1. There was a crucial moment in the weeks after Jan. 6th, when some elected Republicans mistakenly thought the insurrection would be the party's breaking point with Trumpism. Many said the right things. Then, reality set in. Much of the base supported or condoned Jan. 6th.
2. What happened next shows how the creeping authoritarianism of Trumpism grew like a weed over the last 4+ years, and has now completely ensnared the entire party. Only a few - Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, etc - decided it was worth risking their seat to protect our democracy.
3. This dynamic is crucial to understanding modern GOP politics, because Trump is gone but his authoritarianism now defines the party he took over. In fact, there's a dangerous ratcheting effect that is making the party increasingly extreme - and will likely get worse over time.
4. It's an all-or-nothing dynamic in which questioning even one part of the GOP gospel can immediately kill your career in Trumpian politics (see Cheney, Liz). Meanwhile, those who "out-Trump Trump" with insanity like Marjorie Taylore Greene, instantly become GOP rockstars.
5. Every incentive in GOP politics is to go more extreme, to openly embrace authoritarianism, to state what was previously only hinted at, or to make increasingly unhinged comparisons between public health measures and Nazism, or to peddle the most ludicrous conspiracy theories.
6. There is no force in GOP politics that is bringing the party back from the brink. Which more moderate politician is a rising star in the party? The moderates were already purged. So now, spineless ambitious politicians who were moderates at heart have chosen to become zealots.
7. The only way to defeat a fundamentally authoritarian party is a) wield the power you have to block obvious attempts to subvert democracy (voter suppression, gerrymandering, brazen attempts to overturn election results when Republicans lose); and then b) beat them in elections.

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More from @brianklaas

7 Aug
1. I’ve spent a lot of time in authoritarian countries, interviewing dissidents, opposition leaders, torture victims, journalists who were beaten. And it’s infuriating that people like Tucker Carlson are cosplaying like apparatchiks for autocrats before jetting back to the US.
2. People on the Trumpian right who claim to idolize autocrats from Orban to Putin wouldn’t last even a few weeks in those regimes. Heck, they can’t even handle the “oppression” of a cloth mask for 20 minutes a day. Try living under genuinely inescapable oppression.
3. But they know they won’t have to. Instead, people like Carlson can put Orban up on a pedestal and then just fly back to their glitzy life in the US. Hungarians don’t have that option. And they don’t have a democracy any longer either because of Orban.
Read 4 tweets
3 Aug
1. Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus, appears to be taking yet another page from Putin’s playbook. He seems to be systematically hunting down and assassinating dissidents. Grounded airplanes, an Olympian nearly kidnapped, now a murder of a dissident in Ukraine.
2. When I interviewed presidential candidates and opposition figures in Minsk, the KGB followed me everywhere. It’s a police state, with the KGB headquarters dominating the Minsk cityscape, a constant reminder that you’re being watched.
3. But Lukashenko is getting bolder. He’s long tried to have it both ways, flirting with the West for concessions while not straying too far from Putin, but it’s now clear that the West’s approach has failed and he’s decided to simply hunt people down, no matter the costs.
Read 5 tweets
2 Jun
1. American democracy is in serious danger, because it's under sustained assault from Republicans who wield real power across the country. But to understand what's going on and why it's so dangerous, here are some things I've learned from studying democratic breakdown elsewhere:
2. Democracy - bear with me - is a bit like a sandcastle. By just holding an election, you can make something super basic that looks like a democracy. But without lots more effort, you're stuck with something weak that can easily be wiped away. Many countries never get past that. Image
3. Over hundreds of years, the US built a sophisticated, robust democratic sandcastle - what political scientists call a "consolidated democracy." It's so sophisticated that individual institutions can falter, but the whole thing still stays standing. It's become pretty resilient Image
Read 9 tweets
15 May
1. By replacing Cheney with Stefanik, the GOP has centered itself around a cult of personality, in which sacrificing principles and truth on the altar of Trumpism is required. It's a dynamic I've seen firsthand in dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
2. Cheney was replaced for two reasons: 1) She broke with Trump during impeachment; and 2) She challenged the "Big Lie" about the 2020 election. The 2nd reason is far more sinister. She was purged because she wouldn't repeat the myths that now define Trump's cult of personality.
3. At the extreme end, cults of personality are absurd. (I've had to stand up to watch a short biopic glorifying the King of Thailand before watching the Hobbit). But I worry that many Americans are also underestimating how dangerous and destructive they are to democracy.
Read 8 tweets
3 May
1. American pundits are often unwilling to say so because of the both-sides bias that pervades the domestic US politics sphere, but if the Republican party existed in a different country, there would be consensus in the US that it had become an authoritarian, anti-democracy party
2. There are precisely zero other rich democracies in which a major political party has a) attempted to outright reject the results of a democratic election; b) systematically tried to restrict voting rights; and c) routinely peddled lies and conspiracy theories about democracy.
3. When Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney - both staunch conservatives - are pariahs in the ostensibly conservative party because they've stood up for basic facts, have agreed to accept election results, and acted to defend rule of law, you know you've got a serious problem.
Read 4 tweets
24 Apr
1. A thread on the Armenian genocide as Biden rightly moves to recognize it (finally) after Trump continued to deny its existence. The genocide was the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire carried out between 1914 and 1923.
2. This is one small story from the genocide, from Frances Gage, a Christian missionary who was an alumni of @CarletonCollege in Northfield, Minnesota. She wrote in diaries at the time while she was teaching at a missionary school affiliated with Carleton in Marsovan, Turkey.
3. In the summer of 1915, Turks came to the school. They had already rounded up the men and boys, but they were there to take the girls. In the end, they rounded up 63 girls. They were likely going to be killed as part of the genocide. Gage couldn't stop them from being taken.
Read 7 tweets

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