Thread by @RGC_BPPA

Well....I am right now to @briebriejoy's Great Replacement Theory/Tucker Carlson segment on YouTube.

Gotta say, I owe her an apology.

Though I still somewhat disagree with her underestimating the undercurrent of Carlson's bigotry, I can see what she is talking about.

@briebriejoy I know Brie gets hammered from all sides (from the Hillbot Democrats AND the Jimmy Dore Strasserites), and the Virgil Texas controversy is still used to slam her, but on this issue she is far more on point.

Yes, Tucker Carlson is a White Supremacist bigot.

@briebriejoy But, as she pointed out, the fundamental reason why Carlson's "GRT" scores so well with White conservatives has far more to do with the failure of Democrat liberals and "moderates" to address fundamental economic inequality.

@briebriejoy Plenty of moderates & liberals were taken in by Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012 as a sign of political and social realignment, as a sign of a permanent Democratic rise due to the supposed increased voting power of Black and Latinx voters, and the recruitment of younger Whites.

@briebriejoy What they ignored, however, was that those victories cut right through the heart of a right-wing White revivalism that grew out of the backlash against Obama and the initial fear that his election would indeed threaten the conservative consensus.

@briebriejoy The rise of the Tea Party and its revival of the Republican Party, combined with Obama's betrayal of the "progressives" and his heel turn towards establishment Democrat DLC/Third Way corporate "centrism", has essentially shattered that hope of revived liberalism...

@briebriejoy ...and contributed greatly to the further lurch of the political system further and further rightward.

Bernie Sanders' campaigns, like Jesse Jackson's before him, was more of a last-gasp effort of the "progressives" to counter the right-turn lurch of the Democrats.

@briebriejoy It was doomed to failure, however, due to the institutional power of corporate and wealth over the political system, and the total collapse of organized labor and local progressive organization as a counter to the gentrification and corporatization of the Democratic Party.

@briebriejoy The sheepdogging of liberal/Left opposition to the Right's social and economic agenda into the "acceptable" parameters of MSNBC "liberalism" and wonkification of social policy into the hands of NGO's and wealthy foundations more concerned about padding their profits...

@briebriejoy ...and increasing their clout than about addressing fundamental core issues of inequality, rendered them useless in fighting the steady revival of the Right & their legacy institutions of White Nationalist backlash.

Obama's victory over Romney in 2012 only masked the situation.

@briebriejoy So deep was the level of denial and arrogance in the circles of Democratic Party liberalism that they simply assumed that they would be launched into a permanent landslide with Hillary Clinton's election because everybody knew that Trumpster was an extremist racist & unelectable.

@briebriejoy Everybody, of course, except those who saw how quickly the media apparatus of the Right was reformed & upgraded with tons of 1% cash.

And, those who saw the creeping impact of right-wing Federalist Society judges gradually taking majority control of the judicial system.

@briebriejoy The tragedy of the 2016 POTUS election should have been the wakeup call for Democrats to look at themselves and assess the damage of abandoning economic populism and straddling the line of social liberalism and economic royalism.

Instead, the leadership simply doubled down.

@briebriejoy They simply clutched harder to their myopic belief that "demographics" alone combined with the "radical center" would isolate Trump and the GOQP as "right-wing extremists" while shaming progressive critics as "Far Left extremists" looking for "free stuff" would keep them in line.

@briebriejoy All that did was open the door wide open for the ultimate failure of the Biden Administration, which ran on & then immediately abandoned even nominal "progressive" initiatives; while ultimately pulling the party deeper into the clutches of conservative billionaires and reaction.

@briebriejoy It also allowed the Hard Right/Alt-Right to consolidate its own power within the GOP and further increase their hold through their institutional powers, now further buttressed by their full and successful takeover of the judicial branch and some state governments.

@briebriejoy That the Hard Right has appropriated White Nationalist resentment, including Tucker Carlson's "Replacement Theory" nonsense, as a crutch to counter the Democrats' "demographic majority" theory, does not invalidate the failure of the Democrats and especially the liberals...

@briebriejoy ...to effectively govern in a way to defuse conservative gripes about the dire threat of loss of power and privilege from "CRT" (and torn down Confederate statues).

No one doubts that the Right is exploiting the old school anti-Black bigotry as a means of gaining power.

@briebriejoy And, no one will also doubt that the broad lurch to the Right overall will lead to openings for extreme Right groups to declare fair game on their historic targets for explicit terrorist attacks, such as the Buffalo shooting.

@briebriejoy Merely dismissing these assaults as the byproduct of loony lone-wolf racists or even the brainchild of right-wing conspiracists like Carlson, however, will do nothing by itself to address the overall fundamental issue of economic and social stress and inequality.

@briebriejoy To that end, Brie's essay, contrary to a lot of Leftist folk's initial knee-jerk reaction (including mine), does an excellent job of deciphering & decleating the essence of GRT as a counter to "demographics".

It also defuses the "demographics" theory as a point of "liberation".

@briebriejoy The deep, dark secret of "demographics" is that it has been more useful for the Democrats to pull their party further and further to the RIGHT, not the Left, by targeting the most socially conservative and most privileged elements of those racial groups.

@briebriejoy It is no accident that the Democrats have made it a point to recruit CIA-backed "feminists" and "smash-mouth" pro-carceral people of color as well as millionaires while shunting and marginalizing actual "progressives".

That is not a bug of the Democrats, but its main feature.

@briebriejoy It is their chosen means of continuing the approach launched by Coalition for a Democratic Majority in the 1970's and the DLC/Third Way in the 1980's and 1990's, to readjust the party to the Right and accept unfettered capitalist neoliberalism as their new Lord and Savior.

@briebriejoy Only the insurgency of Bernie Sanders, like Jesse Jackson's campaigns in 1984 and 1988 before then, stood in the way of the Democrats' grand plan to reboot their brand of "democratic capitalism"....and Sanders was easily dispatched through the dirty tricks rigging of the DNC.

@briebriejoy And, the insurgency of "progressive" Justice Democrats like AOC, Tlaib, Bush, Bowman, et. al., are now so isolated and marginalized and powerless in opposed to the New Democrat/GOP alliance that rules Congress (and Manchin/Sinema's dirty deal with Mitch McConnell in the Senate)..

@briebriejoy ...that their fax-reading can easily be dismissed as mere preservation for fundraising and lobbying rather than any serious power moves for influence within the Democratic Party apparatus.

They will simply be flushed aside in the next right-wing political cycle.

@briebriejoy I'm figuring that the denial of "progressive" Democrats over their abject failure to move the party one centimeter towards them (in fact, it looks like the party has responded by moving further and further away and marginalizing them further) has a lot to do...

@briebriejoy ...with all the vitriol towards Brie and her essay, and the refusal to just exhale, breathe deep, count backwards from 100, and then listen to what she actually said here.

Though, I perfectly understand how the initial reaction could be so knee jerk.

@briebriejoy Yeah, the fact that it's @theHill, well known for their propagandizing for right-wing Democrats and tarnishing and taunting of the Left, that is hosting Brie's essay, does lend to a bit of the swift reaction.

@briebriejoy @thehill And yeah, the fact that Brie speaks in front of the background that screams "IS TUCKER CARLSON RIGHT??" followed by big check marks next to "Tucker is Right" and "The Real Great Replacement" might lend to people running to their keyboards...

@briebriejoy @thehill ...and riffing off on how "Brie is now a traitor working off Carlson to join the Red-Brown alliance and betray her people in defense of a KKK/Nazi!!!"

I blame the Hill for that lack of proper context more than Brie, though.

@briebriejoy @thehill But, no, after actually listening to what she actually said, I can clearly say that Briahna Joy Gray is NOT, has NOT, and will NEVER be an ally of Tucker Carlson or any right wingnut pushing crack race theory. She was not apologizing for Carlson in any way.

@briebriejoy @thehill She was simply using Carlson's crackhead theory as a guide to refute the countertheory for neoliberals, and how the failure of the latter theory of "permanent demographics" plays into the success of TC's GRT in recruiting White wingnuts, while also taking into account...

@briebriejoy @thehill ...the Democrats' drive to pull their voter base, especially the people of color base, further to the Right to match their corporate 1% and neoliberal donor base.

Whatever beef you may have towards Ms. Brie on whatever issue; this one isn't it.

@briebriejoy @thehill Let me say what I have said all along: I am personally fundamentally opposed to using right-wingers and racists and bigots as crutches to promote Leftist theory or policies; because I believe strongly that the Indy Left should have ZERO tolerance for any and all kinds of bigotry.

@briebriejoy @thehill I happen to believe that the Left does not need to give wingnuts and right-wing bigots any ounce of credit when they on occasion decide to do a fake "left flank" on an occasional issue. The stopped clock is still wrong even if it occasionally gets it right twice a day.

@briebriejoy @thehill And this is especially true in the context of right-wing violence targeting marginalized people; because folks like Tucker Carlson getting even a shrivel of credit for discovering the truth for one second simply enables him to print his other obvious lies and distortions.

@briebriejoy @thehill However, there is a difference between sucking up to wingnuts in order to get their attention and use them to gain clout and privilege, and analyzing their arguments to defeat and decleat them. What Briahna Gray was doing, however it may have initially looked, was the latter.

@briebriejoy @thehill Your personal beef with her is just that....personal. You don't like that her co-host bailed under the charge of "grooming"? OK, fine. You don't like that she backed #ForceTheVote? Knock yourself out. You weren't satisfied with her job quality as Sanders' chief press aide? Meh.

@briebriejoy @thehill Many people who I deeply respect have beefs with Ms. Brie, and I accept that. Their issue, not mine. Personally, I wish she would abandon the Democrats and go full Indy Left, but I say that of most if not all principled progressives.

@briebriejoy @thehill But, we on the Indy Left need to not rush to anger every single time someone fires a shot in the air.

Sometimes it's a good idea to breathe deep, exhale, and take an actual look at the situation before firing off your guns of anger. Not everything political is personal.

@briebriejoy @thehill To conclude this: the essay itself. View it; listen to her words, and then pass your judgement. You might be surprised...or not.

@briebriejoy @threadreaderapp Unroll