Thread by @FreedomFriesInc

"HW is now a despicable, vile leftist." As much as I laugh at these unironic Ls, it shows the kind of irrational rage that Trump cult victims are ready to direct at anyone who gets in their way.

I'm a #NeverTrump conservative, not a leftist. No one is allowed to leave the cult.

https://twitter.com/slimgoodboogie/status/1429098885486718979

I want to thank everyone who is #NeverTrump for extending the hand of friendship (or at least civility) to those of us who are prepared to change our mind.

New info comes to light all the time, eg the carnage he created in Afghanistan and other countries in that region.

I'm referring to this first hand testimony about what Trump did and didn't do in the FOUR years he had, from someone who was literally in the room throughout much of it.

A must-read 8-tweet thread:

https://twitter.com/OliviaTroye/status/1428740865665679361

I remember the constant cries that Stephen Miller was racist. At the time, I saw no clear evidence so dismissed it. To my horror, the ways that overt racism was covered up in the Trump WH & federal agencies are coming to light.

And I mean racism against ANY non-white group.

As much as this pandemic will be remembered as the defining event of our age for it's unmitigated carnage, one silver lining is that it has exposed Trump and his cult for what they are. Enough swing state voters were motivated to fire him. I think it was the pandemic mishandling.

The key inflection point was Jan 2020 when officials briefed Trump on the coming pandemic & told the public about it.

A sane president would have fast tracked the plan to get out of Afghanistan & Iraq with minimal loss of life.

But Trump actually wanted to stay there.🧐

I did too. I'd rather we as a coalition had not left these countries when we did, & in the way we did.

Trump promised to "bring home the troops" & it was a big part of why many of his voters elected him. He had no intention of keeping this promise. Many died as a result.

So the lid on the garbage can of Trump's real foreign policy record has been lifted, and what we can see & smell there is revolting.

I've known about Iraqi & Afghan translators for many years because New Zealand owed & owes citizenship to the ones that helped us.

I am beyond proud to see former Afghan translators and now NZ PR/Citizens wearing their NZ service medals at one of our RSA branches on ANZAC Day.

Story: avia.org.nz/afghan-interpr…

Here are the 10 Kiwi servicemen and women we lost in Afghanistan. I remember my tears as the news of each death was reported.

When our people came home alive, it was likely thanks to our translators. And they would have tried to save these 10 too, but couldn't.

I'm going to follow this tangent I'm on because it speaks to WHY I am so opposed to what the US Republican party has become as a result of Donald Trump & Kevin McCarthy.

And OF COURSE that affects NZ & everyone else.

I have always opposed the way that many MAGA folk talk and talked about Americans and others who happen to be Muslim and/or appear to be Muslim or from an ethnic minority group.

Then on 3/15/19, 51 innocents died in a terrorist attack in my home town, Christchurch.

The Christchurch shooter had referred to Muslims as "kebabs." He targeted them for both their race and their religion.

Antisemitism works the same way, ie it's about race and religion.

When Muslims are killed, Trump and his henchmen either rejoice, or ignore their deaths.

At the time of the 2019 Christchurch attack, Trump's racial & religious bigotry was more concealed than it is now.

Of course, I know that many of you will say it's been obvious all along. I'm trying to help you understand why so many people fell for his lies, and still do.

One reason is that they dismiss the concept of Islamophobia, because of the choice of the term phobia.

They say that fear of Jihadists is justified, so it can't be a phobia.

Note that I made the distinction between Islam and Jihadism.

They don't make that distinction, while demanding that others make a distinction between Christians and the men & women who threaten or have murdered people at or involved with pregnancy termination service providers.

They fail to understand "religious freedom" in the US.

Like every other constitutional right, they support religious freedom "for me, not for thee."

This is all connected. The 9/11 attack was the catalyst for most of the hatred that is directed at the 1.8 billion Muslims of the world.

For a time, Pearl Harbor made us hate Japan.

Yet anti-Japanese sentiment in the US now is rare. Anti- German and Italian sentiment is rare. As is the hatred for the countries of the former USSR, esp. Russia.

I don't when or if Islamophobia and antisemitism will ever reduce like that.

They got a boost in recent years.

Trump & his henchmen (I'll list the main ones in another thread) do not care how many Afghans die, including Afghans who risked their lives to help US personnel, & their immediate families.

They do not care that his Afghanistan failure led to no one trusting the US in future.

Americans outside the MAGA cult now have to rebuild the trust in the US that was squandered by Trump. It will take decades, at least. With even more deaths.

Each time I realize another Trump decision or dereliction of duty has gotten people killed, I feel sick to the stomach.

I think that unwillingness to face hard facts is part of why so many are still in the MAGA cult.

They are like the Americans who sent money to support Italy against the US and it's allies before and during WWII.

It's hard to get them to admit they are supporting terrorism.

Many are unwilling to face the hard facts about the pandemic, and the racism that supports the differentially violent treatment of black people by a widespread minority of police, and the clear efforts of the GOP to undermine democracy via the weakening of voting rights.

The pandemic stuff really grinds my gears, because as a disabled person I am directly and existentially affected.

I've come to understand that's why most black Americans are so motivated to say #BlackLivesMatter. Until BLM, no lives matter.

Muslim lives don't matter to Trump.

Because no lives matter to Trump. No American lives, including American military lives.

The only life that matters to Trump is his own. He'd throw his own children under the criminal prosecution bus to save himself. Just watch.

Many of those in power right now are the same.

Our forbears made our countries democratic (more or less) because it is a fairer and more successful way to run a country than tyranny.

MAGA brainwashing centers on the hatred of communism.

1920s & 30s German Nazism was exactly the same.

Right now, MAGA folk are defined by "the ends justify the means."

Which is fundamentally anti-democracy.

They've developed a false narrative about Biden's Afghanistan decisions, while denying which president it was that freed 5,000 Taliban fighters, incl. Baradar.

This short clip provides a lot of the details I mentioned in this thread.

I disagree with the tired "WMDs were never found in Iraq" trope bc chemical weapons are WMDs, Saddam had (& used) them, & they were moved to Assad's Syria & used there, too.

edition.cnn.com/videos/politic…

Given the extremist, racist ideology the far right GOP and FOX are openly admitting to in that clip, I think it would help a lot if Democrats focused on the greater threat to the USA & world that MAGA Republicans are, iso blaming Biden for this tragedy. Trump booby trapped him.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It's easy to pin all or most of the blame on Biden, because we benefit from hindsight.

He probably realizes he should have ensured DOD and State planned this more carefully & prepared the public better.

Did Trump holdovers there meddle? Maybe.

There is now evidence from several former Trump admin officials that the immigration process for the Afghan translators was deliberately and repeatedly stymied by Trump sympathizers in the agencies.

Exactly what Trump accused Democrats of doing.

This is called projection.

So much of the MAGA ideology relies on the so called "deep state" that "secretly" controls government regardless of who wins elections.

We're now seeing credible evidence of Trump folk at all levels of federal agencies & state governments who breach neutrality to aid Rs.

As a longtime (NZ) civil servant few things anger me more than when civil servants abandon their quasi-oath & become partisan pawns for elected leaders.

Trump fired the Pentagon top brass in mid November 2020.

On 1/6 it was clear the usual DOD security posture was absent.

Some folk still believe the lie that Trump had to ask permission from Nancy Pelosi for the ~4k DCNG to be ready, and then to respond in less than 4 hours.

This dereliction of duty is 100% the responsibility of Donald Trump.

Very similar to his part in the Afghan crisis now.

Trump and his henchmen get people killed and they don't care, and/or they say the victims deserved it.

Kevin McCarthy is propping up Trumpism in the GOP.

Because he agrees with Trump's far right fascist ideology. It's not about money, or threats to his safety.

I'm thankful that on 1/6 I was able to see through the GOP #JourneyToFascism.

Those who are still followers of the MAGA cult are brainwashed, gaslit, spiritually abused, whatever you want to call it. All of the above.

They can DM if they want help to leave. Privacy promised.

I'm also available to discuss how to identify the far right fascism & threats to national security that Republican leaders inadvertently reveal to us on a daily basis. So much material to cover.

Hold onto hope, world. We will defeat fascism once again.

Was going to end there but I just saw this headline.

MAGA cult followers will have 100% blamed this 17 yo for making a poor judgment call.

While trying to defend the conduct of Kyle Rittenhouse when aged 17.

All they have to offer is hypocrisy.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1428517153431556101

RIP Zaki Anwari and everyone else who has died or will die because Trump failed to keep his own promises on Afghanistan. #SayHisName

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