Some people argue that because (1) Trump is incompetent, and (2) our institutions are durable, it means that, even though (3) Trump tried to steal the election, (4) our pre- and post-election fears of election theft are unjustified.

I have significant problems with this argument
(3) is pretty secure.

But I put pressure on (1) and (2).

While it's true that Trump himself is incapable of pulling off a sophisticated steal, he sits at the helm of a political superstructure that is professionally and financially incentivized by his winning reelection.
I understand—and agree with—having faith in our institutions.

But I don't get how anyone with a basic respect for the allurement of political power could watch what Trump has tried to do and still conclude, "Well, *obviously* America's guardrails were always going to hold."
What justifies (4) is *not* that the Founders bequeathed a bad system. Our institutions are legendarily resilient.

What justifies (4) is that no set of institutions is invulnerable to capture. There were good reasons to think our current circumstances could have led to it.

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More from @bernybelvedere

15 Dec
A fatal flaw of this argument is it relies on a decades-old conception of the media and technology—one where conservatives can't broadcast their ideas because they lack access to channels of information—to absolve conservative media of its failures today.
By exclusively pinning this on "corporate media" and "Silicon Valley," Cortes is describing an informational landscape dominated by elements hostile to Trumpism. A landscape in which the truth gets choked out by mechanism inhospitable to the truth.

But he's obscuring something.
It's an absurd fiction to suggest right-wing media doesn't have remarkable and far-reaching influence in the information landscape.

Cortes wants to insulate conservative media—which includes people like him—from blame, but this problem is partly of their own making.
Read 8 tweets
12 Dec
We cannot let anyone this fanatically unhinged near the presidency ever again. ImageImageImageImage
Thankfully, the America First galaxy chuds, all of them exemplars of selfcuckery, are training their guns on the GOP. The best outcome would be a splintering of the hard right so that the MAGA coalition permanently bursts. We’ll see. Support these patriots in criticizing the GOP!
lmao ImageImage
Read 4 tweets
10 Dec
It is difficult to overstate how brazenly villainous the GOP has become in its pursuit of electoral larceny. It's one thing to offer a pretense of responsible civic action—what we have here instead is 18 red states saying, "Look, we simply don't want votes for Biden to count."
They won’t succeed, though the fact that they’re even trying is scandalous in itself. The fact that they’ve gotten this far, the fact that our reps have materially boosted this effort despite the damage it's doing to our social fabric transcends scandal. It's seditious debasement
The 18 states aren't offering an elaborate argument about hacked voting systems or whatever. Their ask is depressingly simple: that the Court invalidate the votes of 4 states—by pure coincidence, the 4 are crucial to Biden’s victory—because these states expanded mail-in voting.
Read 12 tweets
9 Dec
Here are some recent headlines:

▪️ White Women Vote Republican. Get Used To It, Democrats.
▪️ Why Do White Women Keep Voting for the GOP and Against Their Own Interests?
▪️ White Women, Come Get Your People

Big yikes on the underlying political reasoning here.
These headlines, and countless ones like them, are suggestive of a consolidated demographic bloc, of an electoral monolith. But of course that's not the case at all.

For both conceptual and empirical reasons, the right takeaway is white women are *not* an electoral monolith.
Conceptually because in a political system like ours, and in a country our size, it is very rare to see a demographic group become so overwhelmingly partisan that it can fruitfully be described as a monolith.

It does happen, but it’s the exception.
Read 9 tweets
6 Dec
One of the absolute worst people in media. The Daily Wire is a clown outfit. Image
Thank you Kanye, very cool! Image
The reality is that @benshapiro is willing to utterly toxify political discourse so long as it earns clicks for his crankland operation.

There is no defense for hiring @RealCandaceO. Has nothing to do with cancel culture. Has everything to do with Owens being ferociously vile.
Read 4 tweets
19 Nov
Can’t stop laughing Image
Tracey: “How, precisely, will your argumentative strategy unfold? Walk me through the steps.”

<Barnes ghosts Tracey to go trick or treating with his bros>

Tracey: “Well, you’ve got an important message to share with the American people, so buddy, YOU’RE BOOKED”
Thought my follow-up tweet in this thread made it plain what I was laughing at but I guess not.

The funniest aspect of this for me had to do with the way Twitter formatted the procession of tweets. ImageImage
Read 5 tweets

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