What infuriates me the most about the GOP's complicity in Trump's ongoing quest to erode the principles our democratic project relies on is that it was entirely preventable.
We simply needed GOP leaders to care more about the country than placating a delusional demagogue.
I wrote this in April. It was clear as day, even back then, that Trump was going to do what he did.
It was obvious that potential Trumpian successors would be critical to ensuring the peaceful transition of power. They were, um, not up to the task.
A lot of people had dismissed this concern because they saw Trump as an incompetent buffoon. Which he is—but stopping the analysis there failed to take into account the formidable institutional superstructure in place to aid his attack on our democracy.
This piece by @donmoyn captures the message he and I, and so many others, have been banging on about for so long. This was always on the Republican Party. And we shouldn't forget that.
I have a lot of respect for @drmoore, who, unlike @albertmohler, has clearly and consistently opposed Donald Trump since the beginning, despite the great risk to his career and the tidal wave of backlash that doing so has brought his way.
I had to remove, due to space constraints, a second paragraph getting into more details about all the flak Moore has received. Including big donors threatening to pull their funding if Moore wasn't canned.
I wrote for @ArcDigi about the MAGA movement's inclination to see itself as oppressed. I consider examples like the Hunter Biden laptop story, Donald Trump's omnibanning, and Parler's defenestration.
A core element of Trumpism, and of populism more generally, is the incurable conviction that you and your movement are condemned to exist in a kind of permanent *outsidership*
You could be utterly ensconced in power, just institutionally entrenched, the jackboot on people’s necks could be yours alone, and yet your self-conception will be of a dispossessed insurgency valiantly opposing Orwellian forces.
Pre-writing a piece that will lead with this: "Today was the day Donald J. Trump became president. Not a moment too soon. In this Dog Fancy special feature I will . . . "
Honestly I might literally die if Trump's behavior on January 19, the final full day of his presidency, is just like morally exemplary and flawlessly gracious. He would go out having given us one good, pure day.
In their effort to #whatabout yesterday's Capitol invaders, people on the MAGA-sympathetic right are making two glaring mistakes about last summer post-Floyd movement.
The first involves failing to make a distinction between the protests and gatherings that were largely safe and legal, and the rioting and looting that were decidedly not.
Conflating everything into some sort of rhetorically effective but substantively empty descriptor like "summer riots" or "BLM riots" just marks you off as a partisan hack. The majority of post-Floyd assembly was fine.
I understand backing your guy. But that doesn't necessarily require you to back him to the fullest extent that he's asking.
If my friend asks me to give him a letter of recommendation, I'm there. If he asks me to sign an affidavit that he's a ninja turtle, too far. Can't do it.