Why don't reporters ask Republicans about the way they've been packing courts for years? Has a single prominent Republican had to answer for or explain it? Did a single reporter worry about Rising Partisanship before Ds started talking about fighting back? washingtonpost.com/opinions/repub…
The most important "bias" in US political media is that GOP fuckery - decades of it, perpetually escalating - is simply viewed as a feature of the landscape. Only Ds are treated as having volition, as making *choices* for which they must answer.
I think back to when Reid nuked the judicial filibuster. It was treated as a radical choice, a deliberate escalation of partisan warfare. The fact that McConnell had deliberately decided to filibuster ALL nominees -- violating tradition, breaking a basic Senate function ...
... was treated as a kind of background condition, like the weather, something that just happened, not anything anyone had control over. At no point did any part of the US political class *push McConnell to answer for it*. It just ... was. Only Reid was seen as making choices.
Also adding this thread documenting right-wing court packing. Waiting for any reporter to ask Trump to answer for this.

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More from @drvox

10 Oct
"A right-wing authoritarian movement is engineering minority white rule" is a one-sided story. Literally the most important story in the world right now! But it makes US journalists uncomfortable. You can feel their palpable & increasingly desperate need for an "other side."
And so, after the right has rigged a 6-3 majority in SCOTUS, appointed entirely by presidents/Senate majorities that got fewer votes, preparing to take a series of wildly unpopular anti-democratic steps, the big question in politics ...
... is not whether any of that is OK or defensible, but whether Joe Biden, IF he wins & IF Dems take the Senate, will take a step to push back against he. HE'S the one "contemplating a radical step." HE'S the one "violating norms." It's a fucking joke.
Read 4 tweets
10 Oct
I have a question. I'm an enthusiastic consumer of Zillow porn. Gawking at houses in the Seattle area, I've noticed something. Up to around the $2 or $3 million mark, houses get cooler & cooler: modernism, open floor plans, huge windows, elaborate decks, etc. HOWEVER ...
... when you get above that, into the truly mega-rich houses, they become ... ugly. Like real ugly. Lots of faux colonial or mediterranean nonsense, columns & other decorative frippery, pointless fancy dining rooms, etc. Just a sharp tip over into bloated grossness. So ... why?
Here's an example of what I'd call the mid-rich house. You may not be into the boxy, open-floor-plan modernist thing (I am!), but it's ubiquitous a this price point & lower. zillow.com/homedetails/61…
Read 4 tweets
9 Oct
Maaaan, they are getting really, really close on the right to just outright greenlighting militia vigilantism. Kyle Rittenhouse was just there to "help" police. These militia meatheads were going to "arrest" Whitmer.

We're way closer to brownshirt territory than people grok.
"A private security company is recruiting a 'large contingent' of former US military Special Ops personnel to guard polling sites in Minnesota on Election Day as part of an effort 'to make sure that the Antifas don’t try to destroy the election sites'."
washingtonpost.com/politics/priva…
The RW collectively convincing itself that "antifa" is real & a threat in order to justify actual armed vigilantes that do actual violence to intimidate actual voters ...

... is yet another chapter straight from the Fascism 101 handbook. Copy & paste, same every time.
Read 4 tweets
8 Oct
I can't think of a more paradigmatic example of motivated reasoning that the right deciding that the glib phrase "republic not a democracy" justifies wildly disproportionate political representation for rural white people.
I'm pretty sure if RW media figures told their audiences that their unfair political advantages were justified because argle bargle, you'd have legions of RW posters on here shouting "argle bargle!" with *total conviction*. No irony, no self-awareness -- they'd really believe it!
Conversely, if the fucked-up, arbitrary design features of US government started *disadvantaging* conservatives, the republic-not-a-democracy stuff would fly out the window instantly, replaced by passionate defenses of democracy. And, again, with *total conviction*.
Read 4 tweets
8 Oct
If you internalize all the lessons of toxic masculinity & then just point them at women, you're a feminist!
All right I'm supposed to be working but this 👆really f'ing irritated me so I have to rant a minute. One of my favorite things about AOC, Katie Porter, and the rest of the young generation of women infiltrating American politics is that they are modeling a new kind of strength.
They are showing, through their daily behavior & comportment, that "strength" does not have to mean what it has come to mean for American masculinity: stoicism & emotional illiteracy. It doesn't have to mean being an asshole or gritting your teeth & tolerating assholes.
Read 8 tweets
5 Oct
Trump fundraising emails make it sound like Trump has mild symptoms because he's uniquely tough -- as though people who succumb to Covid do so because they're weak. The right-wing obsession with signaling masculinity is so sweaty & desperate.
How can you even make fun of this? Satire has been weirdly neutralized by this crew.
Again: how can you even mock this? It is so thoroughly self-mocking that there's no room for satire.
Read 8 tweets

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