Brynn Tannehill Profile picture
Author of three books. Former naval aviator. Spouse. Parent. Harbinger of doom. Personal account; views here are mine alone.
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Mar 21 39 tweets 8 min read
Someone sent me this yesterday. The basic premise is that the guardrails of US democracy are so strong that Trump couldn't turn the US into a dictatorship even if he had 2 more terms.

This is hopelessly naïve. Let's break it down. 1/n politico.com/news/magazine/… First, a history lesson. The Weimar Republic lasted precisely 51 days between moustache-guy being named Chancellor and the Enabling Acts. Masha Gessen warned in 2016 in "Rules for Surviving Autocracy" "Your institutions will not save you." 2/n nybooks.com/online/2016/11…
Mar 14 23 tweets 5 min read
I was listening to a video about how Germany's completely dysfunctional leadership produced equally dysfunctional (and expensive) equipment. It struck me that this is very much a preview of what a Trump admin will look like if it succeeds. Follow along 1/n One of the assumptions pro-autocracy MAGA people have is that a dictatorship is efficient and effective because if The Leader says "do the thing" everyone salutes and makes the thing happen quickly and efficiently.

Yeah. And communism works in theory as well. 2/n
Mar 12 25 tweets 5 min read
Good piece posted by @gregolear. The Dictator Doom Loop is real. Trump will come in extremely unpopular, and get more unpopular by the day as he implements a host of unpopular policies. 1/n gregolear.substack.com/p/the-maga-doo… The complete gutting of most senior federal positions (and filling them with unqualified ideologues) means that important functions of government stop (i.e. EPA enforcement), or are actively used to implement Christian Nationalism (only Christians have civil rights). 2/n
Mar 3 11 tweets 3 min read
The polls keep telling the same story.

We are in deep trouble. There are few undecideds out there. The results are already baked in. Campaign spending will have little effect.

The US is on the verge of voting to end itself as a democracy, and usher in an age of horror And the people saying don't trust the polls, I would remind you that in the past two elections, they underestimated Trump's support.

And for those picking at individual polls methodologies, it's tough to dismiss all of them in the aggregate.
Mar 1 19 tweets 4 min read
I need to bring up some wargaming around the election that I've been doing. It amounts to a fairly simple decision tree, but I'll take you through the major branches. But, there's a bit of required reading first. 1/n hartmannreport.com/p/the-new-over… Harmann's sources say this is the plan. So do mine. Basically, if Biden wins, Johnson is going to throw the election. His plan is to refuse to seat democrats, and then vote not to confirm the election results. This throws election to the House where, Surprise! Trump wins. 2/n
Feb 29 8 tweets 2 min read
SCOTUS may literally be signing warrants for their own heads, or at least for the end of democracy in the US, because here's how it's potentially going to play out for them if Trump ends up back in office: 1/n Trump is going to purge military leadership, the DoJ, and the FBI, and every other one, and fill them with loyalists. Once that happens, SCOTUS has zero capacity to enforce any of its decisions, and you can bet your ass Trump's band of Christian Nationalists won't. 2/n
Feb 27 25 tweets 8 min read
The thing that dismays me the most is that of all the guys for the right to fall in love with, worship, and declare their savior, they picked Trump.

CoS John Kelly called him "the most flawed man I've ever known."

I'd call him the most irredeemable. He has no good qualities 1/n It's not as if any of these qualities are in doubt or are hidden. These are all things that are facts we know, and not speculation. Every aspect of this man is a trash fire.

And yet, they worship him because he promises vengeance. 2/n yahoo.com/news/cpac-2024…
Feb 27 12 tweets 3 min read
I've been DM'ing and playing on and off for the last 35 years. Here's my list of top player traits that make me question my life choices even more than usual. Image The Player Who Over-Describes Everything: This player takes five minutes describing how they set a snare, or cook a meal, or skin a rabbit, etc... while everyone else at the table listens to them drone on. It's ok to say what you do, but be considerate, please.
Feb 22 25 tweets 5 min read
Thomas Zimmer's article is a "must-read". He gets that what we are seeing within the GOP is a theocratic-fascist movement that has all but erased any vestige of Reagan-sim (other than supply side economics). But, I'd like to add to this a bit. 1/n thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/project-2025… Zimmer correctly points out that this is a religious reactionary movement, and that people like us sounding the alarm are derided as irrational, screaming lefties & everyone opposed to Trumpism is a Communist. 2/n
Feb 21 10 tweets 3 min read
I'm going to go a step further, and say that the ruling in the IVF case in Alabama is even worse than @mjs_DC lays out in this article (which you should definitely read). This is a catastrophic ruling if left to stand, for so many reasons. 1/n slate.com/news-and-polit… First and foremost, this ruling is unabashed in it's use of a particular brand of Christianity as the reasoning behind it. It establishes that a particular reading of the Bible is the basis for law.

You know, the Bible that also endorses slavery. And death by stoning. 2/n
Feb 12 13 tweets 4 min read
I like Zach. And he's right at a surface level: yes, it's a good message.

The purpose of the ads is not to make Christians better, or make people convert, it's to re-brand the religious foundation behind American fascism.

It's meant as an immune suppressant. 1/n In the words of the people behind these ads (which includes Hobby Lobby and ADF), “How did the world’s greatest love story in Jesus become known as a hate group?” The ads are effectively, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" 2/n

au.org/the-servant-fo…
Feb 10 20 tweets 4 min read
Brownstein sees the situation pretty clearly, and he's usually spot on. In this case though, he doesn't get to the nightmare scenarios until the last third. The problem is, I think the nightmare scenarios are almost inevitable if Trump wins. This is the blueprint for the end. 1/n First, read the article, then come back here.

Ok, now here's how you completely break the US constitution and achieve the enabling acts within a short period of time as President (and Trump has clearly telegraphed this is exactly what he will do). 2/n
Feb 3 142 tweets 45 min read
Hi everyone. Today I'm touring the Pima Air Museum, and will be live postingg about this hidden gem. Starting with this sculpture of Northrop YF-23s that never went into production. Oops. 1/n Image The museum is sort of unique in that it isn't land constrained, so it has space for all sorts of oddities, like a T-72M that still has its turret attached. 2/n Image
Jan 27 21 tweets 5 min read
I got a message from some rando that was basically, "You think GOP is Nazis for stopping you from transing kids? Hur hur, you stupid."

No, there's a lot of reasons why I'm deeply unsettled by the parallels between then and now as it pertains to trans people. Come along. 1/n First, let's be blunt, Biden fills the role of Hindenburg pretty well (aging, unable to impede what's coming) vs. a person promising to be a dictator on day one, seize control of the military and the courts, and crush his political enemies with arrests. 2/n
Jan 25 9 tweets 2 min read
Let's talk about why this number 68 is stunning by doing a little math, and then comparing it with some historical numbers for context.

First, there's about 334.223 million people in the US.
There's ~11.785 million in Ohio, meaning about 3.52% of Americans live in Ohio. 1/n Every year, about 4200 17-and-under trans youth initiate HRT. Some initiate after their 16th birthday, some before, and some right at it if using the "Dutch Protocol". Thus, at any given time, assume about 8400 are on HRT across the US. 2/n
Jan 20 16 tweets 3 min read
Ok, I tried DM'ing McKay before about things, and he didn't respond. But, I will try to succinctly summarize what my issues with the article were. (Good stuff up front: his prose is always tight and evocative). 1/n The problems generally fit into two categories:

1. The information in the article often doesn't break new ground, or repeats media mistakes of the past

2. When it does offer a new insight, it doesn't take the next steps of asking "why" and "what does it mean?" 2/n
Jan 20 24 tweets 7 min read
Last weekend, McKay Coppins of The Atlantic wrote a piece urging everyone to go see a Trump rally to see what he and his most ardent followers are REALLY about. I read it, and wow, he's so close to getting it, but not quite. 1/n theatlantic.com/politics/archi… The (supposed) point of the article is that Trump is no longer the force that he used to be: his speeches are more incoherent, rambly, self-pitying, and boring than before. But, along the way, Coppins misses some of the really big insights. 2/n
Jan 17 13 tweets 3 min read
I'd like to address a longstanding problem for Democrats, Biden, and Senator Sanders: namely laying out an agenda for a second term. It's harder than you might think: in fact, it's nearly impossible. 1/n theguardian.com/us-news/2024/j… The BLUF is that Biden can promise all sorts of things, but due to institutional dysfunction and a Senate composition that is biased by 7 points (and growing) towards the GOP, plus the filibuster, moving any sort of legislation forward is nearly impossible. 2/n
Jan 14 17 tweets 5 min read
A lot of people in the past have talked about the effect mass deportations would have on US industry like home starts and agriculture. I'd going think through it out from a logistics perspective, because I believe the comparison below is flawed. Stick with me here. 1/n First: basic facts. There's about 10.5 million people in the US right now, according to some of the more reliable, neutral estimates available. This is down from the peak of 12.2m in 2007. 2/n Image
Jan 7 13 tweets 3 min read
There's something going on in my Twitter posts, and it kind of stinks of Farms in St. Petersburg, if you catch my drift. Which is why I'm announcing a new kind of person (or bot) I will block on sight. Short thread. 1/n Something keeps popping up over and over again among accounts that appear so far left that they're basically tankies (warning sign number 1). Many have blue checks now (number two). They show up to say that there's zero difference between Biden and Trump. 2/n
Jan 4 17 tweets 3 min read
I got a bit of "fan mail" yesterday that touched on something I've been meaning to post about for a while: namely why I'm not a huge fan of the "Trans women are women" slogan because its imprecision invites this. I'd also be curious what I misunderstand about Christianity. 1/n Image First off, I don't believe that people can "change sex" in the way this gentleman suggests. Indeed, the trans community has eschewed the term "sex change" for decades (since the mid-90's, really). Transition, and it's result, has a somewhat more complicated definition. 2/n