Couple notes to add to this wild scoop by @ErinBanco and @swin24, which you absolutely must read, about Pompeo running a "salt the earth" strategy on US-Iran relations: thedailybeast.com/trump-tells-po…
Last night on @MehdiHasanShow, @tparsi and @barbaraslavin1 discussed precisely this possibility: that the Trump admin and its ME allies want to deepen tensions with Iran to prevent them from having any rapport with a Biden admin:
Of course, this is simply wish fulfillment for Pompeo, who has always been far out ahead of his president on hawking Iran, but who now benefits from Trump's indifference to anything but winning and spoiling those who beat him. See my January dive: newrepublic.com/article/156134…
And it also takes us back to summer 2019, when the U.S. was more or less between defense secretaries, and Pompeo started making trips to U.S. military commands that seemed at odds with a secretary of state's portfolio, just as tensions with Iran deepened. newrepublic.com/article/154228…
Anyhow, Mike Pompeo has demonstrated two things in his tenure at State: He doesn't give a damn about norms, and he enjoys using diplomatic and bureaucratic power to make martial decisions. Remember all of this going forward, as he seeks out a political career post-45
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I was a doctrinaire right-libertarian in a previous life, and I have been able to grasp at least the seductive nature of a lot of Republicanism. But I can't honestly understand how this is a priority for you *unless* you are a eugenicist who feels nothing for the sick and dead
The upper global bound for estimated deaths from the Chernobyl disaster is 60,000, and most experts say it's nowhere near that. Republicans like DeSantis are killing many more people than Dyatlov, Fomin and Bryukhanov did, in similar authoritarian denialist-kitsch fashion
Back when I wrote this, Florida had lost 3,000 people to Covid. Today, the toll stands at 18,596 newrepublic.com/article/158215…
Really tired of all the "responsible" conservatives saying Trump needs to accept the election results "to protect his legacy." It's a pleasant fiction to paper over all the unpleasant ones. Refusing to hand over power is a pretty standard part of a demented genocidaire's legacy
I'm just wondering how long he has to be out of office before it's mainstream acceptable to say yes, he was, in fact, a genocidaire
The thing about fascism that always gets me, when you bracket out the hatred and death, is it's all so fucking kitschy
Ayn Rand built a whole literary empire around the lie that personal profit motivates people to do the right thing and I just want to dig up her moldy corpse and prop it on a stool at this bar in my hometown