The stalled Russian convoy reminds me of British General John Burgoyne's army on the way to the Battle of Saratoga in 1777. Both past and present feature huge slow-moving convoys, constant harassment, logistical nightmares, and fatal underestimates of local resistance. 🧵
Like the Russian convoy, Burgoyne led a massive wagon train overland that was slowed by heavy rains, muddy roads, unwieldy artillery, and constant attacks and sabotage by Patriot militias that felled trees across roads and blew up bridges to slow Burgoyne's march.
Like the Russian convoy, Burgoyne's poor planning created a logistical nightmare as the delays caused his army to run out of food and supplies, compelling him to divert plans and stall his army's progress so he could resupply his slow-moving forces.
Like the Russian convoy, Burgoyne and his officers badly underestimated local resistance, thinking their forces could easily crush the “uncouth militia” sent against them--who they were convinced would turn and run in the face of battle against a real army.
Like the Russian convoy, Burgoyne's army was routed by local resistance, losing nearly an entire expeditionary force he dispatched to Bennington to retrieve all the food and horses they could capture. Only stragglers returned with over 900 men captured or killed.
It remains to be seen if the Russian convoy meets the same fate as Burgoyne and his troops at the Battle of Saratoga: a devastating loss for the invading army that changed the course of the entire war.
Let's hope history repeats itself.
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We spent four hours walking around the “Peoples Convoy” Trucker encampment at the Hagerstown Speedway in MD. Anyone dismissing this as a failed event by the crazy fringe is missing the big picture.
1) There were thousands of people there. About a hundred semi-trailer cabs and hundreds of convoy pick-up trucks and SUVs filled nearly every spot in the huge Speedway parking lot. Tents were everywhere. On top of this, thousands of locals came for the day from MD, PA, WV, VA.
2) There was a clear attempt to appear more mainstream. The focus was a big-tent ideology of “Freedom.” Although started by anti-vaxxers, it was re-framed as “protecting our liberties” in ways that allowed for diverse beliefs. Christian Nationalism mixed with QAnon spiritualism.
The fixes suggested here for healing the racial divide offer no real solutions because they ignore how entrenched racism stands at the core of the split. White supremacy never gives up without a fight. You don't solve the crisis of democracy by ignoring it's central problems. 1/
In “Cease-Fire in the Culture Wars,” Yascha Mounk blames "the elite" for endangering democracy by putting Trump voters "on the receiving end of a culture war in which the most powerful elements of their own societies look down on them.”
His solution?
Liberal democracies "need to embrace a more ambitious vision of diversity by promising all citizens—majority and minority—social respect and a place at the table." In other words, we need more respect for bigotry, sexism, anti-science ignorance, and gaslighting authoritarianism.
Lt. Michael Byrd did more than he knows. I was at the Capitol Insurrection observing on the east (non-mall) side and witnessed the difference his actions made. Shooting Ashli Babbitt stopped another wave of violent insurrectionists from entering the Capitol.
Just before Lt. Byrd shot Babbitt, insurrectionists inside the Capitol had managed to open a door on the House side. At the time, the crowd on east side was almost all on the center stairs, having no luck trying to (re)break into the doors that led into the Rotunda.
With few people on the House stairs, the insurrectionists who had opened the door started shouting, "Door on the House side is open! Come on over!" But the crowd didn't move. I don't think many of them knew which was the House side.
Six months ago I witnessed the Capitol Insurrection firsthand and reported the open embrace of authoritarianism--not just by the hardcore extremists who stormed the building--but also by the crowd outside who called themselves "Patriots" and said this was "Our 1776." 1/6
Hearing a diverse mass of ordinary looking, middle-class white people discussing violence in calm, matter-of-fact tones was more chilling than the organized militias and proud white supremacists because it revealed authoritarianism's grip on a large minority of the US. 2/6
Since 1/6 that grip has tightened and spread. Republican leaders who condemned both the Insurrection and Donald Trump have nearly all backtracked. They blocked impeachment and then a bipartisan investigation into 1/6. Now they increasingly deny the Insurrection even happened. 3/6
A thread on Rush Limbaugh and a wildly inaccurate zombie essay on the Declaration of Independence he claimed his father wrote. Although Rush is gone, I have no doubt this viral essay about the alleged sacrifices by the Declaration Signers will endure. 1/13
This essay symbolizes much of what Rush Limbaugh came to represent: lies, exaggerations, a patriotism based on idealized and phony representations of the past, and a veneration of the wealthy and powerful whose financial plunder he recast as sacrifice. 2/13
The essay, "Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor," offers a GREATLY exaggerated account of the Signers' sacrifices. It is so inaccurate that nearly every claim in it contains some misleading statement, mistruth, or made-up "fact." 3/13 rushlimbaugh.com/my-fathers-spe…
George Mason (VA) at the Constitutional Convention:
"No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above Justice? Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice?"
Gouverneur Morris (PA) noted that the President "can do no criminal act without Coadjutors who may be
punished."
George Mason (VA) added, "When great crimes were
committed he was for punishing the principal as well as the Coadjutors."
And by punishment they mean impeachment.
Elbridge Gerry (MA) on Impeachment at the Constitutional Convention:
"A good magistrate will not fear them. A bad one ought to be kept in fear of them. He hoped the maxim would never be adopted here that the chief Magistrate could do no wrong."