Thread by @SeanCasten

When Trump won in 2016, lots of Americans knew who he was. They listened to what he said and understood the stakes. So they peacefully protested, marched and organized. @GOPLeader didn't.

That is a judgement on him, not us.

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1353329487291834368

@GOPLeader is descended from a long strain in American history who excuses violence from the privileged as the result of non-violent protest from the less fortunate. Equating an attack on the Capitol to Women's Marchers with #resist signs is only the latest incarnation.

Take this, for example. Do you read this as a righteous call for good trouble, or as cancel culture? @GOPLeader argues the latter.

That quote is from Martin Luther King Jr's speech the day before he was assassinated. It is why he was so unpopular among men like McCarthy in his time.

So @GOPLeader will praise the Trump's of the world while they are in power. Will excuse those who would advance his cause with violence. And will praise those who peacefully resist on - per Carl Wendell Hines - once they are "safely dead".

"Now that he is safely dead,
Let us praise him.
Build monuments to his glory.
Sing Hosannas to his name.

"Dead men make such convenient heroes.
For they cannot rise to challenge the images
That we might fashion from their lives.
It is easier to build monuments
Than to build a better world.

"So now that he is safely dead,
We, with eased consciences will
Teach our children that he was a great man,
Knowing that the cause for which he
Lived is still a cause

"And the dream for which he died is still a dream.
A dead man’s dream."

- A Dead Man's Dream, Carl Wendell Hines Jr.

/fin