New, from me: there is a concerted effort to deny and obscure the meaning of January 6th. In this piece, I examine the different flavors of January 6th revisionism and explain why it matters. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/little-big-l…
January 6th revisionist flavor #1. Tone policing: it wasn’t an “insurrection” or a coup, or a mob, or terrorists, or a riot etc…
January 6th revisionist flavor #2.
Whataboutism: What about Dick Cheney—he was a bad guy and is commerating January 6th? Seems bad. What about George Floyd protests? donmoynihan.substack.com/p/little-big-l…
January 6th revisionist flavor #3: Leftists protest all the time, what’s the big deal? Why should we focus on one particular protest at the Capitol? donmoynihan.substack.com/p/little-big-l…
January 6th revisionist flavor #4: Just calm down, you are being hysterical (and its actually the Dems who are rigging elections)
January 6th revisionist flavor #5:
It was an inside job! A false flag! What are you hiding?
January 6th revisionist flavor #6:
The true victims are the protestors. We should support them against a totalitarian state.
January 6th revisionist flavor #7: Attempts to overthrow elections should not be politicized. Please stop talking about them in divisive terms! donmoynihan.substack.com/p/little-big-l…
January 6th revisionist flavor #8: Anti-elitism.
The herrenvolk don’t care about this despite the best efforts of DC and media elites. (Bonus point if you are a Governor or Senator or media elite saying this)
Any major political event will be contested and subject to re-evaluation. But the tell among the January 6th revisionists is an unwillingness to acknowledge the basic facts of what happened and its implications for American democracy.
The January 6th revisionism was predictable and predicted. Here is Jake Tapper on January 6th itself saying the politicians who were involved would try to whitewash what happened. But the revisionism is much broader than those few, incorporating most of the right-wing media.
We have learned a lot since Jan 6th. To the extent that a revisionist perspective is needed it is that we saw it too narrowly at the time. The images of rioting and looting helped us miss the greater dangers were happening behind the scenes and which are driving current policy.
I'm not saying that people have to treat January 6th as 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. You merely need to believe that US political elites should take it as seriously as they did Benghazi. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/little-big-l…
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A judge in Wisconsin declared drop boxes to be illegal *today.*
State legislature won't put them back b/c they believe its in their interests to limit voting and they can do so because of gerrymandering. Thats why federal election reforms is the only way to fix these issues.
If your only concern is avoiding another coup attempt, that's fine but a) that's a pretty limited perspective on defending democracy, and b) there is no legislative reform that can guarantee that won't happen again.
If you are in a severely gerrymandered state, basic democratic processes of accountability no longer work, there is no electoral means to solve the problem and no incentive for the dominant party to stop democratic backsliding. SCOTUS won't intervene. So what's the solution?
Weird how "we just want to block obscure legal theories about race" morphed into "we want to exclude Black authors" and now "we want fewer Black teachers"
FWIW the best evidence we have is that diversifying the teaching pool generates positive outcomes, especially when it comes to reducing gaps in student performance nber.org/system/files/w…
"Cyfair has 13% Black teachers...do you know what the statewide average is for Black teachers? 10%. Houston ISD...you know what their average is? 36%...You know what their drop-out rate is? 4%. I don't want to be at 4%. I don't want to be HISD."
Context:
Went looking for more context...and yeah, that's not great
Should the Attorney General treat "rowdy parents" as "potential terrorists"?
I'm sorry, but this is really bad. It pushes the idea that this was happening and on the basis of that argues that the DOJ should not be monitoring threats of school officials. mcusercontent.com/ca678077bc522b…
The nice thing about Rufo is that he is upfront about methods of the con game. “Anti-CRT” has gotten a little tarnished, so now it’s “transparency.” If pundits or reporters are posting about a new school transparency movement, be aware that this is who they are working for.
This is what “transparency” mean in practice: another mechanism to undermine educators and put an ideologically-driven minority in charge of education
The "anti-CRT" has led to the use of state power to engage in censorship and book bans, erasing discussion of history or identities that conservatives dislike. Hoping the coverage is less credulous this time. The end goal is the same. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/making-publi…
I wrote about how the people who encouraged the Jan 6th insurrection are succeeding with a different strategy a year on: taking control of the machinery of elections. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/a-year-on-th…
I've been studying election administration on and off for almost two decades. The concerted attack we are seeing now on local election officials is new. 2/
Steve Bannon has pushed a "precinct strategy"--where Trumpists dedicated to the Big Lie capture the local GOP apparatus--as a means of "taking over all the elections.” (Local party officials appoint key election roles in many states). It's working. 3/ propublica.org/article/heedin…
Interesting piece: I think the most obvious answer is that the expanded CTC is relatively new, most people have not benefited from it, and people don't really see it as a distinct post-pandemic program. Those things will change if the becomes permanent. nytimes.com/2022/01/05/ups…
There is a risk among the policy wonk community that we overestimate people's knowledge of the ins-and-outs of unfamiliar programs. As a result, the way questions are framed and demand effects (where subjects are providing an answer they think the poller is seeking) matter a lot
For example, people's support for work requirements weaken if you tell them about the effects, or if you spell out the consequences. Framing matters.