who knows how this will all turn out but man is it depressing. millions of activists and ordinary people bust their asses to get Dems the Senate and they are *instantly* betrayed by the party right wing
I will say I'm glad this fight broke out just 5 days after Biden took office. it took almost 5 years to get to a similar place under Obama
I've heard the theory that @Sen_JoeManchin doesn't want to take hard votes that piss off party activists. but seems to me like those kinds of votes are exactly what he would want to demonstrate his "independence" from the party in a deep red state
if I were him I'd be eager at the chance to dictate terms. here's the bills I want to see so I can vote for them, I would say to Schumer, and here's the ones I want you to tee up so I can vote against them
the desire for power and influence is like the central axis of 99 percent of political history. but not for today's "moderate" Democrats. they run for office, and spend all their time running from governance
MACBETH: I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.
KING MANCHIN: you can just have the crown dude, I don't want it. in fact I'll shank myself to help you along
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
here is Greenwald's reasoning for why Obama was worse than Trump. half a million covid deaths and trying to overthrow democracy apparently don't rate as "moral evil"
I wonder how many deaths the reimposition of sanctions on Iran caused in the context of the pandemic. I would be real surprised if it was less than 100k thenation.com/article/world/…
the question he is answering is explicitly about why he thinks Obama is worse reason.com/2021/01/23/jou…
what jumps out most about this "unity" tripe today is how conservative rhetoric now is fully, 100 percent bad faith bullshit. these people compulsively cook up the most annoying way to claim victimhood for each and every situation
I remember back before say, 2015 or so, when there used to be at least some dialogue and argument between right and left online. nobody ever convinced anybody of anything but I think people were restrained by the need to be minimally plausible and consistent
what Trump taught the right is that if you are completely shameless all the time, you gain a sort of political superpower. you can get away with (almost) anything, at the cost of dissolving any substantive goals in a stew of culture war grievance, ressentiment, and lunacy
jaw-dropping if true. also if Sund is right about Bowser, she should resign too npr.org/2021/01/11/955…
one major problem with the law enforcement mindset we see today is that most of them are incapable of seeing conservative white people as a real threat. "oh it's no big deal, they're just blowing off steam" right up until they start beating a cop to death
PA Senate Republicans just refused to seat a Democrat who narrowly won reelection and whose victory was confirmed by the PA Supreme Court inquirer.com/politics/penns…
the thing about democratic government is it requires all parties to follow the procedural rules. if you can just refuse to seat people because their opponent won't concede, everything is fair game
.@NYGovCuomo has thrown out New York's carefully-prepared vaccination plan and is micromanaging everything himself on the fly, with disastrous results timesunion.com/news/article/N…