Thread by @JuliusGoat

Once again I recommend an executive order that immediately makes all registered Republicans as of 1/6/21 permanently ineligible to hold or seek any elected or appointed public office, and announces all replacements effective immediately.

https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1420016108527046657

January 6, 2021 was both predictable and predicted; it was planned and plotted; it was led by the Republican president, it was one of the most terrifying days in US history, it almost succeeded, and the Republican party is almost uniformly working to ensure it happens again.

I'm not a lawyer, but one of the two political parties is a domestic threat to the security of the United States and is actively working to degrade its constitution and its democracy, which seems: a) bad; and b) not tenable.

Extreme solutions are appropriate to extreme threats.

We really need to get sharper about extreme vs extremist. What the GOP has been doing for at least the last 5 years is extremist. My modest proposal is extreme but appropriate to the threat.

Stealing a healthy kidney is extremist. Removing a cancerous one is extreme.

Do I think Biden is going to do this? No.

The proposal is an example of the way he—and we—ought to be thinking about this problem.

The Republican Party is a domestic threat to the security of the U.S. and is working to overthrow its government. I think that's pretty bad.

Would it be bad to have a one-party system? Yes, if you actually think the Dems represent just one party right now.

But even so: it's also not great to have a one-kidney body ... until one kidney is trying to destroy the body. Then it's the better option. Right?

If you don't agree with the premise that the Republican Party is acting as an active domestic threat to national security and the U.S. constitution, then my proposal would seem extremist.

But disagreeing with that premise increasingly feels like deliberate ignorance.

We are where we are. We have a party that is working for autocratic takeover, either through insurrection or the engineered procedural collapse of free and fair elections.

They'll clearly keep working as long as they have power.

Therefore they should lose power—and soon.

I understand not wanting to engage with the danger, because it really is a scary diagnosis. But it's not some conspiracy-minded twaddle. These anti-election laws at the state level are real. Republican fealty to Trump is nearly absolute. January 6 happened.

It's real.

Incidentally, it wouldn't be the most extreme proclamation ever issued by a president. There were more extreme ones issued before that historians now believe saved the union.

Not because they weren't extreme, but because they saw the extremist danger and responded to it.

We can face the extremity of our danger: an American Fascist Party.

Purging a fascist party is not a fascist act.

Surgery is extremist on a healthy body. On a body that requires surgery, however, it becomes salvation, even if it remains extreme.

https://twitter.com/NGrossman81/status/1420359776849080321?s=20

We can deny this truth, but it's not the healthy, reasonable, or safe position anymore than refusing a vaccine during pandemic is heathy, reasonable, or safe, any more than refusing needed surgery is healthy, reasonable, or safe.