It's obviously tempting to say "you should have known better" or "really? The tax policy?" But while I do not at all endorse the idea that there is a volume of "nice" Biden voters can pour on this fire to put it out - I think we need to put this down for the time being.
People need an off ramp, and the country needs repentance way more than it needs unity. It's better to admit wrong now than never, or even later.
I think there will be a time to push on Trump's policies, and for people to have hard conversations with their leaders and loved ones about how they didn't see this coming - but with the goal of preventing the next Trump, and actual change.
In the meantime, any step towards change is a good one, and worth celebrating.
I would also tell anyone who has lost loved ones because of their own Trump/Q support/whatever and is regretting this: somebody is waiting for you to call them, say you're sorry, and that you want to start again. Do it today. Don't wait.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
A lot of Christians, particularly conservative ones, still haven't figured out that paranoid apocalyptic fantasy-spinning about coming Biden persecution (lol) is not compatible with denouncing the violence in the Capitol.
If the next step from "Twitter kicks insurrectionists and Q-anon vocalists off of Twitter" is "People who think marriage is between a man and a woman have their assets frozen," then storming the Capitol is a rational choice.
I'm not thrilled with Big Tech right now. I still think we need trust busting, and I always have. But I also think it's quite clear that there are still lots of conservative Christians who (unless they righteously self-deported to Parler) are perfectly vocal on Twitter.
TFW we all learned our conflict resolution skills from families where all fights ended with the most pliable person apologizing for something/no one changes, and then we tried to nationalize it.
"Okay, I understand you're upset about the coup, but don't you have something to apologize for to?" is basically our national security policy right now.
*apologize for too GEEZ stupid twitter with no edit
I think people who grasp on the macro level that there's no amount of nice that's going to help us still read stories about white supremacists making 100k/year who believe Nancy Pelosi ate a baby and think their kids need to keep confronting them but should try being nicer.
Imagine if the future of the country depended on you getting the addict in your family to get sober. This is basically the situation a lot of young people are finding themselves in right now. They aren't failing to try. They don't secretly agree. They're dealing with addicts.
I'm not saying this because I think people can't change. Of course I think they can. But there's no silver bullet of decency or empathy or the right fact or the right word that's going to solve this that young people aren't using on their white supremacist parents.
Thread:One thing I've realized during this whole coup process is how dependent we are on experts to make sense of the world and how some of us are so privileged by having expertise nearer at hand than others.
I have multiple friends who went to law school or work in government so if I want to know something (can X do that?) it's no trouble for me to find someone I trust who can tell me. A lot of Americans don't have that, or have been warned away by such people by their politicians.
I noticed this because I was looking through @charismamag 's election coverage curious to see how Jan 6 played out for them, and several articles repeated the blatant falsehood that Mike Pence was given two slates of electors and chose the slate that favored Democrats, despite
Hey @Franklin_Graham, let me see if I've got this. After weeks of calling his supporters to protest voting centers and state buildings, Trump met an angry horde on the mall. He then told them to go to the Capitol, which they did, and then he encouraged them once they were inside.
But little did Trump know, he sent the wrong mob. Instead of sending the godly Trump mob he wanted to send, he sent the bad Antifa mob! Oops!
Even if this is true, and it isn’t, does the “oops wrong mob” theory really make Trump any better?
Anyway, not to let anyone off the hook this morning, I understand that starting today it's important that we don't prosecute anyone who committed a crime at the Capitol yesterday, because otherwise they might get mad and commit crimes.
This is why I can't feel like we weathered this. I was watching people in the House tweet that they were crouching on the ground with shots fired into the chambers, and said to my husband, "We're going to watch some senators die." It seems like only luck we didn't.
The only people who weren't completely rocked by today are people who don't have a lot of access to news information or people who have an abiding belief in the inherent goodness of Trump fanatics with weaponry. So you're either the terrified, the ignorant, or the depraved.
We also have this twisted ritual in the US where we're expected to be good sports about fascist civilians waving machine guns at us because after the gun is away from your face you're supposed to have known they weren't going to shoot you. If they were you'd already be dead.