Share this page!

David Roberts Profile picture
Twitter logo
2 Nov, 4 tweets, 2 min read
"Cumulatively over the 2021-45 period, measures restricting voter access [in Texas] could be expected to lead to total losses in gross product of just over -$1.5
trillion as well as almost -6.9 million job years of employment." democracydocket.com/wp-content/upl…
Among its other evils, the RW assault in US democracy is terrible for the US economy. investmentmonitor.ai/analysis/assau…
In that same vein, I hope everyone saw this from @marcorubio, which is the most nakedly fascist thing I've ever seen from a US senator. He's talking about taking control of US business & dividing the patriotic ones from the unpatriotic ones.
theamericanconservative.com/articles/we-ne…
One of the signal features of any autocratic regime -- but really a defining feature of fascism -- is that private enterprise is not governed by rule of law. Rather, businesses succeed by currying favor w/ the regime. They become part of the movement, or suffer.

• • •

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

Keep Current with David Roberts

David Roberts 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 @drvolts

David Roberts Profile picture
3 Nov
I wonder if letting 50% of what this country calls "media" be taken over by explicit right-wing propaganda was a bad idea after all.
I've tried to say this a million different ways. Here's another: the vast bulk of voters are not responding to what actual Dems actually say & do. They are responding to a ghoulish caricature that is ubiquitous on Fox, Facebook, etc. The VA election turned ...
... on the lie that VA grade school teachers are teaching CRT (which voters also only know as a series of lies). Barely any voters are well-informed about the national RW assault on voting rights & democracy. Few have even the faintest understanding of the real Dem agenda.
Read 10 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
2 Nov
I bet McAuliffe would have an easier time tying Youngkin to Trump if the entire left had been repeating the message that "Trump=GOP & GOP=Trump" from the second he won in 2016. But that woulda been uncivil I guess.
One of the right's enduring advantages is that they've spent 30 years propagandizing against the Democratic Party (& liberalism) *as such*, so every single Dem starts out behind the 8 ball, dealing w/ a whole set of negative assumptions.
There has been no commensurate effort to make "conservative" toxic or to smear the GOP brand. Oh sure people have said things, but the D party, the left as a whole, simply doesn't have the wherewithal, capacity, or killer instinct to mount a sustained campaign like this.
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
2 Nov
I feel like I'm losing my mind, so I'm going to try one more time. Pardon a truly futile thread.

The cycle thus far: Dems offer Manchin policy concessions; he pockets them & makes up new reasons to oppose the bill. That cycle continued right up to today ...
... with Manchin conjuring up still more objections to the BBB & calling for yet more delay. He has shown nothing but hostility to the bill -- said it's going to make the US an "entitlement society" -- & has said explicitly he's willing to kill it & take zero.
The only leverage progressives hold against him is that he wants the BIF to pass & they won't pass it without BBB.

All the above has been true for months & is still, from what I can tell, true.
Read 13 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
1 Nov
Everything beleaguering Dems right now -- frustrated public, big promises being broken, infighting dominating the news for months, VA gov race in peril -- is the fault of Joe Manchin & Kyrsten Sinema. You have to engage in heroic pretzel logic to conclude anything else.
If Dems had rapidly followed up the Covid relief bill with a BBB bill that contained the priorities they campaigned on, Biden & the party would be more popular, Americans would be vastly better off, and VA would be in the bag. 98% of them were ready. Manchin & Sinema did this.
This is the non-savvy, merely-3-dimensional, believe-what-your-eyes-tell-you take -- thus a take you will never see on a national op-ed page or on cable news.
Read 9 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
31 Oct
I hope everyone saw this story about Manchin's opposition to paid leave. In particular, these paragraphs. When I first read them they made me so angry I thought I might pass out. washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021…
That excerpt makes one thing very, very clear: Manchin's objections to the programs in the BBB are not based on any empirical evidence or coherent theory of government. What he has is a set of reactionary instincts, gut reactions common to old conservative white men.
He worries some poor person somewhere might cheat the program, get something they don't deserve. Can't have that.

He worries giving people benefits makes them lazy so he wants to make them work for it. Work... for a *paid leave program* ... for working people. 🙃
Read 7 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
29 Oct
Random thread that's been on my mind for a while, about public health communication.

Lots has been said about how official authorities communicated/are communicating about Covid. I think it's pretty widely agreed that it's been a mess -- complicated, shifting, uncertain, etc.
IMO, the very most important thing in communicating health stuff to the public is *clarity*. Messages should be simple, easy to remember, easy to repeat. And to some extent, this should also be true of the public health response itself.
From the beginning, Covid communication was the opposite. Not only bad info, but excessively complicated info & excessively complicated recommendations: you're X% at risk if you're this age, in a room this size, with ventilation this good. Wear masks here but not here, etc.
Read 10 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 @drvolts has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @drvolts!

Read all threads by @drvolts

:(