Thread by @mhbx

@AblueUs The Republicans have weaponized “morality”.
Interesting reading the comments on this post.
I think it would take an essay if not a book to disentangle this mess.
The very short form is to look at inputs &outputs.
Meaning
what was actually done
to whom
with what actual harm

@AblueUs 2/ then look at the black box function that is how these events get processed in the public square.
There is a definite pattern.

Hyperbolically, but historically for all that, you have Trump on one side who can literally rape and molest women without consequence (Of course it

@AblueUs 3/ A great deal of shamelessness to pull it off. This being one of the “parameters” of the black box). On the other side you end up with @SenFranken & now Cuomo. Because this is not a true, pure, morality play, one of the primary parameters is political party.

@AblueUs 4/ The point is not to excuse actual base/venal behavior, but to understand how such things are packaged & processed for the public square.
There is a great deal of created upset that is used cover or distract from other issues.
We need to understand the "black box" that is

@AblueUs 5/ used in incidences like this.
Pondering how the pointy tip of this "black box" changes its ostensible point from time to time based on the fears & fundamentals of the country. Bush/Atwater used this to great effect using a bald racism to excite the public axiomatic dreads.

@AblueUs 6/ Part of the "essay" would be to look at how this "weapon" is built & used over time. The internal functions are about the same. It is often called 'bare-knuckle politics'. In this era of not quite yet post-MeToo, what Cuomo is accused of excites the public.
It is a worthwhile

@AblueUs 7/ to note, by way of historical example, the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill, story. Imagine how overwhelming the Anita Hill story would be, & how unlikely Thomas would be appointed to the SCourt today.

Of course, there are 2 parameters to take into account. Like w the BretK example

@AblueUs 8/ (a) what is the party willing to do in terms of support. Ie, does it cohere & speak with one voice, regardless of the underlying issue. So the parameter in our day is "Party Unity" where nothing is allowed to create a division within the main power structure.

@AblueUs (b) Willingness of the subject to go through the humiliation.
Maybe call it the 'humiliation factor'. BK showed up in real time how this factor was dialed up mid-hearing. Knowing he was going to get through the gauntlet given the "Party Factor" he was enabled to go on the attack

@AblueUs 10/ Anyway...starting to get to large quickly. There is a report in this syndrome, this "black box" function of our public "morality" outrage machine.

In other examples you have "Hillaries Emails". In a more consequential example you have GWBush and the public foggery that

@AblueUs 11/ excited a public support for the Iraq War.
One of the rarely learned lessons is how deflated & wrong the issue at hand is in the end. When the deed is done, the damage woven into the history & the fabric of history, then the facts & details start coming out. We lament the

@AblueUs 12/ issue, wondering "how did we miss that" or in the immortal fig leaf from the GWBush era "who could have possibly have known?".
Its all post fact, and we move on to the next outrage. Being completely unable to deal with the last one we perpetually "Move On".

@AblueUs 13/ I suppose it needs to be said in conclusion to this inadequate twitter essay, that there are real issues involved. Real people w real issues. Some are real & consequential enough to warrant public exposure. Most seem to be used merely for political battles; to gain political

@AblueUs 14/ advantage. Of course in the heat of any given "scandal" it is hard, maybe impossible, for the public, so excited by breathless reporting, to consider the larger contexts. Even more impossible to rationally look at the "Hypocrisy Factor" that is one of the major "parameters"

@AblueUs 15/ of this "Black Box" Public Outrage machine.

It would be great if we could step back a bit and consider things better and deeper.

If we were so able, we would avoid such nonsense as, for example, days of screeds and manufactured upsets about Dr. Suess.

@AblueUs 16/ We might be able to actually stay focused on what is really happening, & what really matters, what really is affecting & infecting the country... and respond appropriately.

@AblueUs 17/ Not every little thing that can be stoked into a camp fire is worth the consuming attention while the forest is burning down.

Campfires are easier to understand.
Forest fires do immense damage.
Especially when they are ignored.
And especially if they are misunderstood.