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Greg Sargent Profile picture
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2 Feb, 4 tweets, 4 min read
Dems are investigating whether the suppression of DHS intelligence about violent white supremacy and right wing extremism -- done to bolster Trump's campaign agitprop -- may have helped exacerbate the insurrection at the Capitol, @RepAdamSchiff tells me:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@RepAdamSchiff The post-Trump fumigation will have to be epic.

We need a full reckoning with Trump's use of large swaths of the government to manufacture a left-wing terror threat and downplay violent right wing extremism, and the ways all this led to the insurrection:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@RepAdamSchiff A great NYT report revealed how hyping of Antifa distracted from right wing violence.

As @adamgoldmanNYT and team noted, this came when the far right threat "was building ominously.”

I asked @RepAdamSchiff about this. Dems are examining related things:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@RepAdamSchiff @adamgoldmanNYT The stakes are very high here.

The manufactured Trumpist narrative of organized left-wing terrorism furnished the ideological justification for the descent into violent authoritarian politics that we’ve seen from the movements that converged on Jan 6:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

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More from @ThePlumLineGS

Greg Sargent Profile picture
3 Feb
There is a clear link between the GOP dilemmas over Marjorie Taylor Greene and Trump's impeachment. In both, Republicans largely still have not unambiguously declared that political violence is wholly intolerable and has no place in their ranks. My latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Republicans who criticize MTG keep focusing on her conspiracy theories. They use phrases like "nutty" and "loony lies."

I call BS. Greene has also *endorsed the execution of Democrats.*

Rs should say more about that, too. But that's dicey for them:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Republicans are "relieved" Trump's lawyers are focusing on constitutional arguments, per Politico.

That's because Trump's actual deeds are indefensible.

A new look at the attack shows it was unambiguously understood by many as an assault on lawmakers:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
1 Feb
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/…
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/…
Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
28 Jan
Marjorie Taylor Greene approved of executing Dems, yet she'll get little to no punishment. But the story here is much bigger: GOP failure to police extremists goes back half a century.

“The dictum now is ‘No enemies to the right,'" @RuleandRuin tells me:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@RuleandRuin I talked to @RuleandRuin, who wrote a book about the GOP.

He offered great insights about what brought us to this point.

Today's GOP base thrives on "jihadist ecstasy" about Trump, he says.

GOP won't "police boundaries against kooks and extremists."

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… Image
@RuleandRuin There's a great paper called "The Long New Right" that tells the story of the GOP/conservative movement's failure to police extremists for the last 50 years.

It's highly relevant to the insurrection and Marjorie Greene's lunacy.

I summed it up here:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… Image
Read 6 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
26 Jan
1) Just before Mitch McConnell caved and allowed Dems to assume the majority, @SenSchumer gave an important interview to @maddow.

Schumer said some things that have been overlooked. They suggest a crucial shift in thinking among Democrats about power.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@SenSchumer @maddow 2) Schumer vowed that this time, Dems won't get snookered by GOP bad faith.

But Schumer also framed the stakes in a good way. He said Dems are united behind the idea that *delivering in a big way* is key to restoring faith in government and democracy:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@SenSchumer @maddow 3) Schumer also said a failure to go big will risk disillusionment and another Trumpist demagogue.

If so, restoring faith in government/democracy isn't about achieving bipartisanship for its own sake. It's about the scale of the program Dems deliver on:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 7 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
25 Jan
Mitch McConnell is trying to extort Dems into unilateral disarmament. He claims the filibuster facilitates bipartisan cooperation. The reality is the opposite: He cynically weaponizes it to *deny* bipartisan cooperation. The history is clear. New piece:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
McConnell is exploiting a twisted journalistic convention.

Media will place the onus of achieving bipartisan cooperation on Biden, while allowing Republicans to cast their own withholding of bipartisan cooperation as proof of his failure to achieve it:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
McConnell doesn't use filibuster to facilitate bipartisanship. He uses it to deny cooperation for the express purpose of casting Dem presidents as failed conciliators.

Media gets snookered by this, even though he explained this scam in his own words:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
22 Jan
While Republicans are running their "unity" scam in the media, Biden just rolled out new policies that would channel large amounts of resources into rural America -- into Trump country. I looked at how these policies constitute *actual* unifying efforts:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Biden's Covid blueprint beefs up protections for workers, many in meatpacking plants in rural areas.

His use of Defense Production Act will employ industrial policy to channel resources to non-metro areas in a way conservative populists want.

Unifying!

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Trump used coronavirus to relentlessly stoke civil and regional conflict.

Biden is offering a national Covid strategy that channels resources into helping all Americans, including or especially in rural areas, i.e., Trump country.

Unifying!

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 4 tweets

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