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Sean Casten Profile picture
@SeanCasten
Sep 24, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
The party that couldn't find the courage to stand up to Gingrich's anti-intellectual nihilism got captured by the Tea Party.
The party that couldn't find the courage to stand up to the Tea Party's anti-intellectual populism got captured by Trump.
The party that lacks the courage to stand up to Trump's anti-intellectual racism is on track to get captured by QAnon.
Do not look to them for courage. Do not look to them for leadership. This is the result of a 30 year process that has selected for anti-intellectual obedience. They are who they are.
The American people are better. Thats why the @GOP can't win democratic elections. Their power comes only from those institutions that do not reflect the popular will. (Senate, Electoral College, and if they get their way, SCOTUS)
So don't lose faith in America. But we must bring to account every single @GOP official who contributed to this moment. Our 244 year experiment is on the ballot this election, because defending democracy has become partisan.

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More from @SeanCasten

Sean Casten Profile picture
Mar 7
Some morning thoughts on where we are in this constitutional crisis and what we all have to do - and believe - to get out of this with our democracy intact:
1. First, the idea that you could have a democracy based on rule of law is a radical idea, no less so today than it was 250 years ago. Most of human history depended on might-makes-right, all powerful rulers.
2. Trump has no respect for that idea or our 250 year old experiment, but he understands that Mad Max philosophy that governed most of human history. And therefore understands how fragile any democracy is.
Read 17 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
Feb 26
This is what you do if you are mathematically illiterate and don’t give a damn about deficits. It is as stupid as it is irresponsible. Don’t let the words confuse you - it’s just a way to give money to billionaires. Quick explainer: Image
1. The Trump tax cuts passed in his last term blew a $2T hole in the budget. (I’ll explain this slowly for my slower colleagues: if you cut revenue, you have less money.). That was a 10 year tax cut, soon to return to the pre-Trump levels.
2. When the CBO scores legislation, they score it over a 10 year window, on the assumption that all existing laws remain in place. Since this law is about to expire, any forward projection of the US fiscal position should assume that tax revenues will soon go up.
Read 7 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
Feb 26
So House Republicans voted on a budget tonight that would cut ~$800B+ from Medicaid. Among other things, but it’s important to understand how much that will hurt every single one of us. (Spoiler: they know all of this - but they hate you.)
1. Medicaid is widely, but incompletely understood as health insurance for poor folks. It’s what you have if you aren’t old enough for Medicare, don’t have employer provided health insurance, aren’t rich enough to self-insure.
2. So let’s say you think Jesus got it totally wrong in the sermon on the mount. Screw the meek you say. You’re rich, so why help anyone else? Here’s why it hurts you too.
Read 10 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
Feb 24
Because there seem to be some indignant folks suggesting that it is standard practice for a CEO to demand daily performance updates or else fire you, a few observations from a guy who spent 20 years in the private sector 16 as CEO and the last 6 in government…
1. First, if you think that government employees aren’t already setting goals, doing performance reviews and being held accountable.. they are. And if you’ve ever lamented that the gov’t has too much bureaucracy - HR is a part of that bureaucracy!
2. In my past job I sold stuff to the government and big corporates. They’re both a pain in the butt as customers. Interminable sign offs, reviews and checks to confirm the purchase tracks with larger goals. Bureaucratic decision making is innate to large organizations.
Read 17 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
Feb 20
This story is heartbreaking but unsurprising. In the ~4 years we've been negotiating crypto regulation NO ONE from industry has pushed for rules that would enhance consumer protection, anti-money laundering or audit control. So people like this get hurt. nytimes.com/2025/02/19/mag…
I'm open to the possibility that there is some value in crypto. But when all the legislative proposals allow for the preservation of tools to hide identity, preserve conflicts of interest between issuers, brokers and exchanges and...
...provide no balance sheet transparency one must assume that the criminality is too big a revenue source for them to have an interest in shutting it down.
Read 4 tweets
Sean Casten Profile picture
Feb 12
We cannot overstate the risk posed when the US says that maps are negotiable, with borders to be redrawn by whoever uses force to take land, rule of law be damned. This is music to the ears of Chinese eyeing Taiwan and Russians eyeing Eastern Europe. nytimes.com/2025/02/12/wor…
70 years of peace after WWII was sustained in no small part because the United States consistently - if imperfectly - reiterated the principle that might does not make right. Abandoning that principle opens the door to global chaos.
That was historically bipartisan, and - dare I say - Republican bedrock principle. HW Bush after all ensured that Iraq could not seize Kuwaiti oil and in so doing ensured that the Putins and Xis of the world satisfy themselves in current borders.
Read 4 tweets

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