Conservative elites spent 60 years poisoning GOP voters' minds w/lies about gay militias, terrorist minorities, socialism, & atheist devils.

The net effects were visible on 1/6 but also in the video below.

The people harmed the most by Trump & the GOP are their own supporters.
This point is critical to remember: Trump didn't do this. His response to the QAnon cult which damaged this poor woman was effectively the same as most other Republicans, affirmation.

Kevin McCarthy could have rejected Marjorie Greene and Lauren Boebert. He didn't.
Likewise, it's marginally nice that Ben Sasse put his name on an essay which also denounced the cult of conservatism. But he only seems to have spoken out after the election.
Let me be clear that Trump definitely harmed the lives of many people who didn't support him, particularly unauthorized immigrants, victims of police violence, and trans people.

But now his executive orders are over. Many are already repealed. The GOP will still keep gaslighting
Cultic conservatism destroyed hundreds of thousands of families, drove thousands into mental health crises, and inspired numerous acts of violence.

And the scammers who pushed it are just moving onto their next con.
Let's not forget also that after harming millions of people's mental health for decades, Republicans also want to cut funding for mental health care. They wanted this before Trump and they still want it more that he's out.
Republican elites have figured out that voting to ban Trump from federal office is to their advantage. They're going to try and pretend that Trump alone is responsible for the calamaties they all created together. Don't let them.
PS: For a look at GOP unreality, please see this Ipsos poll.

66% of GOP say that most BLM protests were violent.

Just 38% say it's not true that satanic pedos run the world

62% say SARS2 was made in a Chinese lab.

Only 32% say Obama was born in USA

ipsos.com/sites/default/…
Schadenfreude is real. But let's never forget that we share a country with millions of people who are detached from reality. Their delusions affect everyone else. 1/6 proved that.

None of us deserve what conservative politicians, consultants, and commentators have wrought.
One last point, I wish I had an edit button to change "most" in the first tweet to something like "most overlooked."

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More from @mattsheffield

22 Jan
Antifeminism is the main tie that binds the youthful fringe right the way that Christian supremacism did for Boomer righties & racism did earlier.

The emphasis for each person is different, but right wing inverse intersectionality works by mixing & matching these three elements.
Opponents of far right radicalism sometimes fall prey to making reductionist analyses that suppose only one of these hatreds explains what's happening.

This mistake is especially terrible because it hampers their ability to counter extremism bc they don't fully understand it.
If you think reactionaries are only motivated by racism, you'll miss the radicalizing that's happening rapidly among young minority men who are sexist.

Racism and antisemitism are very common among Christianists. And fundamentalist Christians are almost always misogynistic.
Read 5 tweets
19 Jan
Thread: Conservative Policy and the Trump Presidency

On the last full day of the Trump administration, I think it's useful to examine why he accomplished so little legislatively. TLDR version: American conservatism has almost no policy program.
The most important thing to know about conservative politicking is that people do not vote FOR Republicans, they vote AGAINST Democrats.

The GOP is dominated by a minority of far-right activists and wealthy donors who have views that their own voters don't support.
American conservatism is premised on the twin ideas that the New Deal & Great Society were immoral and that God himself created America and that we should honor this creation by establishing full Christian supremacism in which LGBT people, atheists, and Muslims have fewer rights.
Read 19 tweets
17 Jan
The very worst thing about conservative media is that those that refuse to regularly promote conspiracy theories basically never call out their extremist counterparts who do. A great example of this is that conservative sites have not covered Mike Lindell plotting a coup.
Breitbart's management seems to have turned against the Trump coup efforts after the 1/6 Capitol violence. But the publication does not criticize those continue to believe and promote the coup.

They haven't talked at all about Lindell in the past week.
Townhall has not either.
Read 12 tweets
15 Jan
Here's an enhanced version of the notes that Mike Lindell was carrying into the White House, as captured by @jabinbotsford.

Trump appears to be getting advice to make Kash Patel the acting CIA director and to trigger the Insurrection Act. From an insane pillow salesman.
As several of you have noted, it's possible that someone else wrote that document up. But that makes it even worse. It means that Trump is likely having multiple people pressuring him to do this.
I'm going to add replies to do a rough transcription of the visible portion. It's not entirely readable:

[illegible] NOW as Acting National Security
[illegible] him with getting the evidence of ALL the
[illegible] in the election and all the information regarding
Read 23 tweets
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
13 Jan
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
Read 4 tweets

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