Thread by @treblewoe

Trump's H-1B implosion is an object lesson in the sort of soft power few on the Right comprehend. Understanding our role in the incoming administration matters more than the policy fight of the week, because getting this right means shaping all future fights. /1

Here's what did NOT happen: Trump didn't bide his time until he tricked everyone until he could fill up his administration with envious, bitter brownoids, which was his real plan all along. The only sort of person with these reads is a whipped puppy with zero agency or spine. /2

Interpreting every undesirable moment as long-plotted betrayal & complete reversal is a symptom of mental illness. No man who has ever actually had any power or influence in his personal life ever misreads situations so catastrophically wrong. /3

Here's what did happen: Trump has 10,000s of positions to fill in a matter of months. That can only happen by trusting recommendations from men who already have his confidence. And that describes none of us, so obviously we're completely powerless, right? /4

The sequence of events shows that to be nonsense. Trump names some nasty brownoid to some position no one ever heard of. The Right gets pissed and rapidly assembles his inevitable early life: alien striver, mercenary opportunist, viciously tribal, seething resentment of us. /5

The loser read on the situation is to cry we're undone, all is lost! The man with political agency swings into action, just as we did throughout the campaign: by being loud, concise, and unyielding: *We specifically voted against this!* /6

The simple fact is that democracy is mob rule. Our guy won because we shouted down the other guys, and we routed them in public and then at the ballot box. But the one thing that separates Trump from every normal politician is that he genuinely loves the public adulation. /7

It's not simple narcissism, and there's no hidden contempt for those whom he's secretly tricked into liking him. He lives for the roar of the crowd, even when those roars aren't for him personally. That's part of why he's been ringside at prizefights for decades. /8

And in this context of democratic mob rule and Trump closely reading the noise from the crowd, our political agency did not end on November 5th. The political power we have over Trump far surpasses that of his trusted advisers, because we can override them at any time. /9

That is what is happening this week, including for some infernal reason all day Christmas. Somebody Trump trusted said, "hey this smarmy brownoid will be great for this one role." Trump simply said great, next. Then we went to work. We didn't vote for more alien influence. /10

So we started shouting, exactly the same sort of shouting that made Springfield, Ohio's cats international news. With this one specific politician, in this one specific window of history, we actually have the ability to force the issues that matter to us. /11

When someone Trump names turns out to infuriate his base, when we make the stink about it reach all the way to Heaven, he will absolutely relent. He never cared about the brownoid; filling the role was just a checkbox to him. /12

It doesn't matter whom Trump's advisors tell him to put forward for almost anything. When the crowd turns on him, he has no incentive whatsoever to defy us. The easiest thing in the world for a man with his power to say is "Thanks, but we decided to go a different direction." /13

All we have to do is maintain the same unified voice that overnight turned Haitian into a dirty word, despite decades of Hollywood and church gaslighting to the contrary. We voted for the opposite of spiteful, envious brownoids devouring the fat of the land, *our* land. /14

Our power over Trump's trajectory has no expiration date. He's not trying to get reelected, but he still needs us. He needs to hear and feel the roar of the crowd's approval. When we deny him that high, when we make him realize he's caught out alone, pelted with boos, we win. /15

This is the lesson the anti-abortion crowd completely failed to grasp after Trump got Roe overturned for them. They are such irredeemable losers, they kept whining and shouting, when he gave them exactly what they asked for. They lost all influence forever with their betrayal /16

The Right is full of losers too, guys who have only ever gotten kicked & betrayed, to the point they can imagine nothing else. Their reads on these moments are pure poison, because all the want to do is cry about how it's over, we were tricked. They're worthless liabilities. /17

We aren't in the room with Trump making these decisions, but our unified disapproving voices are louder than any whisperer nearest to him. He knows why he's there, and he has no problem saying no to those guys. /18

What Trump cannot bear is hearing us shouting angrily over something he didn't even think mattered much. That is our power. That is our political agency. That has no expiration date. As long as we cheer the good and boo the bad, we can keep him on track. /19

It simply requires a willingness to insist, "what have you done for me today?" No laurels, no credit, just an absolute willingness to appear fickle & a little dangerous. If the Right remains unified like this, we'll extract more from this administration than we could dream. /end