"You know who's not canceled? The endless parade of conservative pundits and politicians complaining about 'cancel culture.' You know who is canceled? George Floyd is canceled." Turn off the gaslight. #ConservativeCancelCulture is real. 1/12 salon.com/2021/05/01/con…
"Cancel culture" is a meaningless term, @mmfa editor @ParkerMolloy writes. But "For conservatives, that meaninglessness is a feature, not a bug," I note. "Those words mean whatever a right-wing accuser needs them to mean in the moment": 2/12 mediamatters.org/fox-news/woke-…
But there are two constraints on what "cancel culture" means: that it's new & comes only from the left. The truth is exactly the opposite: #ConservativeCancelCulture#gaslighting 3/12
Just a few highlights of #ConservativeCancelCulture in US history (Notice how often Blacks & immigrants the ones being cancelled? Coincidence? Not so much!): 4/12
But the term "cancel culture" is new. And @CAMcGrady explains how the white grievence usage is so tellingly at odds with its black-coined meaning: 5/12 washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/canc…
In bills suppressing voting rights (361 bills/47 states) & BLM-style protests (81 bills/34 states) #ConservativeCancelCulture has gone wild this year. But education attacks date back to William F. Buckley's first book, as @FAIRmediawatch noted: 6/12 fair.org/extra/william-…
The abrupt suspension of 52 class sections at Boise State University in March--affecting 1300 students over a rumored accusation--was a wild over-reaction years in the making. PoliSci prof @donmoyn saw it coming at UW Madison, wrote 2017 NYT warning: 7/12 nytimes.com/2017/01/09/opi…
Here's some of what @donmoyn told me about what led him to write that op-ed: 8/12
"Attacking universities became a staple of the far right, propelled by an entire ecosystem of media funded by donors like the Koch or DeVos families," @donmoyn told me, but worse was the mainstream acceptance: 9/12
Conservative free speech controversies are primarily trolling by a handful of provocateurs: 10/12
In his new book, "Taking America Back" @DavidAstinWalsh plumbs the prehistory of MAGA, how--contrary to the "never Trump" narrative-- 'mainstream' conservatives never purged the hard right. My author interview explores what he found. 1/19 salon.com/2024/04/20/a-p…
Legendary conservative William F. Buckley Jr. is a central presence in Walsh’s book & it’s undeniable that Buckley tried to purge the American conservative movement of its most extreme elements. Indeed, he did so over and over again, because no clean break was possible, 2/19
The "hard right" & "mainstream conservatives" have co-existed in conflict for centuries, as Edmund Fawcett argued in “Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition” but Walsh gives much more detailed account of how this unfolded in the US ~1930-1990. 3/19 salon.com/2020/10/24/how…
SCOTUS is a threat to democracy — but activists at @LPE_Project & @PeoplesParity are organizing to fight back, with a vision that goes well beyond court expansion: 1/18 salon.com/2024/03/03/tod…
The Supreme Court is a supreme threat to American democracy. That was Abraham Lincoln’s view in light of the Dred Scott decision, expressed in his First Inaugural Address. And the threat continued after his assassination: 2/18
It’s not just abortion. On guns, environmental protection, discrimination, labor rights, affirmative action, student debt relief and mant other issues SCOTUS has squashed majority rule: 3/18
Democracy itself is on the ballot in '24—ONLY IF DEMS PUT IT THERE!!! @RachelBitecofer explains why & how to do it in her new book, "Hit 'Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game." My author interview 4 @Salon: 1/18 salon.com/2024/02/17/rac…
Bitecofer's most basic point is simple: Democrats as a whole—despite their “reality-based” self-image—have been unable or unwilling “to accept that the American voter is, at best, rough clay,” and to work with it accordingly, as Republicans have been doing for decades: 2/18
Some Dems have begun to make the shift, but to be effective, this needs to be comprehensive, bottom-to-top systemic change. Even with the right-wing media ecosystem, and the think-tank and donor infrastructures that underlie it, a messaging change CAN save us in 2024: 3/18
With Trump's low-40s appoval there's no way for him to be elected without the help of reactionary centrists—a term coined by Aaron Huertas for supposedly fair-minded moderates who routinely punch left. I explore why/how—including Israel/Gaza: 1/23 salon.com/2024/01/14/rea…
After Aaron Huertas coined the term "reactionary centrist" insights from @RottenInDenmark, @tzimmer_history, @tzimmer_history, @LilyMasonPhD & @perrybaconjr shed additional light on the causes, dynamics & consequences of reactionary centrism. I'm indebted all of them. 2/23
Trump needs reactionary centrists—funders, establishment media and organizations like No Labels—to make him competitive. If Biden’s ill-conceived support for Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza should prove fatal, that, too, is partially due to reactionary centrist politics. 3/23
Evangelicals closest to Tump are part of the New Apostalic Reformation [NAR], a dominionist movement radically transforming Christianity. Canadian bible scholar @andre_gagne1 provides an inside guide in his new book, he & others discuss: 1/15 salon.com/2024/01/02/mee…
Lance Wallnau, Paula White-Cain & Dutch Sheets are just 3 prominent Trump-supporting figures from the NAR, which @andre_gagne1 explores in “American Evangelicals for Trump: Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and the End Times.” 2/15 bookshop.org/a/2464/9781032…
“The trap one must avoid in writing about this subject and reporting on the movement is to do so in a way that comes across as credible without sounding like a conspiracy theorist. The truth is you are in fact writing about a conspiracy.” -- UCC Past President John Dorhauer 3/15
"Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" I chanted 50+ years ago.
But he was EASILY the best POTUS of my lifetime.
What's a better, pro-active plan?
Correct the mistakes of the Cold War & actually live up to our values. What that means: 1/20 salon.com/2023/11/19/whe…
You think young voters are turned off by Biden? Here's how I felt re LBJ: 2/20
But—how's this for a contradiction—LBJ was far & away the BEST president of my lifetime. It's not even close to being close: 3/20