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Brian Klaas

15 May, 8 tweets, 2 min read

1. By replacing Cheney with Stefanik, the GOP has centered itself around a cult of personality, in which sacrificing principles and truth on the altar of Trumpism is required. It's a dynamic I've seen firsthand in dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

2. Cheney was replaced for two reasons: 1) She broke with Trump during impeachment; and 2) She challenged the "Big Lie" about the 2020 election. The 2nd reason is far more sinister. She was purged because she wouldn't repeat the myths that now define Trump's cult of personality.

3. At the extreme end, cults of personality are absurd. (I've had to stand up to watch a short biopic glorifying the King of Thailand before watching the Hobbit). But I worry that many Americans are also underestimating how dangerous and destructive they are to democracy.

4. Cults of personality function as loyalty tests. By forcing people to display devotion by repeating lies about a leader, they effectively separate the zealots from the dissenters. But it means that principles and debate become secondary to dogmatic repetition of official myths.

5. Worse, they create a ratcheting effect for extremism. Stefanik correctly figured out that she could break out as a GOP star by debasing herself with highly visible displays of fealty to Trump. How do others now break out relative to Stefanik? Be more extreme than she is.

@anneapplebaum

6. As @anneapplebaum explains, Poland offers a warning. Repeating a false conspiracy theory became a mechanism to show bona fides as a devoted member of the authoritarian "Law & Justice" party. Repeat the official myths, and you're in. That helped accelerate democratic breakdown.

7. It is quite literally the case that advancement in the Republican Party now comes with two tests: 1) Will you unequivocally praise Trump?; 2) Will you lie and say that he won the 2020 election? This dynamic is a watered down version of cults of personality in dictatorships.

8. Whatever you think about Cheney, it's a dangerous development for American democracy that a senior Republican leader was purged largely *because* she told the truth about the winner of the 2020 election. Voters should punish a party that punishes leaders for telling the truth.

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More from @brianklaas

Brian Klaas

@brianklaas

3 May

1. American pundits are often unwilling to say so because of the both-sides bias that pervades the domestic US politics sphere, but if the Republican party existed in a different country, there would be consensus in the US that it had become an authoritarian, anti-democracy party

2. There are precisely zero other rich democracies in which a major political party has a) attempted to outright reject the results of a democratic election; b) systematically tried to restrict voting rights; and c) routinely peddled lies and conspiracy theories about democracy.

3. When Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney - both staunch conservatives - are pariahs in the ostensibly conservative party because they've stood up for basic facts, have agreed to accept election results, and acted to defend rule of law, you know you've got a serious problem.

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Brian Klaas

@brianklaas

24 Apr

1. A thread on the Armenian genocide as Biden rightly moves to recognize it (finally) after Trump continued to deny its existence. The genocide was the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire carried out between 1914 and 1923.

@CarletonCollege

2. This is one small story from the genocide, from Frances Gage, a Christian missionary who was an alumni of @CarletonCollege in Northfield, Minnesota. She wrote in diaries at the time while she was teaching at a missionary school affiliated with Carleton in Marsovan, Turkey.

3. In the summer of 1915, Turks came to the school. They had already rounded up the men and boys, but they were there to take the girls. In the end, they rounded up 63 girls. They were likely going to be killed as part of the genocide. Gage couldn't stop them from being taken.

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Brian Klaas

@brianklaas

25 Mar

AstraZeneca releases updated data after US row which is effectively unchanged (and efficacy is *higher* in most at-risk groups). It's a completely safe, highly effective vaccine.

Lost in all this: AZ is the only vaccine supplier selling their product at cost, under $4 per dose.

AstraZeneca has made mistakes, no question. But politicians and public health officials from France to the US should consider how their actions have also wrongly undermined confidence in a phenomenally effective, safe vaccine that is most likely to help end the pandemic globally.

In case you're wondering, the new US AZ/Oxford efficacy number was revised down from 79% to 76%, which is basically meaningless statistical noise. Efficacy rose a few points to 85% for over-65s, again likely a change that's effectively statistical noise. Highly effective. Safe.

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Brian Klaas

@brianklaas

13 Mar

There are many ways to repair US democracy through institutional reforms (the GOP is blocking them). But the biggest issue is the right-wing information ecosystem is just beyond broken. Democracy malfunctions when voters consume a diet of lies & conspiracy theories as truth.

How do you govern a country in which there aren't splintering views on policy but rather splintering realities? When voters self-select into right-wing fever swamps of false information, it creates a "choose your own reality" system that makes compromise and consensus impossible.

That's why the end of the Trump era isn't the end of the authoritarian threat posed by GOP extremists -- who inhabit a political sphere in which lying and peddling increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories leads not to pariah status but rather to national political stardom.

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Brian Klaas

@brianklaas

17 Feb

1. A big problem with modern GOP politics is that it just doesn't revolve around policy or solving problems. On the Democratic side, AOC is further left, sure, but she's laser-focused on policy solutions. The pro-Trump right isn't. It's victimhood, grievance, culture wars.

2. Instead, Republican politics is about entertainment. Politicians are characters. Will they dunk on someone on Twitter? Will they be hilarious at a frenzied rally? Will they deliver a blistering line on Fox News? Trump has made voters lose sight of what politics is for.

3. When Republicans engage with policy, it's not about fixing problems. Defund the WHO. Okay, who, precisely will that help who urgently needs it right now? Attack Fauci over masks. Again, who, precisely does that help right now? Meanwhile, Americans really need help right now.

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