As I've watched the impeachment rants of Rep. Louie Gohmert, Rep. Andy Biggs, and Rep. Matt Gaetz, LBJ's 1964 "Daisy" ad warning about the far right has been playing non-stop in my mind.

It was a prophecy that Republicans made come true:
The line "we must either love each other or we must die" is the epigraph of this moment. Millions of people have been sucked into a mental prison by greedy ideologues desperate for power.

Some can never escape, others can. Community and accountability is what we need.
Johnson was adapting a poem from WH Auden which can be read in full here. It was about the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. poets.org/poem/september…

Some excerpts from the masterpiece are attached. ImageImageImage
As you might imagine, the Daisy ad was massively triggering to conservatives at the time. Decades after the fact, I recall colleagues whining about it.

Uncomfortable truths slice the hardest. But like the surgeon's knife, that which cuts can also heal.

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More from @mattsheffield

13 Jan
White nationalist and radical militia types are interspersed throughout America's police forces. This is the sleeper story that shouldn't get lost amidst the Trump drama.
This has been something that black community activists have tried to warn about for decades but no one listened. America must pay attention as each of these officers are exposed.
Great piece I accidentally put on my main TL instead of as a reply
Read 7 tweets
12 Jan
Thread: Meaning and loss in American conservatism

I've written a lot about how Christian supremacism (expressed and implicit) is the underlying objective of most Trump supporters but the psychology of American conservatism is very important in its descent into madness.
We're seeing it manifested heavily in the present moment as Trump and his followers are forced to contemplate the loss of the presidency but it's important to realize that losing is the psychic core of the U.S. right.
Trump's repugnant demeanor and prior history of political moderation is what made him so reviled by conservative activists and donors in 2015 but his angry victim complex so deeply resonated with the GOP base that this is why he won the primary.
Read 25 tweets
12 Jan
Birds of a feather: Parler is migrating its web hosting platform to the same company that's hosting Gab.

Will they fix their horrible security? washingtonexaminer.com/news/parler-fi…
And btw, it's not widely known but Gab has been able to evade app store bans by re-basing its software on the open source social media software Mastodon. Very clever trick and it makes you wonder if Parler would do the same.

I'm guessing they will merge together somehow.
On the other hand, conservative elites all hate each other so working together is often not something they like doing. Gab's management is Christianist whereas Parler seems to just want right-wing donor cash.

So I guess we'll see.
Read 5 tweets
11 Jan
Ali Alexander, lead organizer of the "Stop the Steal" coup 3 GOP congressmen worked w/him: @RepGosar,
@RepMoBrooks, and @RepAndyBiggsAZ

"We four schemed up putting maximum pressure on congress while they were voting..."

@SpeakerPelosi?

All three of these Republican members of Congress are close allies of WH chief of staff Mark Meadows, their former leader in the extremist Freedom Caucus.

America must know: What did Meadows and others in the Trump WH know about the insurrection beforehand?
Check out what Alexander said later: "I don't disavow this, I do not denounce this. This is completely peaceful, looks like so far, and there are a couple of agitators that I obviously don't endorse...This is we the people and this will only grow"
Read 8 tweets
11 Jan
This Parler user explains it quite well here. Because of yet more security flaws at Parler, it's now possible for all that "free speech" to be shared and archived with the world, even if the posters tried to erase their not-at-all innocent videos and GPS data.
In slightly more technical terms, it seems as though Parler never closed some of their developer-friendly security holes (sort of the programming equivalent of game cheat codes made by devs) and as a result, their anyone with the right knowledge could have admin access.
Parler never actually deleted anything its users posted. And, stupidly, they also kept it accessible to admin users.

This meant that anyone with admin access could still download it.
Read 13 tweets
9 Jan
As they sought to break into the inner rooms of the Capitol building Jan. 6, Trump terrorists were recorded screaming "Hang Mike Pence."

This video appears to be a validation of @jimbourg's earlier report.
It's now apparent who the terrorists intended the gallows for that they constructed before going into the Capitol.
Meanwhile, inside the White House, Trump is privately regretting condemning the violence he had incited against Vice President Pence.

As per usual, teleprompter Trump said the right thing while the real Trump was busy looking out for "very fine people." nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/…
Read 12 tweets

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