Thread by @mattsheffield

Just a reminder to all the supporters of outgoing president Trump who actually think he can still remain in office, he does not believe this himself.

It's all a show to force GOP elites to remain loyal to him and to get your cash: politico.com/news/2021/01/0…

This is the very worst aspect of American conservatism: Elites like Trump, Loeffler, Cruz, etc know that the outrageous things they've been doing and saying are untrue.

But they are so very, very useful.

For 60 years, the conservative movement has leveraged minority control of a single political party by getting its base of fundamentalist Christians so fired up that they vote at disproportionately higher rates.

But as the base shrinks, the motivation methods become worse.

Let's be clear, the radical, anti-government views of right wing elites aren't supported by a majority of Republicans.

But that hasn't mattered because the elites have used religious bigotry to refocus voter attention and to fire up the few who do agree.

Republican elites have been running a successful minority rule scam for 60 years but the margin for error has almost reached the end point.

To preserve their power, they've decided to sacrifice the very minds of their supporters in dramatic last stand.

I know for a fact that some Republican elites have been concerned for years that they've been turning their supporters' brains into mush.

But the elites would rather do this than to change the anti-government policies they want to enact. Conspiracism is their only way.

Steve Bannon boasted in 2016 about his white nationalist "killing machine" and in Trumpism's last stand, he's fully embraced the most prominent proponents of the QAnon theory.

And it's going to get even worse after today. Be prepared.

Beyond their willingness to mentally impair GOP voters to preserve power, Republican elites have also long been entertaining the idea that democracy itself is a waste of time.

It's why they have no problem asking Pence to discard millions of votes

https://twitter.com/mattsheffield/status/1326120951453372417?s=20

Trump's extension of the conservative electioneering into mass psychosis and open pleas to end democracy has finally become disturbing to some Republicans who are now having some misgivings about what they've wrought. We'll see the nature of the divisions in the votes today.

Nonetheless, it's still the case that most anti-Trump Republicans view what he, Hawley, and others are doing as something uniquely Trumpist rather than a natural end product of conservative practice.

Perhaps some will realize the truth like I did in 2014. I hope so.

What's particularly dangerous about Trump, however, is that he wants to believe & often does believe the nonsense he says.

His entire worldview is a grotesque version of Norman Vincent Peale's "Power of Positive Thinking." It's infecting the entire GOP politico.com/magazine/story…