels of inequality and unfairness now. I told her it was harder to buy a house now than at any time since the nineteenth century.
But very many boomers DIDN'T "have it easy". Not at all. Especially single ones.
- If someone failed the utterly appalling, disgraceful 11 plus, that consigned them to a massively harder life than the few who didn't
- Yes, university was free. But most people DIDN'T GO TO UNIVERSITY
- Wages were pathetic and there was NO minimum wage at all
There's already been plenty of complaints on here that the Prime Minister is 'sucking up to Trump'.
No folks. He's trying to maintain the most incredibly fine balancing act. And so is Macron by the way.
Both of them have to do that.
Macron has more leeway for several reasons.
1. He's known Trump for much, much longer. He's one of very few world leaders who's been in office almost as long as when Trump first became President.
2. He has no more elections to fight, so can be a little freer in what he says.
3. The long, long tradition of Gaullism in French foreign policy means that France usually sides with the US - but is more independent and critical in how it conducts itself.
Yet despite that, and the images yesterday of Macron challenging Trump, he also did the following.
UNPOPULAR OPINION (among the left and probably many of my followers): the modern liberal left, of whom I've always been a card carrying member, got it VERY wrong on mass immigration.
And all because it didn't try to remake society after Thatcher wrecked it and the working class.
What the UK has been crying out for for many decades now has been huge investment across the country.
When Johnson spoke of 'levelling up', he was more than onto something. He'd hit the nail on the head. But because the Tories are a bunch of shysters and crooks, nothing happened
Britain's has been a quite ludicrously unbalanced, unsustainable economy for as long as I can remember now.
Skewed completely towards property, financial services, speculators and billionaire leeches. And quite unbelievably skewed towards south-east England too.