In 2017, I pitched the idea of little testimonial videos of "what democracy means to me" at an early RDI board meeting. We had no operations and no budget, so hoping for virality seemed good. Now it's actually happened, and going viral, and it's awesome.
I still have the meeting notes, since I never delete anything. We thought it would be good to have people like Garry who lived (or were still living) under authoritarian regimes do it first, a "don't take democracy for granted" message. But it risked sounding preachy.
Now, when RDI actually has operations and a (small!) budget, it was the best of all worlds by having another "immigrant patriot" like Alexander Vindman lead the project. So many different videos coming in, from famous and regular folks, really great. #RenewDemocracy.
Plus, nobody would have asked @Kasparov63 about his skincare regime, as they're doing with @morgfair, so there's also that! Gotta reach people however you can!
Btw, I put "immigrant patriot" in quotes because it was what a US Army general called Kasparov when we were invited to lecture on the threat of Putin's Russia at an Army base. The general talked about his own immigrant parents' love of America and it was super touching.
Big applause to Vindman, RDI director @UrielEpshtein, @DanielMillerEsq, the video crew, and all the RDI interns locked in the salt mines for making #RenewDemocracy a real thing.

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More from @chessninja

24 Jan
I'm all for discussing Navaly's personal politics, and disagree with him on much, but saying the free world shouldn't stand up for someone jailed and nearly murdered because he's not Bernie Gandhi Mandela is bullshit. He's risking his life fighting a mafia dictatorship.
Plus, Navaly's politics as we know them (he's never held office), not coincidentally, largely reflect mainstream Russia, which is far from liberal by Western standards. This is probably a more useful topic anyway, tbh, esp re Crimea.
He's ambitious, as was/is Khodorkovsky. He has positions (again, no formal platform) that would make him acceptable to Russians should he ever get an actual chance at power. That makes him less acceptable to Western liberals, but they're always hoping for a Yavlinsky, a Nemtsov.
Read 12 tweets
22 Jan
Remember when Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill's guys photoshopped out his $30K gold Breguet watch but you could still see it in the reflection on the table?
That was 2012, before everyone on Twitter became a Russia expert, so I thought I'd share.
To cross my streams, @Kasparov63 was known for taking off his big gold watch (he had an Audemars Piguet sponsorship) at the board as part of his settling-in ritual. He's credited with putting it back on "to signal to his opponent that the game was over" but that's mostly myth.
Read 6 tweets
19 Jan
"They wanted selfies, they’re going to get mugshots."—@Kasparov63
As Garry's thread there says, and his subsequent CNN article details, don't politicize it either way: "The correct response is the dispassionate application of the law. Not political persecution, but nor politically motivated leniency." cnn.com/2021/01/12/opi…
Read 4 tweets
18 Jan
The quick op-eds were good, but we're already back at the Western news media analyzing the legal details and flaws in the Russian treatment of Navalny. Guys, it's a fucking dictatorship. The judiciary is a scripted sideshow. Start with that.
Like others before him, and as with the entire "election" process in Putin's Russia, Navalny throws himself into the teeth of it to expose what a charade Russian justice is. They make up the rules and then just break them anyway.
He has nothing else, as refusing to play the game loses too. But Western leaders and media don't have to play. Putin is in charge. Any big case, from Khodorkovsky to Navalny, is a Kremlin phone call, not evidence and witnesses and the law.
Read 6 tweets
18 Jan
God this guy is insufferable. Every sentence is worse than the last, and "mistakes made in the Soviet era" is the stupidest thing I’ve seen on here since Trump was banned.
Carrying so much Kremlin water with the false equivalence. Navalny was kidnapped today by the dictatorship that tried to assassinate him. Snowden stole intel and is taking refuge in that same dictatorship. Which Assange works for, oh by the way.
And now they’re all in on getting a pardon from Putin’s puppet in the White House, along with what is sure to be a long list of other horrible people. "Let him go" indeed. Keep Navalny's name out of your traitor mouth.
Read 6 tweets
10 Nov 20
Not happy to see so many people acting like all the "stolen election" stuff is *only* about Trump's ego. That's part of it, as I've said myself, but they don't see any reason not to continue, which means doubling down until they get to the dark place.
They will keep making things up and shoveling it out to their media sycophants in the same cycle of bullshit they've used since it was Breitbart, Russia Today, and Fox News plus the big social media pushes. Then all the denials and debunking spread it further.
They only need a handful of loyalists in the right posts, whether judges or AGs, to give just enough lip service, even take some action, to cause real damage. Fortunes to be made or lost are in play behind the scenes.
Read 6 tweets

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