Jennifer Mercieca Profile picture
Explaining anti-democratic rhetorical tricks. Award winning #teamrhetoric professor & author. Read my column @ResoluteSquare. Fascism is for losers.
Ella Sanders Profile picture Ken Tancrous Ⓥ 🌱 sally paddles Profile picture Joshua Cypess Profile picture @AlgoCompSynth@ravenation.club by znmeb Profile picture 30 subscribed
Sep 24 4 tweets 1 min read
I've been reading about how parents create fascists based on how they raise their kids and first, wow, it really explains a lot. And second, as a parent, I feel like this shouldn't be new information for me. 😬 For folks asking for references/readings: if you want to poke around the primary research go to google scholar and use search terms like "parenting styles that cause trauma" and "authoritarian parenting" and "effects of corporal punishment."
Sep 17 14 tweets 2 min read
I’m watching the Trump MTP interview online. His first answer about why he wants to run for president is fascist. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Humiliation, invasion, corruption, violence. I alone can fix it. 🥺
Aug 29 6 tweets 1 min read
What's it like to be a professor under an authoritarian regime? Today I taught about the Constitutional Convention without mentioning the word "slavery" once. Did anyone forbid me from talking about slavery and the Constitution? No.
Was I given words of assurance that claim that I have the freedom to teach what I "reasonably believe to be necessary and effective for student learning and success"? I was given those words, yes.
Aug 4 15 tweets 3 min read
I know there's a lot going on today, but this is one of my BoR talking about my department & college and what my former president did and promised about our department, college & university. It's been made public by my university (which, props to them btw) and here we are. Image They didn't hear from "all" of the BoR, but 6-7, according to what Banks said, again according to documents located here: tamus.edu/internal-revie…
Jun 25 10 tweets 3 min read
Nostalgia is such an interesting propaganda strategy. The word comes from the Greek and literally translates to a kind of home sickness. When a propagandist deploys nostalgia they’re preying on people’s childlike memories of the past. (a past that never existed) & telling folks that their “home” has been taken from them.
Jun 18 8 tweets 2 min read
Debate only works when there are rules. Rules of evidence (!), rules for speaking times, rules for cross-x, etc. Without rules (and someone to enforce them) you just have...twitter, which is not a site for productive debate. Maybe this helps, idk. Doing a search is not the same as doing research. @PeterHotez absolutely does research--the other folks do not.
Jun 15 8 tweets 2 min read
The way to create hate-objects out of people & get others to actively hate & try to harm them is to: reify them (turn them into objects), frame them as irrational & aggressive, make people feel disgust, & tell people that they’re doing some noble higher good by destroying them. Always be on guard for this kind of framing, it’s very dangerous. Whoever uses this strategy (it’s genocidal) is communicating irresponsibly and should be held accountable for it.
May 11 9 tweets 2 min read
This is exactly correct: violating the norms of democratic debate (or interviews) is exactly the point. Violate the norms of debate, violate democracy. I wrote about this exact thing: resolutesquare.com/articles/1uj1W…
May 10 41 tweets 5 min read
Tall, orange, and kind rapey. I'm going to watch the thing tonight, I'll probably tweet through it. I'll mainly be focusing on whether or not he does a fascism. I expect him to do a fascism.
May 10 5 tweets 2 min read
I see Tucks is going with "fearless truthteller" for his Twitter show--just like Alex Jones and Trump. Conspiracy theorists always try to position themselves as truthtellers, it's part of the con and the source of their power. How can you tell the difference between a truthteller & a con man? Risk. A truthteller tells all that they know to be true to those with power above them despite the risk to their safety. No risk, no truth. ImageImage
May 3 5 tweets 1 min read
Here’s the unlocked version of that article about Tucker’s text: nytimes.com/2023/05/02/bus… And here’s the text: Image
May 2 5 tweets 1 min read
THIS IS THE TRUMP UNIVERSITY GUY. He had to PAY RESTITUTION TO THE STUDENTS WHO HE SCAMMED OUT OF THEIR MONEY. He has no credibility on this issue. Here's a thread with articles & etc.
Apr 25 5 tweets 1 min read
Apr 24 5 tweets 1 min read
<whispers> only the cult would vote for Tucks. the ads would be nothing but non-stop show clips.
Apr 24 4 tweets 1 min read
Tuckered out Fishsticks fail whale
Apr 24 8 tweets 2 min read
What! 😮 Holy hell this is good news!
Apr 23 10 tweets 2 min read
"That's because the attention economy is a star system, where Elvis has an advantage. The relationship between stars and fans is central. Even without cyberspace, celebrities in show business, politics, and every other discipline accumulate huge amounts of notice." "Of course, you can earn negative attention as well, such as flaming, shaming, and outright hatred. But as many a disobedient child knows, negative attention can be better than none at all. On the Web, if you're adept, you can use notoriety to bring more notice to yourself."
Apr 15 11 tweets 2 min read
um, this is an illegal act of war. You can't take territory from the US and declare it not the US. What is this guy, Putin? Like, what now.
Apr 13 4 tweets 1 min read
Leaker of U.S. secret documents worked on military base, friend says
THE DISCORD LEAKS | The online group that received hundreds of pages of classified material included foreigners, members tell The Post (unlocked) wapo.st/41lIbOY “In a video seen by The Post, the man who the member said is OG stands at a shooting range, wearing safety glasses and ear coverings and holding a large rifle. He yells a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then fires several rounds at a target.”
Apr 12 6 tweets 2 min read
oh, is the fraudulent fundraising scam illegal? Image Special counsel focuses on Trump fundraising off false election claims. A new batch of subpoenas seeks to compare public claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election with private texts and emails (unlocked): wapo.st/3mvkzZu
Apr 12 4 tweets 2 min read
Good overview about state-level democratic erosion. It reminds me that fascism is for losers. If they had good arguments for their policies they'd made them. But they don't. So they use force. (unlocked) And, as they say, it's "asymmetric." It's not a "both sides" thing--only one side is doing it. The Republican side. Why? Because they're on the losing side of history, but they don't like losing power or elections. So they break democracy. Image