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Feb 12 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
MTG is now the second most coveted endorsement on the right, after Trump.

I will never, as long as I live, understand how any Republican can contemplate that fact & not be deeply, mortifyingly *embarrassed*. thedailybeast.com/republicans-ad…
Kids These Days probably don't appreciate it, but when McCain chose Palin as his running mate, it was viewed as a clownish stunt that cost him the election. The idea that vapid, nasty dipshits from the RW swamp could be taken seriously at the highest levels was unthinkable.
Jokes on us! Palin became the model. McCain & the party he represented are dead & gone; the GOP now is nothing *but* a bunch of proto-Palins. Being vapid & nasty are not just desiderata, but requirements. You can't succeed *without* being vapid & nasty -- ask JD Vance.
It has become a party of assholes, in which being an asshole is actively celebrated & refusing to be an asshole is viewed with suspicion.

And, I'm sorry, if you look at that & think, "yes, these are my people, this is good," you're ... probably an asshole. 🤷‍♂️
These are the kinds of sentiments that Vox (or any sane publication) would probably have discouraged me from tweeting, but what the hell, here at the End of American Empire we might as well let it all hang out.

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More from @drvolts

David Roberts Profile picture
Feb 10
What's even more wild than some people continuing to wear masks during a pandemic is other people refusing to accept a free vaccine & thereby prolonging the pandemic.
It's very clear that, while the deliberately unvaxxed are worse on any conceivable metric (moral, social, epidemiological), it is people who insist on continuing to be cautious that truly BOTHER elite pundits, to the point of obsession.
It's worth thinking about why that is. I have my theories. But regardless of the reasons, I wish pundits would work a little harder to distinguish between "things that bother me" & "things that are of real social & political significance." Soooo much punditry consists of ...
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Feb 8
Infuriating. You know how USPS is trying to buy a bunch of shitty fossil-fueled trucks, over WH's objections? They've specced those trucks to be 1 LB over the "light truck" limit -- thus escaping tight fuel economy standards. Great stuff from @A_W_Gordon.
vice.com/en/article/4aw…
So much of what Dems wanted to do has been thwarted by shitheads. I want Biden to fight this one out. Win one, FFS.
More on this infuriating USPS situation. To change it would require action by Congress but of course Congress is utterly fucking ineffectual. BBB would help, but it's jammed up. I will seriously go nuts if we are forced to watch this slow-motion disaster.
washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…
Read 5 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Feb 4
OK, the GOP has *formally stated* that it believes political violence in service of conservative political power is legitimate.

Can we stop "debating" this shit now?
I'm on hold with the WA Dept. of Revenue -- have been for an hour! -- so I might as well tweet a thread while I wait. Let's talk about two different ways of conceiving legitimacy. What is its source? From whence does legitimacy derive?
One way to see it: moral & social legitimacy derive from a set of principles that apply to to all tribes & factions alike. A tribe's actions are legitimate insofar as they accord with those principles. So, eg, "it's bad to torture," no matter who's doing the torturing.
Read 32 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Feb 3
The least surprising "surprising answer" in history. Social trust is the foundation of *anything* a society wants to accomplish. The lack of social trust is why so many aspects of US policy are cruel & shitty, and why the US is currently falling apart. washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/…
The fun thing about reading social science on social trust is that the consensus is basically, "yes, this is the secret sauce that enables literally any society to accomplish literally anything. Also we have no idea how it's created or how to restore it or how it works. Whee!"
The last five or six decades have see an organized, billionaire-funded assault on social trust. That's what right-wing media IS; that is its essence. A lower-trust society is a cruel, inequitable, dog-eat-dog environment in which oligarchs can prosper.
Read 6 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Feb 1
I continue to find Covid discourse baffling. On one hand more people are dying than ever; on the other, VSPs are soberly nodding & telling us that the time for mitigation measures is over. washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…
One familiar part of the Covid discourse: the right is engaged in a massive, coordinated attempt to lie about vaccines so that more people will go unvaxxed & die, thus hurting Biden politically -- & the media's approach is, "why isn't Biden dealing with this sabotage better?"
You know how, once you see the Energizer bunny in the moon, you can't un-see it? Once you start noticing how many criticisms of Dems amount to "why aren't they dealing better w/ RW fuckery?" or "why haven't they made RWers be less shitty?" you can't un-see it.
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Feb 1
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.
Read 4 tweets

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