Thread by @mcjulie

Kind of fascinated that people on this thread are talking about a "contingency plan" like... we need a plan either way, kids, and there's still a BUNCH of factors in play, it's not a simple toggle between "everything's okay" and "holy shit, revolution time"

https://twitter.com/TheAuthorGuy/status/1316833601804140544

I mean, one thing the damn pandemic probably should've taught us is that you can't really make plans, actually.

But the thing I keep going back to is -- why *are* the Republicans where they are, with this seemingly iron grip on our country, in spite of being a minority party with unpopular ideas?

And it's because they made a plan, but it was a very long-term plan with a lot of flexibility *and acceptance of failure* worked in.

Like, you could've asked Republicans what they were going to do if Obama won in 2012 and the answer would've been: the same thing we do every election cycle, libs, try to take over the world.

The Republican plan after every electoral defeat is:
1. Complain LOUDLY & INCESSANTLY about how the Dem victory was fundamentally invalid
2. Throw sand in the gears of anything Dems try to do
3. Until the next time you win
4. Then make it harder for Dems to beat you

We kind of have to do the same thing to fight them, don't you think?

It's not a symmetrical playing field. The Republicans own the media, as the fiasco of NBC airing Trump's "covid spreader event" directly opposite Biden's town hall should demonstrate, AND they pretend the media's against them, a very successful con.

So, we can be relentless about pointing out that the media is quite conservative, actually, with phrases like "center-right CNN" or "Trump-friendly NBC" but that asymmetry is still going to be there.

But we can throw sand in the gears of what Republicans are trying to do, and when we do win, we can make it harder for them to beat us next time --

Which, I can already hear the objections, doesn't that make us "as bad as" the Republicans and the answer is no, because our goals are morally correct.

We want to throw sand in the gears of a FASCIST machinery of white Christian supremacy and oppression.

We want to make it harder for them to beat us by EXPANDING the franchise and making our country more democratic.

And maybe this is the final thing that Republicans do: no matter how badly they get their asses kicked, they always hold firm to the belief that they're still right, it's the voters who were wrong.

We can do that too.
I mean, if we don't think we're ultimately in the right, what are we even doing?