1/ I took a light weekend on the social media front, but let me say a few words about Newt's not-so-subtle threats this weekend.
He's right.
He's just saying the quiet part out loud.
2/ We've been warning you all along that this election isn't about BBB or prescription drugs or guns or climate or anything else in the policy domain.
It's about the emergent authoritarian state shambling its way toward the end of small-d democratic politics.
3/ Speaker Jordan (and no, Kevin, he didn't take your deal and he is going to shank you) and the MAGAe will comprise a clear majority of the GOP caucus in 2022 and they are Trump's political vergeltungswaffe.
They don't care about policy. They care about power.
4/ One the first day of the new GOP's reign, the impeachment of Joe Biden begins. The endless Benghazi 2.0 investigations begin.
Expect weeks to TV on Hunter Biden's laptop. Expect endless hearings on the BLM and the imaginary Antifa threat.
You know why.
5/ They're doing a few things. First, the purpose of terror is to terrorize. They want the Democrats on defense and the Democrats being Democrats will fall into the trap, day one.
They'll try the shame the GOP out of it and we know how well that'll work.
<eye roll>
6/ Next, pleasing their god-king. He demands they "investigate" the Big Lie and they will create a wave of scandals where none exists because the purpose of the Big Lie is corrode and undermine faith in elections.
Undermining faith in elections is central.
7/ Because if the election of 2020 is illegitimate to their base, anything goes.
I warned in 2019 that they'd mainstream political violence because the acquisition and retention of political power is the only ideological underpinning.
8/ They've kept the old GOP brand -- low taxes, individual liberty, blah blah blah -- but the new GOP is nationalist, populist, and increasingly fascist.
McCarthy and McConnell are still playing the old game of Washington and their corporate donors are flooding them with cash.
9/ Little do those corporations understand that in the New Order, they'll either toe the line politically or they'll be punished for it. Bannon came right out and said, "We're going to nationalize the social media companies."
Hawley, Marco, JD, Cruz, et al are pushing that...
10/ ...Overton window hard. They'll turn the power of the state into regulating business and enterprise to serve their ideological vision...and it'll work.
Why is Facebook a fetid hellhole? Because Zuck didn't want Trump to regulate him.
Iterate, widely.
11/ And yes, they'll try to put their opponents in jail. Yes, they'll use the full power of the state to do what they can't do at the ballot box.
Stop thinking this is about anything else but alloyed fascism.
12/ And they'll be abetted by the "conservative" media apparat desperately trying to fit grand and petit authoritarianism into a Burkean frame.
...and a mainstream media caught up in access t opower and Washington's dumb old game.
End.
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1/ A year ago this morning the plan was in place. The conspiracy was in action. The players knew their lines and marks.
They had worked for weeks to contrive a ludicrous legal argument based on specious reasoning to retain Trump's hold on office.
2/ It ran deep, far across the entire right-wing ecosystem. Near the center was a putrid slurry of Trump, his crime family, his goon squad sycophants, cosplay lawyers, leathery degenerate Roger Stone...
3/ ...pernicious little ratfuckers like Ali Alexander, conspiracy loons like Alex Jones, and of course the throbbing, cancerous gristle of Steve Bannon.
1/ The head of the detail stared across the Governor's desk, his face a stone mask. Knowing the volcanic temper of the man who led his state, he knew he must choose his next words carefully.
"Sir, I understand the need for personal time. I understand the need for family time."
2/ "The responsibilities of your office are overwhelming. Everyone knows how hard you work."
He took a beat, waiting for even a flicker of reaction. Seeing none, he pressed on.
"With the legislative session coming, I wonder though if this is the best time..."
3/ "And naturally, the concerns we have for your security during your...breaks...remain paramount. I must insist your security team accompany you on this...break."
The Governor finally showed a flicker of emotion. It crossed his face like a cloud covering the sun, then reset.
2/ "Over these next 11 months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating Pres Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line."
For four months, we fought largely in the shadows. Republicans hissed their hate and most Democrats shrugged.
3/ And then...Gasoline, meet fire.
So when we dropped "Mourning in America" the world -- and Trump -- was watching.
1/ Trump is an ongoing political reality. His imitators and acolytes will try to launder Trumpism and racial nationalism with less overt insanity and more Ivy League gloss.
If you lack the strategic vision and historic context to understand Trump will be the GOP nominee…🤷♂️
2/ The question you have to ask yourself is simple: do you want to leverage trumps destructive jealousy against his successors to weaken them for 2028 and beyond?
or, if Trump drops dead of a heart attack or struck by a meteor do you want a bloody, divided, brutal primary?
3/ further, given the unbelievable loyalty he controls with the base Republican voters, anything that divides them from the rest of the party is a benefit to pro democracy forces.
A lot of the complaints about the strategy from dollar store Sun Tzu types rests on delusion.
1/ How to interpret Qevin McCarthy's rant last night?
First, it has nothing to do with stopping the actual bill. It was a late night C-SPAN circle jerk of de minimis legislative import.
It was sound and fury, signifying nothing, a mouse produced after a prodigious labor.
2/ No, what this was really about is Kevin watching the reality of Speaker Jim Jordan looming over his shoulder.
The House now has a critical mass of MAGA Trumphadis who view Kevin as a dangerous accommodationist, an impure vessel.
That number will increase.
3/ The same redistricting and gerrymandering that ensures about 12-14 seats (for reasons too long and boring to explicate here) will be added to their total will also bring a new cohort of purist lunatics more in line with Gosar, Green, Gaetz, and the rest of the mutant parade.
1/ The dull inevitability of the Facebook rebranding effort is already boring me. You could rename it Miss Mary Sunshine’s Cute Kitten Memetown and the following things will still be true:
Marc Z is a broken, sociopath without the ability to interact with or understand humans.
2/ Marc will still exercise absolute control over the platform and all of its pathologies will reflect that control.
It will still be the world’s primary modality for exercising algorithmic sorting and manipulation.
It will still be a morass of conspiracy nonsense.
3/ it will still be imbued with the belief that its technology is morally agnostic and that the gods of quarterly shareholder value must be appeased.
As has been consistently demonstrated, the worst and darkest impulses of humanity will find a fertile ground there.