Share this page!

Matthew Sheffield Profile picture
Twitter logo
17 Oct, 8 tweets, 5 min read
1/x: Coverage of "critical race theory" controversies must explain GOP strategists are making them.

Fox News has unwittingly proved it. Often, when trying to find regular parents concerned about CRT, it has featured GOP activists w/o disclosing h/t @MattGertz

Pics related. ImageImageImageImage
@MattGertz More Republican activists pushing fabricated "critical race theory" controversies... ImageImageImageImage
Still more...

Read these two articles for details on the hidden Republican ties of these "concerned parents."

Fox News routinely makes mountains out of media molehills but then engages in outright lying to its audience. 1) mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-… 2) mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-s… ImageImage
The only education policy that reactionary Republicans have is to shut down public education. Fox and GOP interest in education was nonexistent until they saw a way to fire up racists & Christian nationalists.

GOP elites have no interest in policy apart from its use in elections
Reactionary Republican elites would rather tear at social fabric through manufactured controversies than do the hard work of creating policy alternatives. And Dems and the media never call it what it is.

In the process they are radicalizing their own voters to hate America.
The CRT panic is the latest fake/grossly exaggerated controversy:
▪️ Vaccine safety
▪️ Transgender athletes
▪️ "War on Christmas"
▪️ Isolated acts of looting by ppl not affiliated with #BlackLivesMatter
▪️ Border Caravans
...

GOP elites were never upset by any of this stuff.
Responsible news outlets covering controversies created by Republican operatives must disclose to viewers who started them and who is running them.

Credible journalists don't show up to a staged protest and just let professional liars do their thing. /end
PS: The reason deranged reactionaries like Alex Jones often talk about things being "staged" is that they are personally familiar with GOP operatives staging protests.

They've seen so much cynical manipulation that they cannot believe that any organic citizen protests are real.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Matthew Sheffield

Matthew Sheffield Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @mattsheffield

Matthew Sheffield Profile picture
18 Oct
Bari Weiss constantly whines about being "canceled" despite:

-Making at least several hundred thousands of dollars a year writing poorly researched drivel.

-Constantly being invited onto TV shows where she never has to face tough opposition

-Having voluntarily quit at the NYT
The truth is that Bari Weiss is like many reactionaries in that she has no ideas, but she feels entitled to free promotion of her incoherent beliefs.

And if you look at her career, she has been handed that.

There is no better example of affirmative action for right wingers.
She whines about the Hunter Biden laptop story not being covered before the 2020 election but leaves of the reason it wasn't: Rudy Giuliani explicitly refused to release the data for inspection.

Considering that he's obviously insane, no one was going to take him at his word.
Read 6 tweets
Matthew Sheffield Profile picture
17 Oct
1/x Jon Stewart today reminding that he still doesn't get politics.

He was right to point out far-right extremism on "TDS," but he trained liberals and moderates to just laugh at it rather than see it as the threat to democracy that it is.

This mindset still rules elite media.
So much of what he said to Jake Tapper today was about 80% of the truth. Doing that seems to be Jon Stewart's actual schtick.

His 2020 movie "Irresistible" really illustrated his worldview. He truly believes that we just need to all hold hands and pass some campaign finance laws
Jon Stewart's famous appearance on "Crossfire" also showed his naïve worldview. "Say something nice about X" does nothing.

That attitude is even more anachronistic after Trumpists tried to kill members of Congress and overthrow democracy.

Read 6 tweets
Matthew Sheffield Profile picture
15 Oct
Eric Metaxas is an extremely wealthy Christian radio host who is plugged into the highest levels of the GOP. He's also a total lunatic who claims that Trump losing was a "Satanic usurpation."

This is a guy being presented as a "respectable Republican."
There's a very common myth (believed by many Democrats even) that QAnon & other conspiracy theories are just "out there" stupid ideas believed by hapless losers.

It's a pernicious lie created by soulless Republican consultants.
The truth is that GOP elites, the donors, the politicians are reactionaries who see themselves as God's personal servants.

Metaxas says things like this all the time & never faces consequences for it because his bosses at Salem Media are extremists also: flux.community/anne-nelson/20…
Read 8 tweets
Matthew Sheffield Profile picture
14 Oct
Republican politicians are so terrified of the reactionary GOP minority that they are blocking businesses who support common-sense Covid safety regulations.

Reactionaries will then lie & claim that corporate pushback is due to business going "woke." chicagobusiness.com/government/cov…
Just to clarify, 60% of GOP adults are vaccinated or plan to asap. Party elites are pandering to the 23% of Republicans who say they will "definitely not" get a jab. kff.org/coronavirus-co…
The reality that GOP elites are willing to sacrifice the health of the nation + their credibility to pander to 23% of their voters is the perfect illustration of how far-right crazies dominate U.S. politics.

This absurd and outrageous situation has been in place for decades.
Read 6 tweets
Matthew Sheffield Profile picture
11 Oct
Florida Republican consultants have been exposed in court documents & guilty pleas for creating many fake candidates in order to siphon votes from Democrats. It's a much bigger story with far more people involved in whatever Matt Gaetz is accused of doing news-journalonline.com/story/news/sta…
But there is a Matt Gaetz connection to this Florida fake candidate factory.

At least one of them appears to have been propped up by Gaetz's best friend Joel Greenberg. Check this thread out from @gal_suburban
More on the first guilty plea of this actual election fraud scheme.

No surprise Trump fans never talk about this stuff. But the national MSM and progressive media has ignored it as well news-journalonline.com/story/news/sta…
Read 15 tweets
Matthew Sheffield Profile picture
9 Oct
Thread:

I had a great @TheoryChange conversation w/@nimmideviarchy about political extremism's origins.

She's got a book out now called "Radicalizing Her" about female militants that is (sadly) very relevant to the growth of US-based extremism flux.community/matthew-sheffi…
@nimmideviarchy Nimmi makes the excellent point that mainstream media outlets are sometimes willing to explore the origins of white nationalist militancy but rarely do so for militants from the Global South.

Here's the cover and purchase link: beacon.org/Radicalizing-H… Image
But simply knowing what motivates people toward extremism does not really do anything ultimately, unless policy changes can be derived from this knowledge.

Nimmi's book highlights how many int'l aid groups don't understand how to truly help and seem unwilling to learn.
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @mattsheffield has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @mattsheffield!

Read all threads by @mattsheffield

:(