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Jeet Heer Profile picture
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14 Nov, 7 tweets, 3 min read
1. There's a Robert Crumb story called "The Ruff Tuff Cream Puffs Take Charge!" (from Hup #1, 1987) which does a great job of explaining the cycles of American politics over the last few decades. 1st page Ruff Tuff Cream Puffs are mad!
2. Ruff Tuff Cream Puffs decide they've had it up to here with the liberal wimps.
3. A change of government. The Ruff Tuff Cream Puffs are in charge.
4. Governance by the Ruff Tuff Cream Puffs is ... not good.
5. When the Ruff Tuff Cream Puffs end up destroying everything the liberals have to come back and clean everything up, starting a new cycle.
6. The story, written in 1987, does describe the cycle that runs from Nixon to Carter to Reagan/Bush to Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden. Crumb is out of fashion right now (for reasons good & bad) but it's a great story.
7. Also "Ruff Tuff Cream Puffs" really captures a special type of toxic masculinity: the tough guys who are also super-touchy, quick to take offence, and belligerently injured.

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Jeet Heer Profile picture
14 Nov
This is a smart thread. I agree that the dominant fact is that Trump was at heart of election. Whatever misgivings one might have about Biden's strategy, he did construct one of the few possible coalitions that could defeat Trump.
Is it possible that another coalition, one that tried to fight Trump's advantage among non-college voters head on, could also have won? I think so but Democratic party and primary voters didn't want to risk it. And given threat of Trump, it's hard to blame them for avoiding risk
Going forward, we have to think about the conditions that fuelled Trump's rise. In 2 elections 46% and 47% of population supported an anti-system candidate. That would suggest there is a problem with the system.
Read 4 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
14 Nov
The 3 paths for a coup are courts, military, state legislators. So: 1) lawsuits & laughable & being rejected 2) military leaders keep saying their oath is to constitution 3) state legislators rejecting. Trump has no mechanism for a coup.
To be clear, Trump desperately wants a coup. If he could wish a coup into being, there would be a coup. But as throughout his presidency, there is a disjunction between what he wants and what he is capable of doing.
A future president who is more competent than Trump could use the mechanism Trump has tried and pull off a coup. That's worth thinking about and figuring out how to solve. The danger is real, just not this time.
Read 4 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
13 Nov
1. Make no mistake. A very impressive win on multiple levels. Defeating a sitting president is very, very hard in American system, especially if that president's party has only served 1 term. Only Carter defeat in 1980 in the last century is comparable.
2. In last century only 4 other sitting presidents defeated: Hoover, Ford, Carter, George H.W. Bush. But with Hoover GOP been in power 12 years, with Ford 8 years, with Bush 12 years. Only with Carter do you get switch after party in power only 4 years.
3. Votes aren't all counted but when they are, it looks like Biden will have won by about 7 million votes & nearly 5%. Biden's vote share will be larger than Reagan in 1980. The scale of the rejection of Trump is massive (moreso than embrace of Dems).
Read 5 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
13 Nov
One way to resolve the interminable authoritarianism/fascism/coup discourse is to realize that Trump is very, very lazy and has been sundowning for years. So: half-assed authoritarianism, doddering fascism, a codger coup. The adjective shapes the noun.
It's not just Trump is old but America and the other western nations are much older societies than the classic fascist states of the early 20th century. People are living longer, having fewer kids, so population skews much older. Makes for a different kind of authoritarianism.
True, there is a youth wing of to contemporary rightwing authoritarianism (the Proud Boys etc.) But small subset of LARP-ing losers -- they are dangerous if they have a sympathetic president in power as with Trump, but much weaker than their predecessors.
Read 4 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
13 Nov
1. Amid all the liberal fear of a coup, it's worth noting that the real hazard of the current moment is almost the reverse: Trump has become so disengaged from governing that basic White House functions aren't being taken care of.
2. Most of the coup stuff is Trump day dreaming about some way to stay in power. In the meantime, Covid is raging out of control and there's almost no possibility that Trump will sign the needed stimulus.
3. Trump's presidency has always been more about performance than actually governing. But that's become more extreme after election. Back in March, he could still sign a stimulus check. Now he's gone AWOL.
Read 4 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
11 Nov
1. So what the hell is going on? Trump refuses to concede election, is trying to undermine results with conspiracy theories and has purged the civilian leadership of Pentagon & replaced it with ultra-loyalists. How worried should we be?
2. First of all, I don't think people should be shamed if they are worried. What Trump is doing is very unusual and troublesome. Ronald Brownstein is an eminently centrist liberal and even he's concerned.
3. No one should be complacent but it's important to take each Trump step and see what he could maximally achieve. The lawsuits are all jokes, are getting laughed out of court & aren't enough in any case to overturn Biden's substantial lead.
Read 6 tweets

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