Thread by @ggreenwald

Great NYT article by @powellnyt on how @ACLU has become so unrecognizable -- from a stalwart civil liberties group to a standard #Resistance liberal/Dem political organization -- that its old-school iconic leftist lawyers are stunned by what it's become:

nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/…

Powell captures the nuances of the ACLU's decline. It still has some great lawyers with the old-school vision of the group as about non-partisan civil liberties, free speech & due process. But the anti-Trump money has become so massive that it now mostly serves its liberal base.

A couple of rather revealing "whoopsies" from the ACLU:

I spoke with Joe Rogan about why the loss of this old-school ACLU civil liberties cause is so tragic: it was an outgrowth of the best of 20th century leftism & Jewish leftist thought specifically. But it's being destroyed by broader social pathologies:

As I said, there are still some great lawyers at @ACLU, both national and state. They crusade for @Snowden, denounce the Assange prosecution, represent the NRA & KKK and other right-wing groups in free speech cases, sued Obama repeatedly, etc.

But they're now vastly outgunned.

In 2019, I was working on a big article on internal rifts at @ACLU - interviewed dozens there, etc - but never finished because that's when I was contacted by my Brazil source & that consumed the next year of my life.

It is nuanced; ACLU still does this:

aclu.org/news/civil-lib…

The problem is that free speech has become increasingly disfavored as a key value for US liberalism generally and millennials in particular. So it's clear that - with exceptions - ACLU now more resembles a standard liberal advocacy group doing political work adored by liberals.

I hope the fair and nuanced article by @powellnyt leads to new interest in "Mighty Glasser," the great documentary about the ACLU's 1978-2001 Exec. Dir Ira Glasser. He is its best exponent of the leftist defense of free speech.

I interviewed him here:

The documentary's name is "Mighty Ira" (not "Mighty Glasser"). Can watch it here. Really worth it.

mightyira.com