There's growing willingness to acknowledge the ways in which Trump's work of building and clinging to power resemble Hitler's. Good.

But this week the history that keeps flashing in my mind isn't Nazi Germany, it's pre-WWII Japan's May 15 Incident.

A thread. 1/
Japan after WWI was a two-party parliamentary constitutional democracy. The government functioned reasonably well into the 30s, weathering the depression better than its peers in the US and Europe. 2/
But a right-wing anti-democratic cancer took root in the lower ranks of the Japanese military. This cancer led to Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and the assassination of a former cabinet minister in 1932. 3/
Then came the May 15 Incident in 1932. A group of young, low-ranking military officers and cadets launched a coup attempt and assassinated the prime minister. But the coup failed, and they turned themselves in and were tried for treason. 4/
The trial of the May 15 Incident perpetrators has come to be recognized as a key event in the disintegration of Japan's constitutional government and its descent into totalitarianism. 5/
The seditionist assassins were tried and convicted, but sympathizers flooded the court with demands for leniency. Some of these petitions were written in blood; one was submitted with a jar of 9 petitioners' pinky fingers. 6/
It worked. Many plotters were let off with reprimands. 4 ringleaders who originally were sentenced to death had their sentences reduced to 15 years, and 11 other coup perps got 4-year sentences. Within a few years, they all had been released. 7/
The May 15 coup failed. But Japan's failure to hold accountable those responsible for it accelerated its plunge into fanatical right-wing dictatorship. Party government was over, replaced by government by assassination. 8/
As one leading historian put it, "The failure to enforce the law by proper punishment naturally intimidated all sections of society, and made the task of government virtually impossible," and "from this time dates the gradual domination of government by the armed services." 9/
Pre-war Japan's experience illustrates that a coup doesn't have to succeed to inflict a grievous wound on constitutional order. Failing to find the will to hold its perpetrators accountable can, itself, deal democratic government a terrible blow. /10
For more on the May 15 Incident, see Toland's Rising Sun, Bix's Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, Spector's Eagle Against the Sun, and Willmott's Empires in the Balance (the one I quoted in #9). And here's the wikipedia page. /end
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_15_In…
PS, thanks @rednecklefty for pointing me to a good online piece @Noahpinion just wrote on this, "Japanese lessons for the American coup."

noahpinion.substack.com/p/japanese-les…
PS #2, here's a real historian, @ruthbenghiat, discussing the same lesson.

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More from @MatthewStiegler

8 Jan
IMPEACH HIM TODAY MOTHERFUCKERS

TODAY

TODAY

TODAY

TODAY

TODAY

TODAY

TODAY

TODAY

not the middle of next week

TODAY
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6 Jan
18 USC 2384 - Seditious conspiracy

"If two or more persons ... conspire

to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States

or

to levy war against them

or

...
... to oppose by force the authority thereof,

or

by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States,

or

by force to seize, take, possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof ...
... they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."
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13 Dec 20
An unexplained, unsigned Friday-evening miscellaneous order is not how the Supreme Court of the United States speaks effectively to the American public at historic moments.

Look, I wish it was too. It isn't.
Well-intentioned, smart people are framing the Supreme Court's order as blunt, emphatic, powerful, a devastating back of the hand. And obviously we're all safer if people buy it. But it ain't reality.
Everyone understands the stakes. The nation is in danger, democracy is in danger. We needed the Supreme Court to rise to the challenge. Instead, it belly flopped.
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12 Dec 20
My reading of Justice Alito's statement for himself & Justice Thomas seems to be a minority view, but I disagree, at least tentatively, w those who think the Court's ruling was really a 9-0 defeat for Trump & that Alito was saying he'd reject the suit. 1/
The order stated that the Court denied for lack of standing Texas's motion for leave to file the suit.

Alito w Thomas made a "Statement" which said that in his view, the Court doesn't have discretion to deny leave to file this kind of suit. So, they disagreed w the Court. 2/
Here's where it gets hazy.

Alito then said, "I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue." 3/
Read 13 tweets
11 Dec 20
The game is changing. What's unfolding right now in the Texas v. Pa. case in the Supreme Court, in my view, is significantly different than what came before.

Republican politicians have launched a sneak attack on democracy. It's alarming.
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The first hint of danger came on Wednesday when a gang of 17 conservative AGs led by Missouri's AG Eric Schmitt filed a brief backing Texas.
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7 Dec 20
Hey #appellatetwitter, good typography takes some work, but avoiding bad typography is not hard.

You can achieve competent typography for your legal writing if you just get five basics right.
1. Use normal capitalization for all argument headings & subheads.

NOT ALL CAPS and definitely Not Title Caps. Use all caps only for section headings, like SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT.

Capitalizing headings is the most common typography blunder that good lawyers make. Still a blunder.
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Read 8 tweets

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