1/ Dems are going about this tax story the wrong way. They really think working class white people like him bc they see him as a regular guy and talking about how he pays less than they do in taxes will flip them...bullshit...that was never why they liked him...(cont)..
2/ talking about working class folks paying more taxes in a month than he has for years won't matter. He and many others can write that off to him being 'smart enuf' to work the system. These white folks don't dislike the rich, they wish they could pull the same scams...(cont)..
3/ Instead, they should hammer at the fact that he's such a shit businessman that he lost (by his own admission) billions, year after year. He's a loser. A failure, even on his own terms. THAT will get under his skin and cause him to flail wildly, turning off all but his base...
4/ And it undermines the thing many Trump voters who aren't his base have said to justify their vote for him: "I like him bc he makes his own money and doesn't need this job, blah blah blah..." His base won't leave. Who cares. But this attack can kill him with everyone else.
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Saying "He who saves his country does not break any law," is not only ridiculous, legally, but it's an incitement to extremist violence. Whether one is "saving one's country" is a matter of interpretation. And to Trump, anything that makes America whiter saves it.
A 🧵...
2/ This is the position of every neo-Nazi and other white nationalist too. So whether it's anti-Black violence, anti-immigrant violence, or other related forms (anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish), extremists will see this statement from Trump as a green light...
3/ And the threat is not academic or hypothetical. Right now the DOJ is prosecuting leaders of the Terrorgram Collective -- a white supremacist group designated as a terrorist org in the waning days of the Biden administration. So far Trump's DOJ is still prosecuting them...
MLK believed in the equity efforts Trump opposes (including affirmative action). He fought to end housing discrimination. Trump was sued for practicing it. He acknowledged America's systemic racism problem. Trump would ban that concept in schools and government trainings. A 🧵..
2/ I realize many of you don't know any of this about King's views bc all you've heard is one line (out of context) from one speech and you never read his books. If you had even listened to the entire I Have a Dream Speech you would know better...
3/ In that speech he accused America of giving Black folks “a bad check." Then in 1964 in Why We Can't Wait he mocked those who opposed what we would now call affirmative action for not understanding what equal opportunity required. Here's what he said...
2/ First, as @kareem_carr noted, there is no source offered to verify this data, and there's good reason to believe it's made up, bc the FBI doesn’t release data two weeks into a new year, on last year’s homicide rates. The data lag tends to take longer than that...
3/ And yes, that matters because it calls into question why someone would just make up these numbers and share them like some bombshell. The motivation can only be, logically, to stoke racial fears and resentment. There is no innocent explanation. None...
For people who assumed the NOLA truck terrorist was an undocumented border crosser, despite no evidence (he was, in fact, born in the US), what is wrong with you? Do you even care that your ignorant hot takes are wrong? Or is deception OK in the service of your cause? A 🧵...
2/ Will you now just pivot to Islam and call for crackdowns on Muslims, including citizens, since the terrorist had an ISIS flag and (from what we can assume) was motivated by Muslim extremism?...
3/ And that begs the question: what would you have called for if this guy had been white and/or Christian? When a white dude blew up a half-block of downtown w/a truck bomb in Nashville several years back y'all went quiet soon as his ID was made. We know why...
Funny (but not surprising) how John McWhorter in today's NYT (link at the end) took my quote about Daniel Penny's killing of Jordan Neely and proceeded to "rebut" it while ignoring two-thirds of what I claimed, and the argument underlying the other third. A 🧵...
2/ First, I called Penny a "racist, classist, ableist murderer." I said it. I meant it. I stand by it. Interestingly, McWhorter ignored the classism and ableism pieces altogether, even though I deliberately included them and view the three things as intersectional here...
3/ ...meaning, I think it was the combo of Neely's blackness, his economic status, and his mental illness (disability) that made Penny's reaction more likely. So, for instance, I doubt he treats a Black stockbroker in a suit that way on the subway, even if acting a bit "off..."
I don't think going on Joe Rogan would have helped Harris. But if it's true that progressive staffers were the reason she didn't -- because they think it's beneath her, or would provoke backlash -- those staffers are puritanical idiots. A brief 🧵...
2/ I detest progressives who think we shouldn't "legitimize" folks like Rogan by appearing on his show. Um, hey precious, don't know if you noticed but he doesn't need our legitimacy. He has the biggest podcast in the world so...
3/ This asceticism which leads some on the left to want to avoid anything that might be less erudite than Rachel Maddow is maddening. Grow up. I know Rogan et al are absurd and ignorant. And I also know millions find them persuasive and important, so now what?...