Thread by @DavidPepper

THREAD - a reality check, for current/future public servants:

No matter what you do, the GOP is going to call you communist (child care?), socialist, radical.

They’re going to run ads featuring you and the most high-profile left-leaning figure of the day.

No matter…

1/

https://twitter.com/davidpepper/status/1478488348897464320

…what your real record is, they’re going to lie about it. (You’re actually doing well if that’s what they even focus on.)

These days, they’ll falsely call you a criminal and leave voters w the impression that you may go to jail. (One of their favs.)

2/

Even if you vote with them 75% of the time, they’ll take the 25% and use THAT to call you a communist, or socialist, or radical.

If you’re Black, they’ll definitely darken your photo to scare people.

They’ll also accuse you of doing things that THEY do. For example, in..

3/

..Ohio, they’ve been crushing police budgets for a decade as part of raiding local government funding in order to pay for tax cuts most in those towns will never see.

But they will say YOU are the one “defunding the police” when you aren’t

Or they will claim carving out…

4/

exceptions to the filibuster is “radical,” except when they do it, or make up other rules that serve their agenda that they instantly oppose when the same rule would serve your’s.

And they’ll laugh when you call them hypocrites, as if they care in their quest for power.

5/

They will make up issues that someone far away found tested well & bring it to your election even if it’s wholly inapplicable.

Like saying Critical Race Theory is taught in Ohio high schools or below, when THEY control the state board of education that sets the curriculum,

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and not a single school district in Ohio has CRT in its curriculum.

But somehow, they are going to stop it.

And when confronted on the facts that it’s not taught in Ohio schools, they’ll simply lie about it.

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And the sitting Governor will spend years in court—on a strange personal quest—to ensure that the “right to lie” in campaign ads is protected speech and the law of Ohio and the country.

And when he succeeds, you can’t stop any of these false attacks…

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…except through costly lawsuits that will be heard months or years after the campaign has ended.

So, knowing that whatever you do, none of it matters because they’re gonna lie anyway, what do you do?

Simple….

8/

One, be ready to fight.

Two, and far more importantly, do what you know is RIGHT.

Like pass voting rights, despite the illegitimate claim that the filibuster should stand in the way of the Constitutional guarantee that democracy be protected in states.

That way…

9/

when they come with all those attacks against you, full of lies and nonsense, no matter what you do, you have something you can tell your voters that you actually did for THEM!

Get it done!

END

Epilogue:

And, in your brief time on this earth, in your brief window of public service, you will have actually made a difference.

And that will be your legacy.