2/20. Democracy is undone from within rather than from without.
3/20. The occasion to undo democracy is often an election.
4/20. The mechanism to undo democracy is usually a fake emergency, a claim that internal enemies have done something outrageous.
5/20. A tyrant cares about his person, not the Republic.
6/20. A tyrant fears prosecution and poverty after leaving office.
7/20. Donald Trump faces criminal investigations and owes a billion dollars to creditors.
8/20. Donald Trump has said all along that he would ignore the vote count.
9/20. What Donald Trump is attempting to do has a name: coup d'état. Poorly organized though it might seem, it is not bound to fail. It must be made to fail.
10/20. Coups are defeated quickly or not at all. While they take place we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete we are powerless.
11/20. American exceptionalism prevents us from seeing basic truths.
12/20. Biden voters are wrong to see a Biden administration as inevitable. Take responsibility, Democrats.
13/20. In an authoritarian situation, the election is only round one. You don't win by winning round one.
14/20. Peaceful demonstrations after elections are necessary for transitions away from authoritarianism, as in Poland in 1989, Serbia in 1999, or Belarus right now.
15/20. It is up to civil society, organized citizens, to defend the vote and to peacefully defend democracy.
16/20. Dance after the wedding, not before. Take responsibility, Americans.
17/20. Republicans endorsing the claim of fraud endanger the Republic.
18/20. Calling an opponent's victory fraudulent risks assassination, as in Poland in 1922.
19/20. Creating a myth of a "stab in the back" by internal enemies, as Republicans are helping Trump to do, justifies violence against other citizens, as in interwar Germany.
20/20. Persuading your voters that the other side cheated starts a downward spiral. Your voters will expect you to cheat next time. Take responsibility, Republicans.
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1/5. Predictably Putin has blamed Ukraine (see my thread from yesterday) for the terror attack in Moscow (for which ISIS claimed responsibility).
2/5. Putin's argument that the suspects were heading to Russian-Ukrainian border makes no sense – Russia has 20,000 km of borders, why would they head to the one place where Russian army and security forces are most concentrated?
3/5. Putin's claim is that suspects were stopped in Bryansk. Assuming this is true: from Moscow that's rather the route to Belarus.
1/7. US warns that Russia will invade Ukraine. General disbelief, daily Russian mockery. (December 3, 2021-February 24, 2022)
2/7. Russia invades Ukraine, kills tens of thousands of people, kidnaps tens of thousands of children, commits other ongoing war crimes (February 24, 2022-present)
3/7. Russia blames US for Russia's invasion of Ukraine (March 2022-present)
1/10. Can a constitution defend itself? Germans have asked this question, and given an answer. So, for that matter, have Americans.
2/10. In the histories of both Germany and the United States, today the world's most important democracies, there came a moment when a minority, willing to use violence, sought to break the constitutional order.
3/10. In both cases this led to horrifying levels of killing, and only then a restoration (Germany) or elevation (the United States) of constitutionalism.
1/10. I am concerned that the Supreme Court, in ruling on Trump's eligibility for office, will make itself ridiculous.
2/10. This is where the comic potential emerges. This Court is unlikely ever to hear again a case of such simplicity, in which the text and context of the Constitution so obviously demand an unambiguous verdict
3/10. But three of our textualists and the intentionalists were appointed by Trump, and silliness seems to be the general expectation. The theory of Trump's lawyers, as one of them has actually said out loud, is that Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump belong to Trump.