The worst aspect of this lede (and frankly, the rest of this piece) is how it utterly obliviates the asymmetrical nature of the dynamic that created this kind of 'sectarianism.'
nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/…
Democrats have only recently--mostly since Jan. 6--come to understand that the Republican Party is hostile not just to their party but to democracy itself, and that their worldviews are so irreconcilable that rapprochement or compromise really is nowhere in view.
Barack Obama spent the better part of his tenure reaching out to the other side and receiving back a bloody stump, literally on every issue: economic recovery, health care, immigration, gun safety. You name it, he tried hard to compromise.
All we heard back from Republicans was "You lie!" and "Birth certificate!" and "Death panels!" and, most of all, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." Republicans had one plan: Obstruct everything at all costs.
Much of that is the product of having Rush Limbaugh carefully coaching his fellow conservatives, for three decades, on his chief dictum: Liberals are the enemy of America, and of everything good and right and decent. Fox News ran with this as their core message as well.
Yes, liberals are now fully aware that Republicans have ceased to be viable partners in a functioning democracy. But that is primarily a product of Republicans concluding that they do not care to share power with anyone, as democracy requires. So they have abandoned democracy.
This piece's primary failure is its refusal to acknowledge that these are the reasons we are where we are now.

"Both sides did it"? Bullshit. One side went off the rails, and the NYT wants everyone to share in the blame.

You can't solve the problem without a proper diagnosis.

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More from @DavidNeiwert

17 Apr
Tucker Carlson trotted out this argument earlier this week to illustrate his “replacement theory” regarding immigrants and voting. It’s actually a perfect illustration of the up-is-down gaslighting of the theory. A thread. 1/
Carlson made this argument on Monday when he was doubling down on his claim that Democrats want nonwhite immigration in order to increase their power—an open embrace of white-nationalist dogma./ 2

dailykos.com/stories/2021/4…
Here’s a transcript of the clip: /3
Read 25 tweets
30 Mar
You haven’t been paying attention, have you, Glenn?
The DOJ filings last week showed that the people conspiring to attack the Capitol themselves called it an “insurrection.”

courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Of course, we are familiar with Greenwald claiming there is “no evidence” of any connections to acts of violence and that claiming otherwise is merely “guilt by association.”

latimes.com/archives/la-xp…
Read 4 tweets
7 Mar
Whoa. This will be lovely grounds for a libel suit, since it has not a whit of truth to it.
If it makes any difference, my paternal grandfather was a Ford mechanic in Twin Falls, Idaho, and my maternal grandfather ran a road-construction company also based in Twin. Here’s a pic of the latter out fly fishing, which was the closest thing to religion we had.
So yes, Mr. Beattie will be hearing from my attorney early this coming week.

For the nonce, let me post this officially, @DarrenJBeattie: I demand both a retraction and an apology.
Read 4 tweets
22 Feb
I’ve been watching the right-wing narrative regarding the Jan. 6 insurrection with keen interest, and realizing that the American right again intends to resort to its well-worn “waving the bloody shirt” gambit. A thread about what that will mean. /1/44

We all know the phrase and its meaning: Someone who “waves the bloody shirt” is a demagogue whose rhetoric callously recalls violent incidents for the purpose of scoring cheap political points. /2
The phrase originated during the Reconstruction era following the Civil War. In the early years, white terrorists from armed paramilitary groups like the Ku Klux Klan roamed the Southern countryside intent on terrorizing black people and anyone assisting them. /3
Read 44 tweets
20 Feb
Yesterday was the #DayofRemembrance—February 19, the anniversary of FDR’s signing of EO9066, which consigned over 100,000 Japanese Americans to incarceration for the duration of WWII.

I wanted to share a brief tour of a memorial to those who were its victims.
One of the more memorable photos from that episode is this one, of the first community to be “evacuated” to Manzanar, from Bainbridge Island, WA. These are the “evacuees” being loaded onto a ferry under armed guard on March 30, 1942.
You can go to the site of this tragedy today and see a memorial to the event, dedicated to those who were removed summarily from their homes on the orders of an Army general. Bainbridge is a 30-minute ferry ride from downtown Seattle. The memorial is just outside the town.
Read 10 tweets
17 Feb
@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov That’s an interesting defense, Glenn. Especially considering that your “heroes” were very different men who behaved very differently than you, and engaged the defense of neo-Nazis’ free-speech rights under very different constitutional reasoning./1

aclu.org/issues/free-sp…
@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov Let’s briefly consider the latter: David Goldberger and his ACLU team undertook the Skokie case as a very clear-cut issue of prior restraint, involving a city’s attempts to prevent an organization’s right to peacefully assemble in the town square./2
@ggreenwald @rafaelshimunov As Goldberger said, this was a fairly clear-cut case involving a group about whom no evidence could be presented that they represented a threat to the townspeople of Skokie. Rather, if there was going to be violence, it would be coming from Skokie residents./3
Read 26 tweets

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