Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) Most of us—for our own health—don't track the evolution of right-wing rhetoric. I do so because it's part of my beat. The most common words and phrases in public Trumpist rhetoric are these 5:

📛 "WE THE PEOPLE"
📛 "PATRIOTS"
📛 "1776"
📛 "FIGHT"
📛 "RADICAL SOCIALISM"

1/ Noticed I say "right-wing" rather than "far-right." This is not a matter of fringe rhetoric anymore. This is GOP rhetoric. This is what you'll hear from House GOP leadership every bit as much as paramilitary extremists and white nationalists. Their rhetoric has been conjoined.

2/ Many years ago, I went on a vacation to China with my girlfriend and a good friend. One of the things I was struck by is how frequently the Communist Party uses the word "people" in its public rhetoric. The GOP *also* uses that word as propaganda, but in a very different way.

3/ In China, "people" is intended to be synonymous with the word "government." In America, the word "people" entered political propaganda in 1776 as a way of distinguishing Americans from their then-government (the British crown). That's the sense in which the GOP uses it in now.

4/ But there's a critical twist here: note that the fifth entry listed in the first post in the thread is "radical socialism." And note too that the Republican Party—despite fetishizing a man who openly colluded with China—is now obsessed with fraudulently linking Biden to China.

5/ Because the GOP wants to identify Trump voters as the *entirety* of the "people," and do so in a way that echoes the American Revolution, it's not sufficient for the opposing group to simply be the "federal government."

It must be *all* Democrats *and* the federal government.

6/ The goal of the GOP fraudulently calling Democrats—even moderates—"radical socialists" is to communicate to their voters that all Democrats are enemies of the people because they're synonymous with government in the same way "people" is synonymous with "government" in China.

7/ Needless to say, the purpose of using terms ripped from the American Revolution like "1776" and "patriots" and "fight" is to prime Republican voters for the idea that they're at war. The pump was primed with GOP use of the phrase "culture war" for years. That was a first step.

8/ Now you better understand Trump's phrase "enemy of the people" in referring to the media, and his repeated—and to most of our ears oddly red-herring—implication that the media in the United States not only secretly colludes with the Democrats but acts like the media in China.

9/ When you're trying to establish an authoritarian state via the time-tested Karl Rove playbook—accuse your opponent of what *you're* doing—you position yourself as a group of freedom fighters and the democratically elected government you want to topple as a totalitarian state.

10/ People think Trump is positioning himself to run for POTUS in 2024 so he can later decide whether he'll do so. I think that's true. I also think Trump is trying to create the conditions under which it won't *matter* if he's POTUS because he controls the government either way.

11/ Elise Stefanik did her job as an insurrectionist by using all the necessary dog whistles in her first statement as the number-three Republican in the house. She also promised to work with Donald Trump—which makes no sense when you're referring to a private citizen in Florida.

12/ There is and can be *no Republican Party* separate from the *personal and political interests of Donald Trump*. The party exists to facilitate Trump's ongoing attempt to seize authoritarian control of our government. Any Republican who thinks otherwise is a fool and a sucker.

13/ January 6 was a dry run—though I'm not going to pretend I know for what exactly. It was a test of how successful GOP rhetoric has been, and is now used as a litmus test for who is with the "people" and who is with the government they're waging a war against. It's that simple.

14/ As I detailed in Insurrection Update #1 at PROOF, Trump ally Lin Wood recently told a group in South Carolina that Trump is still President of the United States and controls the military. But it's what another Trump influencer said that's even scarier. sethabramson.substack.com/p/insurrection…

15/ Actor James Woods is, sadly, one of the top Trump influencers. Trump bolsters him. As I detailed at PROOF, here is what Woods just wrote on Parler (and we really need to read and internalize every word of this, as this is *mainstream* GOP thinking, now, not fringe rhetoric):

16/ When I call the GOP an "insurrectionist" party, I'm sure many think that I'm using partisan hyperbole to provoke. I am not. I make those statements as an investigative journalist. Insurrection against our democratically elected party is now the *only platform* the GOP has.

17/ I am concerned that the White House still doesn't understand this. Kevin McCarthy just met with Biden on infrastructure solely so that he could bolster his own credibility and raise money by *minutes after the meeting* sending the following fundraising pitch via a mass email:

18/ Per McCarthy:

1⃣ Biden is "corrupt" (a reference to the conspiracy theory that he's in bed with Chinese communists).
2⃣ Biden has a "radical Socialist agenda" (mark the capital "S," denoting a Chinese-style government in the US).
3⃣ "the people"
4⃣ "patriots"
5⃣ "fight back"

19/ The messaging from Trump, McConnell, McCarthy, Stefanik, Gosar, Jordan, Gohmert, Scalise, Cruz, Trump Jr.—the entire leadership of the GOP at *every level*—is *brutally* consistent. And I mean that literally: it brutalizes GOP voters into a single cruel, delusional worldview.

20/ People said "Remember the Alamo" for decades—or "Never forget" after 9/11—because they/we believed an opponent not just could but *would* return. But these aren't foreign jihadists or the Mexican army. These are radicalized elements now among us, throughout the United States.

21/ When I was on HBO back in spring 2019, I told Bill Maher's audience that Trump's scandals are "metamodern" because they happen *in public*—and the test for America isn't so much whether we can suss out their contours as whether we can recognize what is *right in front of us*.

22/ Many recall the look of horror on Frodo Baggins' face when—in Mordor, in RETURN OF THE KING—he tells Samwise Gamgee that "there's no veil [any longer] between me and the wheel of fire." I mention this because it's the best example I can think of to represent where we are now.

23/ It's not a question anymore of, "Do we keep talking about January 6?" We're staring into the wheel of fire—and it's a domestic insurrection unfolding *in public* on a daily basis. The Republican Party is not hiding what it is now. It is not hiding its rhetoric or its agenda.

24/ I am of *course* not saying that even "most" Republicans support violence. They do not. But over 70% believe Biden is "illegitimate," per public polling, which means Lin Wood's view that Trump *is* the President of the United States is the *overwhelming* view of Republicans.

25/ So I *am* saying that "most" Republicans believe the Republican Party would be warranted in doing *almost* anything to re-install Trump in the White House, including taking away some people's right to vote, faking vote tallies, intimidating voters, and using violent rhetoric.

26/ "Some" Republicans are willing to use violence and other criminal activity to advance the insurrection. When I call the GOP an "insurrectionist" party, I'm referring to the whole apparatus of the party right now, meaning *specifically* (in order of seriousness and brutality):

27/
LVL1⃣: Those who would use revolutionary rhetoric
LVL2⃣: Those who would use violent rhetoric
LVL3⃣: Those who would commit nonviolent crimes
LVL4⃣: Those who would commit violent acts
LVL5⃣: Those who would commit organized sedition

All these levels are now well-populated.

28/
If you're saying *only* Republicans are "patriots" or constitute the "people," you're LVL1⃣.

If you're *repeatedly* using terms like "fight"—not just isolatedly—you're LVL2⃣.

If you're among the tens of thousands who trespassed on Capitol grounds on January 6, you're LVL3⃣.

29/
If you committed any violent act against persons or destroyed (or defaced) property on January 6—or have done so or would do so at any public rally (even if you'd require some incitement by a Trumpist leader)—you're LVL4⃣.

If you conspired to incite January 6, you're LVL5⃣.

30/ The evidence I've compiled at PROOF for 4 months now strongly indicates that between 10 and 30 people in Trump's inner circle—including Trump himself—are LVL5⃣ insurrectionists: far and away the most dangerous kind, and not easily swept up by the FBI like LVL4⃣ foot-soldiers.

31/ America—and that includes all people, of any party, who believe in democracy, which I certainly hope to God includes nearly all of US media—needs to respond dynamically, flexibly, urgently, intelligently, passionately, and comprehensively to the ongoing domestic insurrection.

32/ So when I say, here and at PROOF, that media 1) not continuing to cover January 6 as the top issue after the pandemic, 2) covering January 6 only as to that day (not how LVL3⃣, LVL4⃣, and LVL5⃣ insurrectionists coordinated pre-1/6) is a dangerous failure, I mean it literally.

33/ But by the same token, when those of us on social media, or people in the White House, or American journalists, don't understand that right-wing rhetoric is how LVL1⃣ and LVL2⃣ insurrectionists build—with the aid of their leaders—a working insurrection, it's *also* dangerous.

34/ Yesterday I heard analysts on two outlets say they think the GOP will seek to covertly—even publicly—manipulate the vote in '22/'24. That my mind hadn't gone there terrified me, as it suggested that in political/intel circles the fact of insurrection is taken for granted now.

35/ There is where we are at, here in America. We may well have *already had* the last election whose results are accepted widely and not seen as grounds for insurrection.

So the milquetoast letter below *isn't enough*. In fact, it isn't *nearly* enough. abcnews.go.com/Politics/100-r…

36/ If you're in the GOP and you do *not* support insurrection, you needed to be out of that party *three months ago*.

Writing a letter in *May 2021* indicating you might be—maybe, possibly, you'll think about it, are seriously considering— bolting is a goddamned embarrassment.

37/ Right now there are two classes of people in US media and politics and—to a certain extent—in American culture writ large: those who "get it" (that we are facing an active domestic insurrection) and those who "don't get it." It's time to decide whether you can accept reality.

38/ This has—I cannot emphasize this enough—*nothing* to do with partisanship. It doesn't have to do with social, economic, or foreign policy.

Have whatever views on any of that that you care to have; it's a free country.

What's at stake is whether this *remains* a free county.

39/ There *is no threat to this country* from "socialism."

You can dislike one or two proposed economic policies that'd make America a *hair* more like the most successful countries in Europe—countries Trump idolizes, incidentally—but the *threat* is right-wing authoritarianism.

40/ You can find certain things folks on the left do stupid or annoying. You can rail against "wokeness" or whatever rather than just ignoring it if that makes your life better for some reason. But you can't let the GOP gin up fake threats to get you to betray American democracy.

41/ Every time I thread I lose followers. Every time I post PROOF links I lose followers. Every time I post a diatribe I lose followers. *It does not matter*—because we're losing our country to an insurrection. And that doesn't happen fast with a nation this size—it happens slow.

42/ For the present purposes I *don't care* what your policy positions are: pro-life, pro-choice, interventionist, isolationist, pro-Wall, pro-universal healthcare. None of that matters if we don't have democracy.

The *only* question on the table is how you feel about democracy.

43/ When the GOP says "fight," it *always* means "fight democracy."

When the GOP says "patriot," it *always* means "foot-soldier for Trumpist authoritarianism."

When the GOP says "election integrity," it *always* means "ending free and fair federal, state, and local elections."

44/ When the GOP says "1776," it *always* means ending America's democratic experiment—for *good*.

When the GOP says "radical Socialist agenda," it means "anything that Trump dislikes at the moment" (remember, the party *did away with its platform* during the Trump presidency).

45/ So here's what I'm begging you to do: start *noticing* and *speaking out* every time you see or hear insurrectionist rhetoric, bills, rallies, public events, agendas, interviews, speeches, fundraisers and so on. No one in America can afford to be "insurrection-blind" anymore.

46/ Don't allow January 6 to become a meme or mere date. It was the *official launch* of an insurrection that you and your family, friends, and neighbors are now living through daily.

The phrase is merely a metaphor for understanding that you're living in a time of insurrection.

47/ Stories like the Liz Cheney story are not—as the insurrectionists desperately tried to make them out to be—"inside the Beltway" stories. The insurrection is purging itself of what it perceives to be traitors in preparation for the next stage of the insurrection. It *matters*.

48/ Stories like the Ron DeSantis story—the idea that Florida's governor would initiate an armed standoff with federal agents to forestall the extradition of an insurrectionist leader to New York—*matter*, even if the proposed course of action would be (and it would be) illegal.

49/ Those who cross Trump or seek to cross Trump—let alone those who seek to arrest Trump—are now speaking of crossing or seeking to cross or arresting the leader of an armed insurrection, and we better start seeing it that way right quick. This isn't a game. It's deadly serious.

50/ I'm going to continue to chronicle these events at PROOF. I'm going to continue to speak out about all of this. I'm going to continue to lose followers. That's fine—nothing matters now but the ongoing struggle to save this democracy from Donald Trump and his insurrectionists.