Founder @Convo_ist. Hopeful but worried. Host of Unbreaking Media. Rule of law, human rights, feminism. alindguzik @ 🧵, https://t.co/SwQft12EiX, https://t.co/P3TstpDBAm
Sep 14, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
AOC has everyone repeating “tax the rich” today and people are confused why she went?
Shoutout to the people who hold it against her that inequality wasn’t solved last night, or who suggest that this one appearance is the sum of her work. Meanwhile, everyone’s going to have an opinion on this dress. Think of all the conversations.
We've been sleepwalking into Christian autocracy for years. The GOP has entrenched themselves at every level of the system for purposes of minority rule. They don't care about bad optics. They're not accountable to them. They propagandize their base while othering the rest of us.
Those of us who saw this clearly and said so have been marginalized and trashed as unpatriotic hysterics for years, as if discussing authoritarianism somehow makes it worse. That has to stop. No more eggshells, no more sugar coating.
Sep 2, 2021 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Hello new followers. I'm sorry to be meeting you under such sad circumstances, but I'm glad you're here. I joined Twitter in the wake of Trump's election with the express goal of helping Americans come to terms with rising authoritarianism.
I changed careers in 2015. Until then, I was going to be an academic, trained in intl human rights law (genocide, refugees, trafficking, gender violence) followed by training to be a Soviet legal historian, studying authoritarian abuses via defamation, copyright, censorship.
May 27, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
A hardwired belief that fascism can’t happen here has made it that much harder to confront the radicalization of the GOP. My latest for @Convo_ist, a primal scream for American democracy: conversationalist.org/2021/05/27/the…
If the GOP’s strategy is to pack the courts, overturn elections, incite mobs, gerrymander, suppress votes, and otherwise harass the vulnerable, then the size of its base is not as relevant a concern. conversationalist.org/2021/05/27/the…
May 26, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
peaceful human rights protestors seen through the right’s latest filter ->
criminals and psychopaths mobilized into blue militias
What’s so sad is that people are only now giving this attack on democracy the urgency it deserves, late in the game with extremists deeply entrenched in our system.
Jan 9, 2021 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Fire them all, make them reapply, don’t rehire Nazis or cops with brutality records. Can’t imagine who’ll be left but it’s a start.
Doesn’t solve for the racists in top positions, but it’s something
Jan 8, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Should’ve been impeaching him since day 1
He was in violation of the constitution. But they didn’t want to pick those fights. Why?
Jan 8, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Stop demanding Republicans do the right thing, or telling them what they should do. Force them. It’s the only way.
Why are Democrats so terrified of hard power? Use it.
Jan 8, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There’s a reason I compared him over and over to genocidaires and the men who kill their families. And people looked at me like I was the crazy one.
And this whole time, mental health professionals were censored by the Goldwater rule from talking about his mental state for fear of being sued.
Jan 8, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
One of the biggest disconnects I’ve observed between white Americans and everyone else is the enduring belief in an inevitable happy ending. That delusion needs to be punctured, fast.
Good things don’t come to the complacent. We have to fight to preserve our rights and institutions.
Jan 7, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt advocated for strict liability for crimes against humanity. It sidestepped the thorny issue of intent. Strict liability made it difficult for those who benefitted from the regime to then disavow it later, as “so-called inner emigrants.”
“[Inner emigrants] were people who frequently had held positions, even high ones, in the Third Reich and who, after the end of the war, told themselves and the world at large that they had always been “inwardly opposed” to the regime.”
Dec 31, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Apropos of everything, when I was younger and would try and confide in well-meaning people about my home life, too many shut me down without listening. The most common response I got was “but he’s your parent! He’s got your best interest at heart. I’m sure he means well.”
They couldn’t fathom a parent treating a child in the ways I’d described, so they denied my reality. It was too painful to expand their daily world to accommodate abuse, and much easier to make me out as a girl who made herself suffer.
Sep 24, 2020 • 41 tweets • 18 min read
On the same day Breonna Taylor's killers went free, the president said he wouldn't accept a peaceful transition of power.
American authoritarianism is exhausting, violent, and confusing. To bring some clarity to the chaos, I'm compiling trusted writing on the subject here:
Forgive me for starting with my own writing -- I just happen to know what I'm talking about. I've been writing on the subject of American authoritarianism and democratic decline from various angles for years. The work has all held up.
Greetings from Istanbul. For the last week I've watched my friends' anxiety rise as the Turkish lira plummets. We've naturally been comparing notes on the egomaniacs running our respective countries. #Turkey
I'm not a currency expert, and I can't speak with confidence about how this crisis affects Erdogan's standing at home, but I do know that authoritarians plan for the short term and benefit from chaos.
