Right wing anger at Gen. Milley over the "white rage" comment is really an effort to delegitimize any debate over the role of white supremacy and racial nationalism in inciting 1/6. The new select committee should engage this debate frontally. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
There's important stuff buried in the bill creating the 1/6 select committee.
Its mission is to investigate threats to our democratic institutions more broadly. It defines white supremacy as a key anti-democratic threat. That will force a crucial debate:
The right's anti-democratic nationalism turns on the idea that the opposition is illegitimate and can be excluded from the Real Nation. Once this is established, anti-democratic tactics constitute the righting of a profound wrong.
@lionel_trolling Relatedly, make sure to read @julia_azari digging into how right wing populist tropes tend to connect "whiteness" to "electoral legitimacy." What I'm arguing is that the 1/6 select committee provides an opening for a genuine national debate on this: mischiefsoffaction.com/post/how-years…
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Trump is now raging at Wisconsin Republicans for not doing *enough* to find fictional fraud and overturn his loss. This again shows that his movement will never be pacified by audits and investigations. Only a future steal attempt will suffice. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
A naive pundit reading holds that if Republicans pass "election integrity" measures, it'll be easier for them to rebuff demands to subvert future results that Trumpists say are fraudulent.
Trump's raging lunacy in Wisconsin should crush those fantasies:
These audits aren't good faith efforts to empirically confirm the results for folks who are "misled." They're dry runs at creating pretexts for questioning/overturning future elections.
Fealty to Trump means being willing to subvert *legitimate* results:
.@SenatorSinema has accidentally exposed the profound weakness of the pro-filibuster stance. She raises the prospect of legislative majorities curbing voting, without admitting this is *already* upon us. She is consigning us to that very fate. My response: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@SenatorSinema The threat posed by ending the filibuster really is frightening.
Imagine a world in which legislative majorities could pass voting restrictions over the objections of minorities!
@SenatorSinema Here's what makes Sinema's argument so dishonest.
Sinema claims we have more to lose than gain from ending the filibuster. But she doesn't admit to what we *actually would gain* from ending it -- a check on democratic backsliding and minority rule:
An interesting move: As part of their probe of the Trump DOJ subpoening of Dems' phone records, House Judiciary Dems have demanded release of communications between the Trump WH and DOJ about those subpoenas.
DOJ is still refusing to answer basic questions from @RepAdamSchiff's office about the Trump-era subpoenaing of his and @RepSwalwell's phone records, an official confirms to me.
Judiciary Dems are now demanding info from DOJ that will shed light on that:
@RepAdamSchiff@RepSwalwell “AG Garland has an interest in restoring the rule of law — of that I have no doubt. But we believe that there will be no return to the rule of law if we allow these events to be swept under the rug.”
House Dems just released new info detailing Trump's corrupt pressure on Jeffrey Rosen (Barr's replacement) to use DOJ to subvert the election. This will get worse: Sources tell me Rosen is in talks about sitting for an interview. He can tell us much more: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The new revelations from House Dems detail a truly extraordinary effort on Trump's part to enlist DOJ in his scheme to subvert the election and remain in power illegitimately.
If Dems can secure an interview with Jeffrey Rosen, it could fill in the full scope of Trump's efforts to corrupt DOJ into helping overturn the election.
Here's a rundown of what we could learn. We may be just scratching the surface now:
@RepAdamSchiff's office has repeatedly asked DOJ for info on the subpoenaing of Dems' metadata, including what the legal basis is and what prompted the move.
Incredibly, DOJ has refused to answer, a committee official tells me.
@propublica@RonWyden The fact that we tax income and investment returns but not overall worth, and that we tax investment returns at lower rates than labor income, are policy choices we make, not something handed down to us on stone tablets.
@propublica@RonWyden The folk theory that distributive outcomes flow from "free" markets has badly distorted our public debate. It has insulated from public scrutiny the *many* ways in which market rules have been restructured to channel income and wealth upward for decades: