More and more lately I've been reacting impatiently whenever I see calls for return to civil discourse and a search for political common ground. In earlier times I've been a participant -- sometimes a leader, even -- in such bipartisan dialogue. 1/
And I still believe that politics and public policy entail consensus building as well as debating and putting matters to a vote. The underlying basic point is that the mode of deciding things depends on the situation. Consensus building isn't always appropriate. 2/
Whenever I hear exhortations to dialogue and divide-bridging, to my ears they sound ill-suited to the current moment. Will we reach a new understanding about respect for election outcomes? Will there be some kind of compromise on universal suffrage? 3/
A powerful overrepresented white supremacist political faction has explicitly rejected democracy in favor of raw power-seeking and brute force. That is the problem. I'm not sure of the answer, but hard to see how dialogue will deal with that one. 4/
The GOP revisionism regarding January 6 and anti-democratic, disenfranchising, Jim Crow reminiscent proposed voting laws are the brightest red flashing warning lights possible. And I think we've barely started reckoning with the direct attack on the democratic experiment. 5/
The below tweet is the satirical way I've made a similar point. But make no mistake, this shit is sinister as fuck. 6/
https://twitter.com/David_Shorr/status/1373300646309466118?s=20
In response to @Zathras3 I said the calls for civil dialogue and exchange are an unexamined impulse. So let's examine it. I think the premise is that we're all Americans and unavoidably have to coexist and share stewardship of the country. But do we? 7/
Given that the problem at hand is Republicans' defection from the principles and ideals on which the nation is premised -- and has, um, struggled to uphold -- what exactly are we supposed dialogue about? Again, the supposed remedy seems at odds with the nature of the problem. 8/
I'll put it another way, particularly to other white folks out there. Many if not most of us have close family who've used the permission structure of Fox News, Facebook, or email chains to go to that insidious authoritarian place. Do we bother dialoguing with them? 9/
How bad is the problem? Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy, and Mitch McConnell each had moments of moral clarity in January. Yet none had the spine to stand firm. McConnell said he'd support Trump again even after calling for him to be criminally prosecuted. The GOP is lost lost 10/
Dialogue and civil exchange require predicates that just aren't there. When a political party shows you they reject the will of the voters, believe them. The GOP's aggressive effort -- on every front -- to rig the system for their benefit rule them out as a good-faith partner 11/
Put it this way. Not for nothing have the #NeverTrump-ers determined their former party must be vanquished. No calls for dialogue from that quarter. Even if you believe in redemption -- which many of us do as an article of faith -- it only happens after repentance and change 12/
K, I'll respond to a couple things in this thread. One, I'd say beating them at the ballot box requires being clear-eyed & clear-voiced about what we're up against. And we know this in part because they're still benefiting from way too much normalization
https://twitter.com/denminn/status/1391577407514193920?s=19
And in response to the notion of shutting down dialogue when they'll live among us for the foreseeable. Again my most central point is that the appropriateness of dialogue is a function of circumstances. It can't only be at the point of war when dialogue no longer makes sense 14/
Have I called for a permanent and eternal shunning of the right wing party? No. Ever since January 6, everyone's been quite clear that the first step back toward respect for democracy is acknowledgement that Biden won fair and square. But they chose door number two 15/
Hey, President Biden can no more cut off communication with senior Republicans than congressional Democrats can give their colleagues the silent treatment. In the long run, there's probably some value in privately preserving relationships. 16/
But publicly Biden and congressional Dems have two jobs: exposing GOP intransigence and not getting suckered (see ACA, passage of). So my diatribe isn't directed at Dem leaders in the capital. It's aimed at civic-minded do-gooders--a guild of which I've been a longtime member 17/
Voting rights have become "contentious" because one party's strategy for winning power is to keep people from voting. This is a subversion of bedrock principles of democracy. As such, it also marks the GOP as a bad-faith actor, not a dialogue partner. 18/
https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1391717328363077632?s=19
And this is what normalization of an autocratic party looks like. If we're really trying to sustain the American experiment, amnesia about a violent coup attempt and ignoring ongoing denial of a presidential election outcome cannot be okay. 19/
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1391717347573080064?s=19
I guess what I'm saying is that political polarization is one kind of problem and betrayal of democracy / creeping fascism is another. And it's kind of important that we get our diagnosis right. 20/
See? Sen. @brianschatz agrees with me 21/
https://twitter.com/brianschatz/status/1391790185621250051?s=19
Looking back to January, it was generous of us to talk about a #SeditionCaucus. As it turns out, more like a Sedition Party 22/
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