Thread by @BrynnTannehill

Yesterday, two things went by on my Twitter feed that raised my eyebrows, because it showed that the Fascist wing of the GOP is not only young and growing, but also saying the quiet part loud to a receptive audience. If they succeed, the US will become a living hell for most. 1/n

First from Politico, which fails to call fascism what it is. What the authoritarian wing of the GOP calls it is "Common Good" constitutionalism. Essentially, it espouses ditching originalism, and putting in place a court that functions like Iran's. 2/n politico.com/news/magazine/…

The court does everything through a lens of "Conservative Christianity is what's best for people and the nation, and freedom is dangerous." It's embraced by a lot of TradCaths and (increasingly) white evangelicals. It stands in opposition to FedSoc Originalism. 3/n

What's really scary is that it's adherents tend to be much younger. At it's head is Adrian Vermeule, who was one of the main architects of the plan to steal the 2020 election and to end US democracy (and replace it with a theocracy). 4/n

These young Fascists (err.... Republicans) in the legal profession will be hitting the federal bench in the next decade, and perhaps on SCOTUS in 15. Some of them even sooner. But, we can already see it is the future of the GOP legal theory. SCOTUS gave some big hints. 5/n

During oral arguments in Moore v. Harper, conservative justices were quick to pull a Judas on originalism when they saw an opportunity to usher in permanent GOP rule in any state where the Republicans can gerrymander maps. 6/n

We will likely see the "Common Good" theory come up when SCOTUS is asked to overturn Lawrence v. Texas, and are told of all the supposed harms that homosexuality causes to individuals in society. We could easily see this case come within the next five years. 7/n

Which brings me to the second half of "educated Republicans for Fascism": The Claremont Institute. I've written about them and their naked desire to eliminate democracy, install a dictator, and re-shape the country based on their religion 8/n damemagazine.com/2021/10/18/sle…

Fundamentally, they don't see Americans who aren't conservative Christians as Americans at all. Cue Larry Ellmers, who previously wrote for Claremont that less than half of the US is really American, because they aren't Conservative Christians. 9/n

Again Ellmers is writing for Claremont, and proclaiming that it is time to end democracy and replace it with a conservative Christian theocracy. Because elections don't measure public will and the public is too stupid to know what's good for them. 10/n

https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1601240384054886400

The answer, of course, is to overthrow the government (and democracy) to place their leaders in charge. This is a moral necessity, because only conservatives (Christians) can truly discern what's good for society and the nation. 11/n

The sad part is, this is all happening in the open, and no one is noticing. Far more attention is paid to right wing hacks like Taibbi and Weiss, who are poring over internal documents, misinterpreting them, and threating mundane stuff as giant "Gotchas!". 12/n

We're treating fundamentally unserious, bad faith actors as the opposite of this as they suck all the oxygen out of the room with their deliberately flawed analysis that "shows" content moderation aimed at preventing stochastic violence is the end of democracy. 13/n

But at the same time, the thought leaders of the modern GOP, and the lawyer whom they will be putting on the state and federal bench starting in (probably) 2025 are calling for the immediate destruction of democracy and implementation of theocracy... and nothing happens. 14/n

I have no doubt that DeSantis will happily listen to those calling for the end of democracy to make sure the interests of "real Americans" are the only ones represented. For the greater good of course. I have no doubt he would put these young lawyers on the bench. 15/n

And increasingly I believe that the media, and American "Centrists" like Sinema would have no idea what was happening, because tools like Musk, Weiss, Greenwald, Taibbi, etc... would continue to churn out propaganda saying the left is the real threat. 16/n

Most Americans don't pay close enough attention to politics, and would end up like my confused 76 year old Mother, who just doesn't know who to believe. So she keeps pulling the lever for Republicans. 17/n

However, the goal isn't just to make it irrelevant whom you vote for: it's to keep people from realizing that it doesn't matter. Or to believe that tyranny and oppression of "those people" is good, because they were the ones who were going to take democracy away first. 18/n