Thread by @interfluidity

this idea that an institutionally legal but morally stolen election (say legislatures in key states overrule voters, citing “irregularities”) will be prevented on the streets risks a first time as farce, second time as tragedy catastrophe. 1/

https://twitter.com/wertwhile/status/1406993347789656069

every stern denouncement of the 1/6 “insurrection”, every demand on Rachel Maddow that a tough, militarized response should have crushed the insurgents to spare our legislators their traumas, will be hauled out. 2/

provocateurs will intentionally seed chaos in order to force law enforcement and the military, who were and would be appropriately reticent to intervene in this kind of thing heavy handedly, to suppress “the riots”. 3/

relying on a “color revolution” to save America from its own bad laws when the public is roughly 50/50 divided between our two Manichean conflict-entrepreneur parties is reckless fantasy. 4/

if Democrats want institutions more resistant to usurpation by a determined minority, they have to get their shit together and fix the laws while they have the capacity to do so. 5/

Democrats’ weakness condemns the country civil war or collapse to “competitive authoritarianism” as much as Republicans’ plain ambition for stable minority rule. /fin