When you start a new grift but forget to delete your old tweets
Plenty has been written about Twitter's many downsides. But one underrated problem with it is how, from Trump down, the platform's ephemeral nature privileges the shameless who are willing to rewrite their arguments on a dime and rely on people forgetting what they said before.
.@repcleaver is a Methodist pastor who knows exactly what "amen" means. When he said "awomen," he wasn't saying it had anything to do with men. He was making a pun to acknowledge particular women. But this site rarely has context or a sense of humor, so we got a meltdown instead.
@repcleaver The rabbinic sages used to pun on biblical words and phrases all the time! It was done playfully or to provide pneumonics, and wasn't about the literal meaning of the words. They would not have done well on Twitter, apparently.
@repcleaver I'm kidding about that last part. The rabbinic sages would have rocked Twitter. Hillel the Elder was a hugely successful poster. I mean, people are still quoting and stealing his most famous quips.
By focusing on Georgia & refusing to raise the profile of Trump's ineffectual flailing, Biden is letting the Republican party fight itself while Dems fight to retake Congress. Amazing how folks still distrust Biden's political instincts no matter how many times he's proven right.
All progressive paths to fixing our democracy run through Congress. There is no solution without it. Biden knows this, and as ever, has his eye on the ball. He's not ignoring the problems; he's assembling the toolkit to deal with them.
Why on earth would Biden say anything about this when he can just have Republicans fight this battle among themselves and blow up their own party on the eve of a hugely consequential Senate election? Trump and his enablers created this mess, now they have to lie in it.
The Talmud nailed Trump centuries ago: "A person who regularly claims that others are flawed typically possesses the flaw he says they have." -Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 70a
My latest: Europe's highest court just upheld an attempt to stifle Jewish and Muslim life across the continent. I wrote about the motivations and double standards driving the effort, and what America should do about it. I hope you'll read it: tabletmag.com/sections/news/…
"Everyone understands that skinheads marching under fascist banners or terrorists who shoot up Jewish institutions want to make Europe unlivable for its remaining Jewish inhabitants. But those who seek to outlaw basic Jewish & Muslim religious practices are doing the same thing."
"When you seek to outlaw the fundamental observances of a religion and declare that it is backwards, you do not get to present yourself as a defender of that faith or of religious freedom—or else words have no meaning." tabletmag.com/sections/news/…