1. Trump's a clown but the GOP is serious about power. I was interested to learn from Ronald Brownstein's reporting in Atlantic that Biden White House has fears of elected GOP (in congress & state legislatures) overturning 2024 electoral vote.
2. With all coup talk, it's important to realize dual truth: Trump wants a coup & also he doesn't have a plausible mechanism for one. Resistance of permanent bureaucracy (civilian & military) + GOP elected officials sparred USA from real threat in 2020/21. But 2024?
3. Plausible coup scenario that Biden White House worries about is: post-2022 GOP controls House & key swing states. Trumpized GOP (purged of those who resisted in 2020/21) overturns electoral results.
4. Worrisome thing about this scenarios is that if Dems give up on voting rights reform, there isn't very many ways to stop GOP from doing that. More here: jeetheer.substack.com/p/the-coup-nex…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
1. Lab leak theory getting a new hearing is salutary (since the origins of covid are unsolved and it's a reasonable, although not likely, hypothesis). What's not salutary is how some contrarians are using the current moment to whitewash promoters of bioweapons theory.
2. It's important to understand that lab leak theory (accidental release of virus collected as part of normal research) is distinct from the far less plausible bioweapon theories (engineered virus, perhaps deliberately released).
3. Prominent Trumpist both outside the government (Bannon) and inside it (Navarro) used the legitimate lab leak theory as a stalking horse for the much more radical (and unsupported) bioweapon theories. That was the source of fact-checking reaction of 2020.
1. I want to return to the @EricLevitz piece because it really underscores that the GOP war on democracy is one of choice. It raises the crucial question of why a party would decided to shrink the electorate instead of enlarging their share: nymag.com/intelligencer/…
2. It's true that Trump in 2020 showed GOP can be competitive with Latino voters (and to a lesser extent other POC voters). But that's not something GOP can bet on: it could be due to incumbent effect (which benefit Bush Jr. in 2004 & Obama in 2012).
3. More to the point, as @EricLevitz points out, the Tucker Carlson wing of GOP doesn't want party to become more multi-racial. And here some history is useful since these fights were played out in 1980s and 1980s between Pat Buchanan & Jack Kemp.
1. Currently, the most energized mobilization on the American political right centers around fighting critical race theory (CRT) in education. The passion this arouses is all the more heated because almost no one knows what CRT is or how it relates to education.
2. Going back 70 years, fights over public education have been the main fuel of right wing popular mobilization. Nothing gets the lizard brain in fight mode quite like fear over children being supposedly threatened: desegregation, prayer, sex ed, gay teachers, trans kids etc.
3. The New York Times had a good piece yesterday showing how putative battles over CRT are really about a larger, more amorphous set of fears. Much of this is about catering to the anxieties about the changing demographics of America.
1. Harry Jaffa & Allan Bloom were once the best of friends, collaborators on a book on Shakespeare they dedicated to their shared mentor: "Our Teacher, Leo Strauss." After a bitter fallout, Jaffa would pen a poisonous review suggesting gay men like Bloom deserved to die of AIDS
2. The break-up of the Jaffa/Bloom friendship had more than personal ramifications. It became the focal point of a wider split between the Straussian movement and, ultimately, the Republican Party.
3. Like hip-hop, Straussians are defined by a coastal split. Jaffa's school (West Coast Straussians) have long been aligned with hard right movement conservatism. Bloom's school (East Coast Straussians) gravitate towards the more establishment foreign policy wing of GOP.
1. One strong tendency in Republican Party right now is that it's intensifying two seemingly contradictory tendencies: rhetorical populism ("we're a worker's party") & attempts to gain power as minoritarian party (via voter suppression, gerrymandering, electoral college etc.)
2. Minoritarianism, in various forms, has more of a history in America than I think is commonly acknowledged: the claim that a minority not only has rights to protected from majority but should (by dint of superior culture) govern majority.
3. Right-wing populism of various forms - Tom Watson(s), Coughlin, Wallace - typically squared the circle simply by imagining "the people" in a specific way (as white Christian). But has rarely had truck with the more institutional forms of minority rule (courts, bureaucracy)
1. So what are we to make of Bill and Jeff's non-excellent adventure? It shows that the "adage the personal is political" has far reaching implications.
2. That Bill & Melinda Gates are divorcing is (I assume) sad for them, their family & friends. But not of public interest. That Bill's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein was a factor raises the gossip level. But more than it: it clarifies why the divorce has policy implications.
3. The line from Bill Gates' people is: "Bill only met with Epstein to discuss philanthropy.” Which on the face of it is risible (although some people are buying it & some people say harping on the Epstein stuff is entering in QAnon territory).