Thread by @sree

🧵 about @LarryElder and the Newsom recall.

Unlike most non-Californians weighing in on the California recall election, I’ve actually listened to and followed Elder for decades. 1/

🤫 First, a confession. Something I never planned to write about.

📻 Most of my closest friends won’t know this, but I listen to a lot of conservative talk radio, including when he was alive, Rush Limbaugh. 2/

📺 I watch a lot of Fox News (for years my wife would avoid the living room from 8-9 pm ET because @BillOReilly was on our TV screen).

Before going to college, my kids would yell at me for putting on Fox during the pandemic. 3/

🗞 The first thing I read when I pick up our two print newspapers at our front door - the NYT and the WSJ - is the @WSJopinion editorial page. 4/

💻 I scan and read a lot of awful, right-wing extremist Twitter accounts, subreddits and other parts of the social media cesspool. 5/

🤢 I don’t do all this because I’m some sort of secret conservative.

I do this because I believe in listening to and understanding the right-wing conservative ideology that has affected, twisted and brainwashed America. 6/

Watching and reading all this 💩 makes my blood boil and gets my synapses firing in the morning.

Listening to Limbaugh while driving has helped keep me angry and prevented me from being drowsy at the wheel. 7/

This cesspool is led by, and filled with, white supremacists, racists, misogynists, climate-change deniers, anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers.

In this world, @larryelder
is a rock star. 8/

Elder is a frequent guest on Fox News and his random thoughts and musings are the subject of popular memes.

His sound bites appear more often and get more play on East Coast and national GOP media than you might expect for an LA radio host. 9/

White supremacists love promoting people of color who reflect their worldview.

Racists say, “How can I be racist if I love/like/tolerate [ ]?” Insert folks like @RealBenCarson @RealCandaceO
@KatrinaPierson
@DineshDSouza @BobbyJindal @NikkiHaley
etc… 10/

Ooh, I just shuddered after typing up the 🧺 of deplorables in the previous tweet. 11/

And they really, really, really love @LarryElder.

He says so many things that belittle Black folks, women, the poor, et al, and all the right-wingers love quoting him and quote-tweeting him saying those things. 12/

But today, as I write this sitting in California on a three-day visit, it’s not just his words said on the radio that I worry about.

I worry what the man behind those words will do if put in charge of the world’s 5th largest economy. 13/

Yes, the Dem-dominated State Legislature will be able to block some of the damage he wants to inflect on poor people & minorities. But there’s still much damage he can do, not the least of which is possibly appointing a successor to 88yo Sen. Feinstein, upending the Senate. 14/

In New York, we watched a slick, media-savvy huckster upend an election campaign, become president and leave America, its economy, its health, its reputation and more in shambles. 15/

Californians, please don’t make the same mistake! Not in the middle of this pandemic. No matter how much you dislike Newsom and his policies, you will hate living in ElderLand even more. 16/

Today, the polls close at 8 pm PT. If you are in line at 8 pm, don’t leave — you are still allowed to vote.

Please text, call, iMessage, WhatsApp, DM, etc, etc, etc, eligible voters anywhere in the state. 17/

I love California, flirted with moving here multiple times (both to LA and to the Bay Area) and am enamored of almost everything about the state (except the traffic, forest fires and droughts). 18/

Your state is too important to be in the hands of Trumpist @larryelder, Californians! You know what to say to the recall (but please vote NO, too!). 19/

5 hours to go California. We are cheering for you always. #VoteNoOnTheRecall 20/

Hope this election-day thread make it obvious how much I love California.

I posted this on IG in 2018: In another life, I’d have lived in the LA sun.

A friend screenshot it for Twt & wrote something like “Instagram Sree is a whole different person.” instagram.com/p/BpmogCyAiCc/… 21/

I was driving in Bay Are traffic (even at 9 pm) with a busted radio when I called a friend for recall updates. Was so happy to hear @larryelder had lost!

He and the rest of @gop will now aim for 2022.

@dangillmor captures how a lot of people feel. Fix the recall process now!

https://twitter.com/dangillmor/status/1438171741398847488