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Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
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30 Jun, 4 tweets, 2 min read
As far as I can tell, Hanania is widely regarded and presented by people on the center-right as a serious conservative intellectual. This, however, is not something a serious intellectual would write.
One has to be either remarkably uninformed or astonishingly disingenuous to equate the serious theoretical work and empirical analyses by leading legal scholars with the “modern representatives” of fascism and white nationalism.
If you think of Crenshaw / Bell and Stormfront / Bannon as equivalents, that really says a lot about you.
The inability / unwillingness of rightwing thinkers to engage in earnest with anyone or anything they perceive to be coming from “the Left” - and in particular, it seems, with what “leftwing” intellectuals of color have to say - is truly remarkable.

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More from @tzimmer_history

Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
1 Jul
Appreciate the sentiment - but I’m really hoping that a) we’re not seriously still debating *if* #SCOTUS is an impediment to progress, and that b) we can all acknowledge that impeding progress towards multiracial democracy has been the historical norm for the Supreme Court.
Seriously, the widespread view among Liberals of #SCOTUS as an ally in the fight for a more democratic, fairer society stems entirely from a romanticized understanding of the Court’s history, misconstruing the Warren Court as the norm, when really that era was a massive outlier.
Whenever you bring up the fact that SCOTUS has, as a historical norm, been allied far more often with an anti-democratic, reactionary political project, someone will inevitably yell “But what about this decision? Or that decision?!”
Read 10 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
29 Jun
This is a crucial piece by @ThePlumLineGS, outlining why the Select Committee should explore the “white rage” behind the January 6 insurrection.

I’d like to add: The white nationalist threat doesn’t emanate from the fringes of society – but from the Republican Party itself. 1/
We must not miss the forest for the trees: “White rage” is not just a fringe phenomenon in American politics, and the people who stormed the Capitol were not just a bunch of frustrated individuals from the fringes of society. 2/
They also weren’t simply seduced and overwhelmed by Trump’s #BigLie – I reflected on why it would be dangerously misleading to imagine the insurrectionists as victims of brilliant propaganda here: 3/
Read 40 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
28 Jun
Nikki Haley made some statements last week that provide an interesting window into the conservative psyche and help explain why even the “moderates” united behind Trump. Some thoughts: 1/
There’s obviously a lot of wannabe-tough nonsense in Nikki Haley’s statement. But it also expresses a feeling of being on the defensive, of being under siege, that is pervasive among conservatives – and has been for quite some time. 2/
“The days of being nice should be over” – time to get dirty, to fight back by whatever means. That, to me, is the underlying principle, the anxiety and energy that animates much of what is happening on the American Right. 3/
Read 32 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
23 Jun
Was this statement opposing federal initiatives to guarantee the right to vote made in:

A: 1869 (reaction to the 15th Amendment)
B: 1890 (justification for Jim Crow laws)
C: 1965 (reaction to the Voting Rights Act)
D: 2021 (justification for blocking the For the People Act)
The answer is D, but the only clue is the mention of S1 - because other than that it’s exactly how white supremacists have always justified their highly discriminatory election laws that were specifically designed to disenfranchise Blacks and anyone threatening their rule.
Seriously, if you know anything about the history of racism and white supremacy in this country, about how it took the federal government overriding “states’ rights” and forcing the states to respect Black people’s right to vote, you know how outrageous a statement this is.
Read 5 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
18 Jun
There are interesting parallels between the reaction of American conservatives to #Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday and the way West German conservatives despised the idea of celebrating May 8 as a “Day of Liberation” through much of the post-war period. Some thoughts: 1/
May 8, 1945 was, of course, the day Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. It is widely celebrated in many countries, including the U.S., where it is known as VE Day: Victory in Europe Day. 2/
It was celebrated in one of the two post-war Germanies: The German Democratic Republic, which was part of the Eastern Bloc and defined its identity in discontinuity with Prussian and Nazi history, and explicitly (though inadequately) as a society of anti-fascists. 3/
Read 48 tweets
Thomas Zimmer Profile picture
17 Jun
This piece is spot on: Instead of pretending that individual politicians are the problem, we need to acknowledge what @ThePlumLineGS calls the “larger truth”: That the Republican Party itself has become an anti-democratic force and an acute threat to American democracy. 1/
As @ThePlumLineGS rightfully notes, not every Republican has gone as far as Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia in their open disdain for democracy, the rule of law, and those who protected it on January 6. 2/
But let’s remember that calling the insurrection a "normal tourist visit," as Clyde famously did, or acting the way he did towards a man who risked his own life to defend American democracy, does not get you in trouble within the Republican Party. 3/
Read 20 tweets

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