Dear doomsayers: If you're new to my feed, please check out my FAQs.

Don't say untrue things like "the entire system is broken." It's just as big a lie as "the election was rigged and Trump didn't lose."

As @selectedwisdom has explained . . .

1/
. . . a goal of Active Measures is to undermine confidence in public institutions.

Trump lost the election, but NOOOOO that isn't enough. Trump is filing frivolous lawsuits so WE ARE DOOMED.

The danger isn't a Trump coup. . .

2/
. . . the danger is that people are not willing to put in the necessary work to make democracy work.

Yeah, I'm going on a tear. If you've heard this lecture before, you can stop reading.

Nobody owes you a democracy. For most of American history, we lived in a hierarchy.

3/
People moaning about how bad things need to consider what life was like in 1850 for a Black woman. She didn't even own her own body. Literally.

Yes, Trump is a threat to democracy.
Yes, the right-wing well-oiled propaganda machine is a threat to democracy.

4/
But when people talk about "the system" and "American democracy," consider this -- until about 1955, we didn't actually have a democracy.

We had Jim Crow. That wasn't democracy for a lot of people.

In the 19th century a woman couldn't vote.

5/
The "system" people say is "broken" is actually less than 100 years old.

We got here because of the hard work of people like Thurgood Marshall, Susan B. Anthony, MJK, Jr. and so many others who literally dedicated their lives getting rid of the 19th century patriarchy.

6/
America didn't begin to transition to a true liberal democracy until after about 1955.

1954: Brown v. Board (the Supreme Court case that held segregation illegal.)

1955: The backlash against Brown v. Board picked up momentum.

We're still riding the backlash.

7/
Wanna know why Mitch McConnell and friends cared ONLY about confirming Amy Coney Barrett?

Wanna know why they were so determined?

Because they are STILL angry at the decision in Brown v Board, and the liberal decisions that followed and changed America.

8/
Trump didn't appear out of the clear blue sky and fracture a perfectly good democracy.

Since 1954, a liberal democracy has been struggling to take hold in America.

Trump and friends are doing everything they can to turn back the clock to before 1954 and before 1920.

9/
Before 1920, there was not much of a "deep state."

That was before the regulatory agencies and regulations that prevented [white] men from grabbing and cheating.

On the frontier they could grab land!
They could grab women!

10/
Before regulatory agencies, they could manipulate prices and fix markets. They could cheat! They could force people to work for pennies! They didn't have to provide worker safety!

🎶Those were the days 🎶
(That's Archie Bunker singing, not Mary Hopkins)

They wanna go back.

11/
Sure, why not. They had it good.

The Trumps and Mitch McConnells have always been around.

They were pro-slavery. Then pro-Jim Crow. They liked the age of robber barons. They hated the New Deal.

They'll always be around.

We push forward.
They push back.

12/
We create laws that create fairness for everyone. They roll the laws back.

It doesn't end until we give up.

This is why I keep saying that the solution is productive civic engagement. Doomsaying is not productive.

I rest my case.

13/

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More from @Teri_Kanefield

12 Nov
The GOP leadership is in a bind. Trump controls the "base." The GOP leadership can't get elected without them.

That's how Trump was able to force Loeffler and Perdue to attack GA the secretary of state.

The GOP got into this mess when it outsourced voter mobilization.

1/
Paul Pierson and @Jacob_S_Hacker explain in⤵️

At first, the Fox-GOP partnership was a boon to GOP candidates, but what the authors call “outsourcing voter mobilization” has drawbacks. Eventually, FOX exerted control over GOP officials . . .

2/ Image
They were forced to cater to Fox’s demands, which forced GOP officials to adopt more extreme policies.

Now it appears that Trump has taken over from Fox.

Trump controls the GOP voters. That's where he gets his power.

3/
Read 5 tweets
11 Nov
To be clear: Trump would love to pull off a coup d'état but he doesn't have the ability.

Pinochet had the army with him.

Trump couldn't even strongarm Ukraine (a vulnerable country) without getting caught and stopped.

Trump's skill: lying and controlling the narrative.
Guiliani and Trump kicked off Operation Ukraine Shakedown after the 2018 midterms, when the writing was on the wall: They would lose the election.

The plan was for Ukraine to launch an "investigation" into Biden, who Trump correctly assessed would be his opponent.
If it looks like a coup might succeed, yes. But there are no signs that Trump can actually pull anything off.

Right now taking to the streets will create more chaos that will play into Trump's hands, so I respectfully disagree.

Read 5 tweets
10 Nov
The courts aren't going to install a dictator (which is what ignoring the vote would do).

Lawsuits require evidence.

Moreover, federal judges with lifetime appointments have no motive to install a dictator and (effectively) give up all their own power to a vindictive person.
People are asking about the military. The military is not going to install Trump as a dictator. Soldiers and generals would have to obey illegal orders and circumvent the Constitution. Not. Going. To. Happen.

This country is too big.

That said, Trump is up to something.
He's figuring out how to line his own pockets and cover his tracks.

He's figuring out how to maneuver the levers of government for his personal enrichment while he controls them.

He's figuring out how to consolidate influence (collect favors, perhaps) to remain relevant.
Read 7 tweets
10 Nov
KM asks why the GOP leadership is terrified of losing.

(Both Lindsay Graham and Matt Gaetz said if the GOP loses this election, they'll never win again.)

GOP is a minority party. If they lose power, they lose the ability to manipulate systems to keep minority control.

1/
The fear is also explained by Richard Hofstader, who wrote the classic work⤵️

Hofstadter reviewed American politics from before the founding of the nation through McCarthyism. He noticed a pattern among an impassioned minority on the fringes of the political spectrum.

2/ Image
He called their behavior the “paranoid style” in politics.

Those embracing the paranoid style of politics believe that unseen satanic forces are trying to destroy something larger in which they belong.

3/
Read 11 tweets
10 Nov
On his way out the door, Trump will still be insisting that the election was rigged and the Democrats stole it through massive fraud involving absentee ballots ⤵️

Here's how to understand that particular lie.

1/
Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued that Trump’s lies actually point out deeper truths:


Essentially she was saying that Trump's lies are metaphorically true.

One example of that is birtherism.

2/
Birtherism was a provable lie, but Obama—a Black man with a foreign-sounding name—wasn’t a “real” American.

The mail-in ballot fraud lie serves a similar purpose, which is why the Republican leadership is not speaking up . . .

3/

Read 4 tweets
9 Nov
Big Tents Get Messy.

The Republican Party represents a minority of Americans. The party is mostly white and Christian and somewhat reactionary. It’s largely homogenous.

The Democratic Party includes: Everyone else.

1/
Democratic Party includes

💠Latino communities in California
💠Southern African American communities
💠Urban intellectuals
💠Big, diverse cities
💠Democratic socialists from Queens
💠Asian communities in California
💠LGBTQ
💠 Pro-union working-class Whites
Etc. Etc. Etc.
2/
When we say, “The GOP demographics are aging and shrinking, and the Democratic base is expanding” Democrats cheer. It means we can win elections.

It also means that we are a huge, diverse heterogeneous group.

2/
Read 16 tweets

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