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13 Apr, 4 tweets, 1 min read
Big Tech magnate Peter Thiel and data analytics magnate Robert Mercer bankrolled a $10 million super PAC to prep for this guy running for Senate.

And yet this Yale-educated venture capitalist millionaire keeps cosplaying a populist working class whisperer. It's pathetic.
Republicans have created an alternate universe where being white and from the middle of the country is what makes you working class. Not your wealth, or your profession, or your social status. It lets them LARP as victims while ignoring the actual people society has left behind.
You know what, I respect that Vance wasn't exactly born into the wealth he has. That's fine. But he doesn't seem to realize, he comes from exactly the *kind* of poor community that U.S. policymakers are obsessed with giving second chances and leg-ups to.
Had Vance been born on a Black farm in Mississippi, or the Great Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, or a bordertown in the Rio Grande Valley, I highly doubt he'd be where he is today.

But I don't see him going to bat for those communities, do you?

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Matthew Chapman Profile picture
13 Apr
The thing is, you make so many good points but I simply don't follow these points to the conclusion of completely abolishing police or prisons.
You make an excellent case for decriminalizing misdemeanors, abolishing the bail system, abolishing resource officers, and creating community mental health services. I just don't see the case for total abolition of police and prisons when those things have been done.
I simply don't find the argument that serious crimes like rape/murder already go unsolved a compelling argument against policing — especially since if we made all those other reforms we all agree on, we would have more resources to aggressively and equitably fight those crimes.
Read 4 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
10 Apr
This morning, our oldest cat slipped out of the house and was hit by a car. She was gone instantly.

She was six years old. Our very first baby.
Kiara was a beautiful Calico Siamese we adopted from @austinpetsalive.

We had actually gone in to look at another cat, but she came up to me and cuddled me and purred like a little motorboat. She knew she wanted to go home with us.
We don't really know what her life was like before we adopted her. But she was one of the clingiest cats I've ever met.

Whenever I was working in my home office, she had to be on my lap. Whenever I was in bed, she had to be on my chest.
Read 7 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
9 Apr
We probably aren't going to have any more true "wave" elections until the next big political realignment that scrambles both parties' coalitions.

Neither party holds enough seats in demographically unaligned areas anymore for a huge sea change like we saw in 2010 or 2018.
Nearly all rural seats are held by Republicans. Nearly all urban and suburban seats are held by Democrats.

There are still exceptions of course, but not enough that if they all flipped in a favorable environment for one party, it'd be a wave.
Of course, this doesn't mean we'll settle into a stable equilibrium forever. Political alignments come and go. There will eventually be some big event in American politics that forces one or both parties to dramatically change their ideology or the demographics they're targeting.
Read 5 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
4 Apr
One factor that really needs to be discussed is Facebook.

As post-junta Myanmar got broadband, cell plans often gave people free Facebook access. It became the country's primary news source. And we've seen how ineffective Facebook is at keeping hate and extremism off its site.
If anything it would be even harder to keep that content off Facebook in Myanmar than the United States, because while Facebook at least has a number of English language content moderators, it has almost none who speak Burmese.
Basically, hate and fake news eroded all the functions of civil society in that country, and Suu Kyi was either unable to stop it or got caught up in it herself.
Read 4 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
2 Apr
Here's a very underrated infrastructure idea: what if we invested in creating seamless transportation between airports and train stations?
Intercity rail is never going to be as cost effective in America as in Europe because everything is so much more spread out. BUT, the hub-and-spoke airline model often has you take one long flight and one short one. What if we could replace *just the short flight* with a train?
Imagine if we had a system that encouraged multi-modal trips.

Airlines would fly you to a big city relatively near your destination, then transfer your luggage on to Amtrak, shuttle you to the station, and you ride the rest of the way. The ticket lets you book this all in one.
Read 4 tweets
Matthew Chapman Profile picture
25 Mar
I will say this for DeSantis: he at least seems to have a better intuitive grasp of what "marginal" Trump voters liked about Trump than, say, Hawley or Cruz.
DeSantis understands that the biggest thing isn't the far-right policy. It isn't even really the racism — that's the entire party at this point.

It's the way that Trump would take their every slightest frustration, and declare war on it. He would name the enemy, and go after it.
It's just such a simple, compelling kind of politics for people who don't want to think.

Identify who's the problem. Talk smack and get into a fight with them. Declare victory over them. Find the next person who's the problem. Repeat until America is great again.
Read 5 tweets

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