Yes, this is dangerous--not because a military coup would succeed between now and Biden's inauguration (Biden will be president) but because a major political party and so many voters continue to back Trump.

The danger going forward is that so many voters are OK with this.
The end game is a successful disinformation campaign, by which I mean that a significant portion of the population either believes (or for political expediency pretends to believe) that Trump would have won the election if not for massive fraud.

A Pinochet-style military coup was more common in the 20th century.

21st-century would-be autocrats have an easier and less bloody method: They overthrow democracy by undermining truth and disrupting accurate dissemination of information.
The danger is that Trump will keep a portion of his base radicalized.

There are no quick fixes. This has been building for decades while many of us (thinking the Civil Rights movement succeeded) were lulled into complacency.
I spent the day reading about the history of the NRA (working on my book about the 2nd Amendment).

Seeing how we got here, and how many decades it's been building, it's easier to see how to get out of it, and what we need to do.

How about if I do a Twitter Book report tomorrow?
More reporting.

I spend a day at my writing desk, peek at Twitter, and sheesh.
cnn.com/2020/12/19/pol…
It's always been perilous for some groups.

Consider being African American before the 1950s when segregation was legal and lynching common.

Or consider what life was like for an African American woman in 1860. She didn't own her own body. Literally.
Think about life for a worker before the New Deal.
No minimum wage. No 40-hour workweek. No social security. No protection against injury.* Injured workers were left to starve.

*The GOP wants to bring this back.
Make America Great Again means go back to those days.

That's the goal. It's in the slogan: The word "again" in MAGA signifies reactionary (regressive) politics.

Go back to the days before regulations outlawing insider trading, and manipulating markets. You know. Good old days.
It's definitely stressful, and I didn't mean to discount the stress all of this causes.

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More from @Teri_Kanefield

22 Dec
Dominion and Smartmatic have a defamation claim.

Giuliani and Powell can also be sued for defamation if their lies caused a particular person damages. (Jean Carroll is suing Trump for defamation.)

The damages to Dominion and Smartmatic are substantial.
The elements of defamation claim:
🔹 a false statement purporting to be fact
🔹publication or communication of that statement to a third person
🔹fault amounting to at least negligence
🔹damages, or some harm caused to the person or entity who is the subject of the statement
I don't see why. The heightened standard in New York Times v. Sullivan doesn't apply.

News stations get no special treatment unless they're talking about public figures.


#lawtwitter may be misunderstanding the First Amendment.
Read 8 tweets
20 Dec
(Thread)

How the NRA helped get us into this mess, and how we can get out.

I read these two books⤵️ and I’m ready with a Twitter Book Report.

The NRA was founded in 1871 by a former Union general and a soldier who were appalled by the terrible marksmanship of Union soldiers. ImageImage
2/ Before the Civil Rights movement, the NRA was an apolitical, gun safety group. Members were gun enthusiasts from both parties.

When the National Rife Act of 1934 was debated in Congress, the NRA lobbyist said this ⤵️ ImageImage
3/ Then after the Civil Rights movement, everything changed.

There was a power struggle within the NRA between the “old guard” and the radicalized extremists who advanced the [new] idea that “conservatism” meant unfettered access to guns.
Read 16 tweets
17 Dec
Nah. Trump survived the Access Hollywood tape with those voters.
The patriarchial view is that sexual assault and rape are natural results of "human nature." In other words, it doesn't bother them.

In fact, rape is a means of asserting patriarchial power.
My generation learned that rape is a means of asserting patriarchal power from ⤵️

You could see it play out in the Kavanaugh hearings, particularly in the right-wing defense of Kavanaugh.

I have a thread about that somewhere . . .
Here it is:
(If you wonder how I find my stuff so fast, it's all filed and categorized on my blog. Me = 🤓)
Read 15 tweets
17 Dec
To think there may still be people out there who don't know who Barbara Johns was.

What?! YOU don’t know who she was?

Well. On April 23, 1951, in Farmville, VA, Barbara Johns led a walkout of her segregated high school in protest of the deplorable and unfair conditions.

1/
She was 16. She led her walkout more than 4 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, and before MLK, Jr. embraced nonviolence as the way to equality.

After she and her classmates turned the rural town of Farmville upside down, she called in the NAACP.

2/
The NAACP took their case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Barbara and her classmates became plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that ended segregation in America.

Their case was combined with cases from other states.

3/
Read 7 tweets
15 Dec
The Georgia GOP civil war intensifies.

Trump retweeted Lin Wood, who informed @BrianKempGA and @GaSecofState that Trump will throw them in jail.

Wood is the guy who told GA Republicans to boycott the Senate runoffs.

(Both Kemp and Raffensperger say they voted for Trump)
Trump can't throw them in jail, but he can endanger their lives.

So much is stunning.
🔹It's now GOP officials who supported Trump, who are being targeted.
🔹Trump is targeting Georgia GOP, where early voting has started in the runoff election.
The firing of Barr is supposed to make you think that in the few weeks remaining, Trump can weaponize the DOJ to jail Kemp and Raffensperger. He can't: there are procedures for arrests and indictments, including judicial oversight.
Read 5 tweets
14 Dec
This is equal parts horrifying and absurd. These are not real electors. There is not a "competing" slate of electors.

It's the Nevada GOP showing that they are completely unhinged from reality.
You see, Nevada certified its election for Biden on 11/24.
forbes.com/sites/alisondu…
Nevada law requires that the electors are legally bound to vote for whoever wins the presidential election in NV. apnews.com/article/electi…
Dear Nevada GOP:

It's time for Election Law 101.

Because of a complicated system we have called the electoral college, when you vote for president, you don't actually vote for president, you vote for a slate of electors.

The GOP electors lost when Trump lost the election.
Read 9 tweets

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