I want to make one thing perfectly clear to those who make their living providing political news and analyses.
Insurrectionists do not get to define "Unity."
We have frequently been told "Elections have consequences" while McConnell pushed confirmations of subpar and outright outrageous judicial nominees, including Judiciary voting Clotheshanger Barrett out of committee without a quorum.
Any objection to Trump's reactionary and retrograde agenda was met with derision best summed up by the GOP trademarked phrase, "Fuck your feelings."
No one has ever demanded that Republicans seek unity. Nonetheless, I support Biden's drive for unity because he does not define unity as adopting the Republican agenda and belief system. That's not unity and the media cannot continue allowing the GOP to define it as such.
Unity does not mean ignoring insurrection and incitement of violence. It does not mean ignoring a coup attempt. It does not mean giving up our beliefs. It means assuming that people who disagree with us do so honestly, not because they are corrupt.
Unity means speaking of our political opponents with the assumption they are operating in good faith; that they are not lesser Americans. That does not apply to insurrectionists who have proven they are disloyal.
Unity means calling Gov. Ivey of Arkansas to see if she needs anything after tornadoes rather than letting wildfires rage for weeks before allowing FEMA aid. Unity means providing PPE and vaccines to red states AND blue states.
Unity means not sitting around while crafting tax policy to see how you can stick it to California voters, suggesting that losses to wildfires should not be deductible, for example.
So, next time Insurrectionist @GOPLeader McCarthy spews words about unity, remember he is an architect of division, a man who would overturn our democracy and end it in the pursuit of power. There is no unity with McCarthy - never even try.
The Republican party gets away with electing rapists, child molesters, money launderers, insider traders, Medicare fraudsters, and Q-Anon conspiracy freaks because they have defined deviancy down to the sub-basement. They get away with it because no one expects better of them.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
They clap as if in defiance, and laugh at their enemies behind their hands, with the shrill laughter of children. They want to be right, not to do right. They feel no obligation to be part of the main tide of life, .
and if that meant any degree of pollution they would prefer to divert themselves from it and form a standing pool of purity. … I looked into my own heart and I knew that I was not innocent. Often I wonder whether I would be able to suffer for my principles if the need came,
and it strikes me as a matter of the highest importance. That should not be so. I should ask myself with far greater urgency whether I have done everything possible to carry those principles into effect,
He looked at the inaction of the Hoover Administration in its response to the Great Depression and recognized that a political party unwilling to act in the face of widespread despair and dispossession would never act to protect the rights of Black people.
Good question. I think a lot of people are out of work with too much time and too little power and without an understanding that there are other avenues to power and change than protest.
Protests are an effective tactic if they are connected to a demand in place and time or in response to a specific event. Protests for the sake of protest become a joke. For example, it used to be a regular thing for this group of enviros to march through downtown on Fridays
It was incredibly ineffective and unimportant. We'd hear drumming and think, there they go again. They didn't make a demand, they didn't go to the federal building to demand something on timber policy or anything, just marched and drummed through downtown
OK, she has a slightly more complex argument, but she doesn't know what neoliberal means. She erases the wide disagreements between Democrats and Republicans, pretending they are all one uber-party united against her cohort of the only enlightened people.
She is contemptuous of democracy because her ideology is unpopular and a vote loser. They cannot gain power through democracy, so they see to degrade it.
Do not preach to Black people about there being only one race-the human race. While scientifically true, it's is culturally, politically, and economically false. Race may not exist but racism does. The "see no color" lie is an abstention from humanity
Yes, race is a "social construct" and we are actors in society and saying it's just a construct while doing nothing to deconstruct it, is cowardice at best and malignant in its ends.
Using the language of anti-racism to abnegate your duty to reject white supremacy and dismantle racism is about as offensively self-indulgent and white supremacist as you can get.