"And as much as the right’s critics might prefer an understanding of what’s happened to our politics that flatters their intelligence, the challenge we’re facing isn’t that millions of hapless and benighted yokels have been bamboozled by disinformation..." newrepublic.com/article/161266…
"It’s that millions of otherwise ordinary people from many walks of life—including many who went to and even excelled in college—have a material or ideological interest in keeping the Democratic Party and its voters from power by any means possible." newrepublic.com/article/161266…
The short version, and it's one all decent people of good intent should take to heart:

Republicans aren't stupid. They're evil.
Look, *some* of them are stupid, too.

But they're not doing what they're doing because they're stupid, and they're not doing what they're doing because they've been fooled.

They chose to be fooled, because being fooled is what facilitates the evil shit they want done.
From the article: "Democrats should try campaigning on the truth: The Republican Party is controlled by intelligent, college-educated, and affluent elites who concoct dangerous nonsense to paper over a bigoted, plutocratic agenda and to justify attacks on the democratic process."
Republicans believe lies, not because they are uneducated, or ignorant, or stupid, or fooled.

They believe lies because it is menacing to see your family and neighbors believing lies—the more obvious the lie, the more menacing the sight—and they enjoy menacing people.
The more unfit Trump proved—incompetent, cruel, dictatorial, stupid, mean, embarrassing, destructive, hateful—the more they loved him, not because they're stupid, but because the sight of your family and neighbors loving such a man is distressing, and they want us distressed.
The one good thing about the last five years is, everybody pretty much stood up for what they are.

We all pretty much know where people stand. I can choose to pretend I don't, but that also says something about where I stand, and everyone will know.

It's not stupid. It's evil.
My answer: it's not our responsibility to cure evil people, nor is it an appropriate goal.

It's our job to oppose them on the behalf of those they would harm. Part of that opposition involves being open to helping them if they want to cure themselves.

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More from @JuliusGoat

9 Feb
Me (emerging from a tank I have driven through your house) now is a time for healing
We could use divisive words like “grandmother” and “crushed” and “dead” but I would rather get down to the work of mending this badly divided house

no I mean I’d rather you get down to that work; I have a tank to drive
It would be a mistake to investigate who drove a tank through who’s house. That sort of rank partisan vindictiveness would only divide our fractured unity and could lead to further tanks.
Read 4 tweets
6 Feb
I think Fox thought the coup they were helping foment would be successful. And they may have been closer to right then we’ll ever know.
*than*
The Republican Party, including the President, a majority of elected members of the House, a significant faction of Senators—who are still being protected by the rest—and its corporate propaganda apparatus, openly tried to overthrow the government in favor of a corrupt autocrat.
Read 4 tweets
5 Feb
I want to read the words "Vice President Harris Breaks Tie" approximately forty magrillian times this year.
The best bills will be passed with zero Republican votes.
A "magrillian" is "an amount exactly one greater than whatever number all the "fixed your post" twitter-reply one-uppers were hoping to tell you that you should have said.
Read 4 tweets
4 Feb
Thin mints are the least among girl scout cookies.
Peanut butter patties. Comments are closed.
That escalated quickly.
Read 4 tweets
4 Feb
Vigorously defending their elected Nazis, rebuking any member of the cult who dared criticize Dear Leader.

The Republican Party.
Do not read this as a defense of Ben Sasse, who sucks.
If Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and the rest of the allegedly sane, allegedly centrist, allegedly concerned with unity and comity Republicans actually were any of those things, they could end this madness tomorrow by pledging to vote for Biden’s mandate.
Read 5 tweets
3 Feb
If you ever want to consider how committed our society is to the foundational lie that life must be earned, and those who fail to earn it must die, consider that the proposition “giving everyone money to spend would be bad for the economy” is widely accepted as truth.
“Giving money to people in poverty solves poverty” is an obvious truth, which needs (another) study for proof, for the same reason that this finding will be ignored (again).

We don’t want to fix poverty, even if doing so helps everyone—not if it means life for the “undeserving.”
It’s not about saving money.

There's a great fear in this country that a single dollar might go to someone who might not deserve it; or that a single given dollar might be spent on something we deem unworthy.

We'll spend five dollars to prevent the waste of that one dollar.
Read 18 tweets

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