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Angus Johnston Profile picture
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24 Jan, 5 tweets, 1 min read
Yep. And the more gerrymandered and otherwise rigged the system is, the more they'll sway to the most motivated, loudest voters on ON THEIR SIDE OF THE AISLE.
Most Republicans don't have to win a majority to stay in power, and they don't even have to win a majority of Republicans. They just have to pander to the most aggressive slice of the party.
What that slice looks like right now is a reflection of how badly broken our country and our political system is, but it also provides people working in electoral politics with an opening, because it ties the hands of the national GOP, opening up new avenues for the Dems.
Where Biden is governing to the left of Obama it's not because Biden is more left than Obama. Where Schumer 2020 is situating himself to the left of Schumer 2014 it's not because Schumer has had an ideological epiphany. It's because conditions on the ground have changed.
And guess what you and I are, if we choose to be? We're conditions on the ground.

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More from @studentactivism

Angus Johnston Profile picture
25 Jan
This all makes a lot of sense. My only question is whether the Dems currently have 50 votes for doing what @joshtpm urges them to do here, and if not, whether grinding along the way they're currently going for a little longer is likely to get them to 50.
You've got to make a deal with McConnell, or you've got to get Manchin on board, or you've got to find somebody on the other side of the aisle to get you to 50 without Manchin. (My read of the current situation is that Manchin isn't yet ready to jump).
And as Josh notes, the "jump" Manchin (and Sinema) would need to make here isn't an "axe the filibuster" jump. It's just a "tell McConnell to pound sand on the rules vote" jump.
Read 9 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
21 Jan
Yeah, there's quite a bit of disinformation being pushed about the gender identity discrimination executive order the Biden admin issued yesterday. It's far less dramatic than its opponents are claiming.
In a nutshell, the EO says that the Biden administration intends to act against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in a manner consistent with the Supreme Court's Bostock ruling, and instructs federal agencies to develop plans to do so. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…
What that means specifically for, say, school and college sports teams remains to be seen, since the admin just directed agencies to develop such policies, rather than dictating the particulars of what they should be.
Read 4 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
21 Jan
So in Yo-Yo Ma's medley, the second bit was Amazing Grace, and I think the fourth was maybe a snippet of Simple Gifts. The first was the Star Trek theme, right? The third I have no idea. Anybody?
Not just for keyboards anymore.
Several folks have suggested this for the ending, and I can absolutely imagine myself thinking Copland was Simple Gifts, so yeah, it makes sense.
Read 4 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
19 Jan
This year is going to offer an opportunity for righting a lot of the wrongs of the last four, but those wrongs aren't going to right themselves. Here's one of them.
bringjeanhome.org/january
Jean Montrevil is an immigrant rights activist and member of @judsonchurchnyc who was kidnapped away from his family and deported three years ago. Judson and @NewSanctuaryNYC are trying to bring him home, and you can help.

bringjeanhome.org/january
You can learn more about Jean's case above, or from this article, but if you're in Virginia, a quick thing you could do is let @GovernorVA know that a pardon in his youthful conviction is in the interests of justice, mercy, and decency. theintercept.com/2020/01/16/jea…
Read 4 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
17 Jan
None of the chatter on the Ben Sasse piece in The Atlantic has quoted what strikes me as the most interesting line. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
"No one should be surprised that QAnon has found a partner in the empty, hypocritical, made-for-TV deviant strain of evangelicalism that runs on dopey apocalypse-mongering."
Or the line that follows that one: " (I still consider myself an evangelical, even though so many of my nominal co-religionists have emptied the term of all historic and theological meaning.)"
Read 4 tweets
Angus Johnston Profile picture
16 Jan
Lots of minimum-wage-hike critics wandering around imagining that corporations set their prices pegged to a specific set rate of profit rather than charging whatever the market will bear at a given moment.
"If you raise the the wages of fast food workers, McDonald's will charge more for Big Macs!"
"Why?"
"So they make more money!"

If they'd make more money by charging more for Big Macs, they'd be doing it already.
What McDonald's will do if the price of labor goes up is MAKE SLIGHTLY LESS PROFIT. That's what'll change. That's your argument. Have fun with it!
Read 8 tweets

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