Impossible to underestimate how much damage is being caused by this, and how much it's been enabled by people that refuse to recognize it or address why it's happening. /1
The technical term is "asymmetric polarization". The non-technical term is the right wing is losing their everloving mind.
The chart is a good reminder that Trump isn't an aberration. The tax bill and ACA repeal bills aren't aberrations. The current GOP is a radical party. /2
The chart is a good reminder that Trump isn't an aberration. The tax bill and ACA repeal bills aren't aberrations. The current GOP is a radical party. /2
But a lot of people - in the media and the far left - insist both sides are the same, or at least that their similarities are more important than their differences. This lets the GOP off the hook for its extremism. It denies just how radical the GOP has become. /3
Specifically, false equivalence lets the GOP off the hook for the issues it's radical on: bigotry, sexism, plutocracy, and the lies and hate mongering that go along with these. /4
The mainstream media also avoids confrontation by framing things as he said/she said, or treating politics like sports. This comes at the expense of the pursuit of objective truth. /5
Given the nature of right-wing extremism, it also comes at the expense of the rights and well-being of women, minorities, and the non-wealthy. A sacrifice that a lot of reporters, pundits, editors, publishers, owners and advertisers are apparently willing to make. /6
As Merrick Garland and Sally Yates could remind you, it comes at the expense of our respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. /7
With the stakes that high, we need to understand why this gap is there and why it's downplayed even as it widens. The timing is a tip-off. You can't understand the GOP or its enablers without understanding the Southern Strategy. /8
Until the Southern Strategy, both parties had hardcore bigots. The Southern Strategy consolidated them and made serious bigotry partisan. It also framed the bigotry as freedom and financial conservatism. /9 
Making hardcore bigotry partisan meant Jim Crow voter suppression and gerrymandering were all now firmly in favor of one party.
And now, when the popular vote winner loses, you know the winner is Republican. /10
And now, when the popular vote winner loses, you know the winner is Republican. /10
Couching bigotry as financial conservatism, and both as freedom, made the GOP more palatable to the average white American. And even more palatable to the 1%ers that benefit from their policies. /11
All of these factors set the stage for the creation of a cable news channel devoted to hate mongering, tax cuts and deregulation. Propaganda that further accelerated right-wing radicalization, and ultimately created a base that wanted someone like Trump. /12
And all of this happened within a huge blind spot for mainstream media and the dominant culture. Because this is a racist, sexist country that's devoted to ignoring racism and sexism. /13
Our media's default mode is to cater to straight rich white men, which it does in part by downplaying homophobia, plutocracy, racism and sexism. So when one party went off the rails with those vices, the mainstream media was already looking the other way. /14
The Southern Strategy also affected media coverage of Dems. The white flight of bigoted voters left Democrats less white and less male. This made the party's base less interesting and less important to the press. 2016 and '17 have been banner years for this, but it's not new. /15
And because the Democrat base is no longer white and male, the party is less and less centered around white men. Some white men on the left are not thrilled with this. Again, 2016 and 2017 have been banner years for this, but it's been that way for years. /16
It's not a coincidence that so much of the anti-Dem left downplays bigotry on the right while simultaneously calling for Democrats to be bigger champions of straight white men. Not a coincidence the anti-Dem left is whiter and more male than the base. /17
None of this is to say there aren't a lot of valid grounds for criticizing Democrats. But it's ludicrous to equate the party with today's GOP. And anyone still doing so - in the face of Trump, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan - is a huge part of the problem. /18
One last note - putting these issues in historical context can't stop at 1965.
America has always had people fighting to maintain white straight Christian male supremacy, and people fighting to actually create the democracy and equality our country claims to be about. /19
America has always had people fighting to maintain white straight Christian male supremacy, and people fighting to actually create the democracy and equality our country claims to be about. /19
We've always been a minority rule country masquerading as a democracy. The masquerade is key. It lets people do wrong, or stand aside, without shame. The biggest weapon in minority rule's arsenal isn't hate, it's denial. /end
