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Greg Sargent Profile picture
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14 Jan, 4 tweets, 3 min read
I've obtained a new intelligence memo warning that the lie that the election was fraudulent threatens to incite more extremist violence in future.

Trump still won't disown this lie, and many Republicans still won't unambiguously condemn it.

My latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The memo says:

"Amplified perceptions of fraud surrounding the outcome of the general election" will "very likely lead to an increase" in extremist "violence."

It also cites "ongoing false narratives" that "the 2020 general election was illegitimate."

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
As former DHS official @juliettekayyem tells me, the memo shows:

"His own intelligence agencies” have concluded that “the lie that the election was stolen, which Trump continues to nurture, will motivate violence in the future.”

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@juliettekayyem Here's the crucial point about the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump:

Most of them dared to say that:

1) The election's outcome was legitimate

2) Lies to the contrary caused the mob assault

This is what many Republicans still refuse to say.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

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More from @ThePlumLineGS

Greg Sargent Profile picture
15 Jan
The new Post poll has some awful findings among Republicans:

51% say GOP leaders didn't go far enough in nullifying election

56% say Trump bears zero blame for the insurrection

66% say he has acted responsibly

Behold the GOP's authoritarian core:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Just look at these poll findings among Republicans. It's very hard to be optimistic about what this portends:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Our poll also complicates a comforting narrative: That the turn away from democracy is driven by economic dispossession.

Around 1/4 of people with college degrees and +$100K household incomes largely support these attacks on democracy:

(h/t @AdamSerwer)

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… Image
Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
8 Jan
Let's be clear: For the far-right groups that carried out Trump's insurrection, the siege of the Capitol was a huge success, a major propaganda coup. I talked to experts in right-wing extremism about what this event really meant to them. Alarming stuff:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
"By all measurable effects, this was for far right extremists one of the most successful attacks they’ve ever launched. This will be propagandized on for the next decade."

I talked to folks tracking how the insurrection is playing on the far right:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Here's a sobering detail:

The multiple security failures at the Capitol are already being treated as a propaganda victory by some on the far right, who see this as a sign of corruption and vulnerability:

cc @drvolts

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Read 7 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
7 Jan
Conor Lamb's powerful rebuke of the Sedition Caucus stands as an important statement about this dangerous moment. He laid bare an essential truth: The core ethos of this movement is that it does not feel bound by *legitimate* electoral outcomes. My latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Here's my best effort to describe the true nature of the ethos of bad faith driving Trump and his insurrectionists:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
We are facing the prospect of a permanent radicalized movement whose explicit ethos is that elections are only legitimate if they win them.

Its members have absolute, seething contempt for their fellow citizens.

With @DavidAFrench and @lionel_trolling:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
6 Jan
The spin from McConnell and his allies is Trump's focus on stealing the election helped cost them the Georgia runoffs. It's nonsense. Republicans did all they could to exploit everything he unleashed among his voters. Don't let them memory-hole any of it:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The spin from McConnell and his allies is that Trump's conspiracy theories and grievances about the election cost them in the suburbs.

But McConnell and Republicans spent weeks feeding GOP base voter delusions on this front, for purely cynical purposes:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
McConnell allies insist they piously wanted the runoffs to be all about the economy, and that Trump's pathologies alienated the suburbs.

But McConnell-allied groups saturated the airwaves with the ugliest of Trumpist sewage, all to juice the Trump base:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
5 Jan
This keeps getting lost in euphemism. But Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are waging full-scale war *on their own state's voters.* If they win, this will be validated as just another tool of political mobilization. That's awful to contemplate. My latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Stop saying Republicans are "cowards."

Stop saying they are humoring Trump.

Stop saying Trump voters have trapped them in a difficult situation.

The reality is that Republicans are manipulating their voters in a show of extraordinary contempt for them:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
At Trump's rally, Loeffler pledged to object to Biden's electors. Then she pivoted to calling for voters to show up today.

That's a key tell. Republicans know they can't win unless their voters are deluded into believing Trump's chances are still alive:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
4 Jan
Here's a very worrisome sign:

Alexander Keyssar, who is perhaps the leading historian of US democracy, is deeply alarmed by what he's seeing.

He told me that the last month of events raise "deeply disturbing" implications for our democratic future. 1/

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Trump's appalling effort to blackmail the Georgia Sec of State into rigging the outcome for him sheds new light on what we're going to see on Jan 6th.

Importantly, dozens of Republicans will still object to Biden's electors -- even after this. 2/

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
You'd think after Trump's extraordinary display of lawlessness, some Republicans objecting to Biden electors might refrain.

You'd think they might want to avoid this taint or send a clear sign that this was intolerable.

They will proceed anyway. 3/

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 10 tweets

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