Share this page!

David Roberts Profile picture
Twitter logo
21 Nov, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Let's look at a little vignette of today's GOP. @LindseyGrahamSC committed what amounts to felony voter fraud on behalf of Trump: slate.com/news-and-polit…
When news of Graham's fraud got out, prominent Democrats called for him to resign. He then used those calls to promote himself to the Trump base.
Two things worth noting about this. First, the message: there are no real rules, no neutral referees. No one *really* cares about principles. There's only a zero-sum competition. To be a loyal member of one's side is to do ANYTHING, illegal or not, to help it win. Anything.
That message is going out to millions of people in Trump's base: ANYTHING is ok if it helps our side win. It is all but inevitable that some of them will use that message to justify violence. Graham knows this perfectly well.
And second, can we just take a moment to appreciate how utterly repulsive Graham's supposed friend & mentor John McCain would find him today? Just imagine how horrified & disappointed he would be at what a sad apparatchik @LindseyGrahamSC has become.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with David Roberts

David Roberts Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @drvox

David Roberts Profile picture
22 Nov
Wow, I didn't expect much from this podcast ("not a monolith," ok, we get it!) but it turned out to be a total mind blower. @IanHaneyLopez cuts through the "woke vs. shut-up-about-woke" debate in an incredibly productive & thoughtful way. Recommended. stitcher.com/show/the-ezra-…
One insight I wish everyone on the left could hear: the anti-racist message of siding with the oppressed & dispossessed is NOT necessarily appealing to all of the vast category of people we call "people of color." It's certainly not *automatically* appealing.
At the same time, "moderates" need to hear that racial messaging is not some separate thing from economics. The most appealing message, in surveys, is that *rich people are using race to divide & screw working people*.
Read 5 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
21 Nov
I used to wonder, "what level of threat would rouse the institutional Democratic Party to actually FIGHT, fight like desperate people willing to do anything to save their country?" It's become pretty clear that there is no such level of threat. They'll politely watch it go under.
The lesson the Dem gerontocracy learned from impeachment is that it was unpopular. It lost them votes. It reaffirmed their priors that fighting back is a losing proposition. None of them reflected on how we've ended up in a social/media environment where that could happen ...
... where an openly criminal scumbag president could loot the country & the public could so fully & profoundly misunderstand the situation that they see impeachment as "partisan squabbling." Instead they just accept the polls & herd in the other direction.
Read 6 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
20 Nov
"Al Gore protested when George Bush stole the election from him, therefore Trump is justified protesting at losing in a comparative landslide in a completely clean election" is a parody of whataboutism.
I think so much about Al Gore's concession. He was utterly sincere about rising above personal desire & partisan advantage & doing the right thing for the country. He absolutely believed it. "They go low, we go high," the iconic case.
And not only did the nobility not register with Republicans, they are now using it as an example of its complete, utter opposite! Acting according to principles that transcend partisanship is INVISIBLE to the right. A part of the light spectrum they cannot see.
Read 6 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
19 Nov
What Trump is establishing right now is a new norm for the conservative movement, whereby "fighting for you" means disrupting the electoral process at every opportunity & rejecting results conservatives don't like. Even if he fails in this attempt, the norm will stand.
From now on, every conservative that loses an election and doesn't try to fuck up or defy the voting process will be labeled a cuck or a RINO. There's just no way to overstate how toxic this is in a democracy, far beyond the question of Trump himself.
Two things about this half-ass coup attempt, in response to lots of comments I'm seeing. First, the fact that it's likely to fail this year is NOT reason to ignore it or treat it blithely. It's establishing precedent, gearing the entire movement up for the next attempt.
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
16 Nov
Listen to @mattsheffield, who worked for years inside conservative media, explain how profoundly broken it is & how its victims might be freed from its clutches. wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/s…
The most important thing Sheffield says, here & in his tweets, is that the people involved in RW media are not journalists. They are not acting on (& do not understand) journalistic principles. They are advancing the cause of US conservatism. So simple, so important, so ignored.
And what's more, they do not believe that a different approach is possible. As always, they take talk about transpartisan principles as some kind of trick, or gambit. In a zero-sum reactionary world, there are only competing groups, only group interests, nothing else.
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
16 Nov
The idea that forgiving student debt would cause enormous political backlash among those who have no such debt, or have already paid it, reflects an utterly dismal view of humanity. It also strikes me as correct.
Social science suggests that most people do not have distinct or coherent views on political issues, the way the politically engaged do, but all humans are hyper, hyper sensitive to fairness & reciprocity. People will even act against their own self-interest on those grounds.
It is easy to whip up the resentments of non-political normies with appeals to fairness & reciprocity. You pay taxes & they get welfare? They get affirmative action but you don't? You worked your way through school and now these kids get it free? It's not fair.
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get email notifications when new thread is out from this Author!

Check out other threads from this Author!

Read all threads by @drvox