Greg Sargent Profile picture
Feb 1, 2021 4 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Republicans are now openly boasting of their plot to win the House through extreme gerrymanders. This alone should dissuade Biden and Dems from negotiating down the stimulus to secure bipartisanship. Dems may have only 2 years. Make them count. My latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Media is getting snowed by the GOP proposal. It's a double-whammy of bad faith. It's meant to create the impression that Rs are willing to do *something* amid two major crises while also creating a bogus way to claim Biden is reneging on "unity" promise:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Dems keep saying they learned the lessons of 2009-2010.

Okay, but those lessons are also that:

1) scaling down ambition to chase bipartisanship doesn't stave off midterm losses, and

2) losing the House means a much slower recovery.

So go big now:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
One more point about this: The fact that it's even an open question whether Dems will use reconciliation even as Republicans race forward with extreme gerrymanders itself demonstrates the deep asymmetries here:

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More from @GregTSargent

Sep 25
Utterly repulsive: Trump is now attacking Haitians in a small PA town with truly vile smears.

But the town manager tells me all Trump's claims are lies:

*Haitians not taking Americans' jobs
*No 2000% population increase
*No uptick in crime

New piece:
newrepublic.com/article/186331…
At a rally this week, Trump claimed Charleroi PA has seen a 2000% population boost due to Haitians.

But as town manager Joe Manning told me, if this were true, its pop would have gone from 4K to nearly 100K. He literally burst out laughing at the idea.

newrepublic.com/article/186331…

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Trump said the Haitian "invasion" of PA is part of Harris' "war on workers." But the town manager told me Haitians were lured to Charleroi after a local employer couldn't find workers. And PA's unemployment rate is 3.4%.

More from the town manager below:

newrepublic.com/article/186331…


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Read 6 tweets
Sep 21
It's good that GOP Gov Mike DeWine urged Trump and Vance to stop smearing Haitians. But DeWine misses something big here: Trump *wants* the Springfield debate to be as charged with hate and rage as possible. He thinks that's a winner for him. 1/

New piece
newrepublic.com/article/186224…
When GOP Gov Mike DeWine called out Trump and Vance for lying about Haitians, he suggested it will alienate swing voters.

But this misses how Trump sees things. Trump thinks all the rage and hate will activate swing voters' latent MAGA tendencies. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/186224…

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Trump's language is explicit on the idea of migration as racial contamination:

*migrants "poison the blood"
*we let in people from "shithole countries"
*they're emptying prisons/insane asylums

Trump has made Springfield into a symbol of all this. 3/

newrepublic.com/article/186224…
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Read 6 tweets
Sep 13
Big news out of Springfield: The Mayor has now confirmed that the emailed bomb threat did contain hateful language about immigrants.

Trump and Vance can no longer pretend not to know exactly what their vile demagoguery is accomplishing.

New piece from me
newrepublic.com/article/185953…
Springfield Mayor Rob Rue, a Republican, says the bomb threat email contained "hateful" language about immigrants and specifically "Haitian folks."

Trump/Vance valorize these places, but have no real concern for the impact their demagoguery has on them.

newrepublic.com/article/185953…

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On Springfield, don't lose sight of the larger context: Again and again and again, Trump has refused to back off this sort of hate speech even *after* it has incited threats of violence.

I went back and looked. The pattern is clear:

newrepublic.com/article/185953…

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Read 5 tweets
Sep 12
This is hair-raising stuff. I talked to numerous people who are prepping for what might happen if Trump wins. They are bracing for years of legal harassment and the deep corruption of govt info into rank propaganda.

Lots of reporting in my new essay:
newrepublic.com/article/185487…
We keep hearing about scary second-term horrors like troops in cities: But in this piece, I argue for another, more insidious scenario: A slow-burn authoritarianism of grinding legal harassment of Trump critics and profound corruption of the bureaucracy.

newrepublic.com/article/185487…

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Lawyer Mark Zaid tells me he has a dozen Trump-critic clients prepping for revoked passports, security clearances, etc.

“We expect a targeted approach designed to drain the resources of perceived adversaries and leave them neutralized and isolated.”

newrepublic.com/article/185487…


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Read 11 tweets
Sep 5
It's a big deal that veteran journalist Mike Barnicle has now called out his media colleagues for failing to adequately cover Trump's visibly worsening mental state. It should spur a real discussion about how to do this, before it's too late. 1/

New piece
newrepublic.com/article/185622…
“We have a damaged, delusional, old man who might get reelected to the presidency," Mike Barnicle said on @Morning_Joe. He said the media doesn't really cover Trump's daily insanity as a window into his mental fitness for the presidency. This is right. 2/

newrepublic.com/article/185622…

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Some in the media will reject this, claiming they do cover Trump's crazier claims. But this misses the point. His mental unfitness for the presidency is *itself* the big story. It merits sustained scrutiny as a topic with its own intrinsic importance. 3/

newrepublic.com/article/185622…

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Read 8 tweets
Aug 30
News --> Dems are pushing the Army to clarify why they think Trump's Arlington fiasco broke the law, and demanding a clearer account of what his campaign aides did to that woman. One source says Dems are frustrated at the lack of detail.

My new piece:
newrepublic.com/article/185517…
At his Michigan rally, Trump offered a highly distorted account of the Arlington mess. He omits that his own aides recorded a campaign video there and that officials told his campaign in advance that political activity was banned.

My fact check:

newrepublic.com/article/185517…Image
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Many Qs remain unanswered about the Arlington fiasco. If the woman considered charges, that likely means there was violence or at least highly inappropriate manhandling. How violent was the encounter? Why did cemetery officials conclude laws were broken?

newrepublic.com/article/185517…Image
Read 5 tweets

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