Americans never heard Trump's call with Ukraine. Many don't know where Ukraine is or why it's relevant. But everyone saw Trump prepare his big lie, unleash his coup attempt, incite the crowd, do nothing when they attacked. His guilt & the seriousness of his crime are clear.
He incited an insurrection against the United States. About this history will have no doubt. The only question is whether the GOP has become so corrupt and negligent in their duty to the Constitution that they will fail to hold him accountable.
Actually, that's probably a bit naive. We know the truth. They are going to let him skate on this. And then they are going to double down on his lies and divisiveness. In other words, they are going to send a message that the coup attempt was ok and that in fact, it is on going.
They are going to side with the criminal, side with the crime and present themselves to history...and to voters...as an anti-democratic movement. (And make no mistake, at the heart of the movement is racism...a desire to disenfranchise black and brown Americans.)
They are the Confederate Party embracing confederate style attacks on our Constitution in pursuit of Confederate goals. And they are sending a message that they will be that until there is an unacceptably high price to pay politically for such a view.
The Democratic Party and frankly all decent citizens must redouble our efforts to make that happen. We must harness demographic change and what we have learned over the past few years in places like Georgia to crush this Neo-Confederate, anti-democratic, racist movement.
In short, the great political job of work for the US remains precisely what it has been for 245 years--to defeat institutional racism as an organizing principle within a big chunk of US society & in addition, to finally & completely defeat the Confederacy after 160 years.

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More from @djrothkopf

25 Jan
Important, on the money piece by @ThePlumlineGS. McConnell has revealed himself to be who we knew he was. He will obstruct. Dems must, to begin with, break the current logjam with a move against his procedural filibuster. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
In related news, if Dems don't stand up to McConnell now, they will also reveal they are who we feared they were-undisciplined & unserious. If it takes Biden sitting down with Manchin & Sinema & reading them the riot act, then so be it. Otherwise the '22 election loss starts now.
Make no mistake, capitulation to McConnell now (and capitulations to DINOs like Manchin and Sinema) would be a disaster. If you thought it would take more than a week to get to the first genuine political crisis of the Biden presidency, you miscalculated.
Read 4 tweets
19 Jan
Well, here we are, time for the final Trump Administration overall awfulness rankings, combining rankings for flawed character, odious personality and damage done to the country. This is just for Administration members and leaves out Congress, which is full of awful people too.
20. The Lawyers (Rudy & all the other enablers)
19. Mark Meadows
18. Melania Trump
17. The (Many) Crooks in the Cabinet
16. John Kelly
15. Betsy DeVos
14. Jeff Sessions (& Matthew Whitaker)
13. Steve Mnuchin
12. Peter Navarro
11. Richard Grenell
Read 7 tweets
15 Jan
Trumpism is no more a thing than Justin Bieberism. It's a fad. 5 years ago there was no Trumpist majority in the GOP. What's enduring is the GOP formula of exploiting the racism/nationalism of rural/suburban Americans to provide political fuel for policies that benefit the rich.
That formula--populism in the service of corporatism--has been with us for ages, was reshaped for the modern age under Reagan and has driven both the widening economic and political divides in America ever since. It will long survive Trump.
Trump weaponized it-fanning the flames of social division so that he could do even morefor a smaller & smaller percentage of the population. The reality was, he has not be very good at it. While he has GOP support, his popularity in polls has lagged all other recent presidents.
Read 10 tweets
14 Jan
2 impeachments sounds bad. But Trump's getting off light. There are legitimate reasons he could have been impeached at least 7 times...
1. Violation of campaign finance laws (M. Cohen case)
2. Violation of campaign finance laws/collaboration w/foreign intel service (Russia)
3. Obstruction of justice (see Mueller)
4. Corruption, self-dealing, violation of emoluments clause
5. Gross mismanagment, corruption associated with the COVID outbreak
6. Ukraine bribery scandal (impeachment 1)
7. Inciting insurrection (impeachment 2)
There are of course many things we don't know that could also be impeachable from security violations (with Putin and others), other instances of seeking foreign help w/election plans, tax fraud, other forms of corruption.
Read 4 tweets
12 Jan
Things the GOP did not find "divisive": Launching an insurrection against the US government, seeking to disenfranchise 81 million Americans, seeking to negate the votes of entire states, seeking to negate the votes of African Americans, attacking the Capitol...
...killing Capitol police officers, inciting a riots that claimed five lies, participating in the largest act of domestic terrorism in US history, hunting down Congresspeople in the halls of Congress, supporting and defending white supremacists...
...supporting and defending Neo-Nazis, turning US federal force against peaceful demonstrators across the country, calling Mexicans rapists, discriminating against Muslims, putting children in cages, ending protections for children born innocently in the United States...
Read 13 tweets
12 Jan
@JonathanTurley suggests the founders would not react so quickly against a president who led an insurrection. Washington led an army of 13,000 people against a small group of farmers who wouldn't pay their taxes on whiskey.
One founder actually did lead an insurrection. His name was Aaron Burr. He was arrested and charged with treason. He walked on technical reasons and was already out of office so impeachment was not the right option, but he ended up in exile for years afterward.
(Beautifully, while in exile Burr lived in a house on Craven Street in London.) Turley also says that Trump's incitement to insurrection was protected speech. This is beyond ludicrous and shows a lack of understanding of the law that would get him kicked out of any law school.
Read 11 tweets

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