Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
David Roberts Profile picture
@drvolts
Feb 1, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
This @PeterBeinart piece reminds me: there has never in my adult life been a "cancel culture" stronger, with more ability to impose real personal & professional punishment, than the bloodthirsty elite consensus in favor of war with Iraq in the early 2000s. peterbeinart.substack.com/p/nationalism-…
The hysterical political & media elite response to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan showed that the hawkish & vengeful US foreign policy "blob" not only has suffered no consequences for its serial disasters -- it's as powerful as ever. Now it's beating Ukraine war drums.
And it is going to drag us steadily into an unnecessary & self-destructive posture of belligerence toward China.
A country with this level of overcompensating masculine anxiety will forever take satisfaction in acts of military belligerence. The case for war is always already half-made. Image

• • •

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
Sep 25
I don't think anyone -- *especially* not anyone on the right -- has truly reckoned with how hollow, cowardly, & pathetic the Republican Party turned out to be, as violently exposed by Trump. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
The thing that was called the Republican Party for most of my political adulthood -- the very serious, suit-wearing, chin-stroking types that appeared on Sunday shows -- was ephemera. An illusion. GOP was always a collection of lickspittle proto-fascists waiting for a strongman.
It's not just Republicans like David Frum who participated in this illusion & owe us an accounting. The mainstream media worked as hard, if not harder(!), to prop up the illusion. Even as dirty hippies on the outside shouted & shouted about the reality.
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Sep 25
It is effectively impossible to communicate how bad this is to ordinary Americans because no one has done the steady work, across the years, of communicating the importance of the large, stable US bureaucracy. You can't just parachute in at the last minute waving red flags.
I've run into this thought again & again over the last 10 years, as MAGA reactionaries try to dismantle the US system: we really should have spent more time conveying the value of that system, not just every four years, but as part of an ongoing communications effort.
We (educated liberals engaged w/ politics) take it for granted that people understand the value of rule of law, competent expertise in nonpartisan gov't bureaucracies, separation of powers, etc. etc. They don't. That stuff needs to be celebrated as loudly as RWers demonize it.
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Sep 15
This is such a key insight into reactionary psychology. Their atavistic fears & instincts are primary, the unmoved mover, the foundation. Evidence -- what this world actually tells us through observation -- can & sometimes is used to support the instincts, but it's not necessary.
You can see echos of this all over the place. They want to pass repressive voter restrictions. Why? There's no evidence of any substantial voter fraud!

Yeah, but they *feel like there is*, and that's enough, so they must be satisfied.
The election was not stolen, but the J6 rioters *felt like it was*, so that justifies what they did.

Remember "facts don't care about your feelings"? That was all defensive projection too.
Read 8 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Sep 13
Hey, want to hear a funny story? (It's not that funny.)

Yesterday was my birthday. Guess what I got?

An emergency appendectomy! 🎂🎉🥳

I'm sitting, bored, in a hospital bed, so I'll tell the tale.
About 20 minutes before Mrs. Volts & I landed in Paris on Wed., I started getting stomach pains ... cold sweats ... kind of felt like I needed to diarrhea & puke at the same time ... not great. I thought it was food poisoning.
Folks, lemme tell you, the ensuing few hours were some of the most harrowing I've ever had traveling. Sit through the excruciatingly long de-boarding, then customs, border, security, race to other side of airport for connecting flight ... all while basically doubled over.
Read 17 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Sep 10
I don't really disagree with this Chait piece -- if repudiating some Biden stances will help Harris, she should do it -- but I do find this passage maddening:

nymag.com/intelligencer/…
Image
This is so revealing. A certain kind of center-left pundit has decided that critiques of political media are something silly leftists do. So they're left with no explanation at all about why a president who ended our forever war & rescued a tanking economy is unpopular.
I find it quite frustrating that Biden is unpopular despite what is, by almost any empirical measure, an incredibly successful term ... but I do not find it confounding or bewildering. It's an inevitable outcome of a diseased, dysfunctional information environment!
Read 10 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Sep 1
One is never sure, On Here, whether a respondent is actually addressing one or whether they are just recruiting one as a stand-in for some bogey man they want to bash, but on the off chance it's the former here, let me clarify what I meant.
I want the public to be better informed about Harris -- who she is, her approach to governing, her plans, etc. That's good for democracy. It would also (happily in my judgment) be good for her electorally, but that's not the main point. The public should get more/better info.
The problem, as I & others have documented at tedious length, for decades nows, is that the professional class whose purported job it is to educate the public about candidates -- the official political press -- kind of sucks at it.
Read 15 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

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

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

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(