Wait, JD Vance...how can low-wage immigrants both drive down the wage base of the labor force AND be to blame for inflation? I mean, this is some sorta basic stuff, which even a Hillbilly venture capitalist should be able to understand. btw, they aren't to blame for either actually...real wages are actually rising even as America has become "browner" in part due to immigration, and inflation would be far worse if employers couldn't find workers bc the working age population among native born folks is far older

This JD Vance spin on the dog/cat eating story is absurd. He's trying to say "listen, my constituents have said this is happening...like 5 people! It needs to be looked into!" Sure, no evidence, bc "people are saying," just like with voter fraud. No proof but "vibes..." A 🧵... 2/ Look, it's simple: if 5 Black families called Vance's office and said MAGA flag waving white guys were harassing them or threatening them in public, I doubt seriously Vance would spread memes about white racists being racist, just bc "muh constituents said it's a thing..."

It's wild seeing MAGA folks attack the DOJ for indicting actual Neo-Nazi terrorists today. The default seems to be either a) there are no Neo-Nazis, it's all a myth, or b) the group is made up of Feds, or c) they may be racists but they weren't really plotting violence...A 🧵... 2/ This inability of right wingers to admit there are violent extremists on their side who hate people based on race/religion/sexuality and are willing to kill is fascinating. Rather than condemn them and say "we reject those kinds of people" they pretend they aren't real...

The right's dislike of IVF is more evil than most realize. Most people think they oppose it bc of 'extra' embryos destroyed once a successful implantation occurs, as if the main issue for them is the 'destruction of human life.' But that's not really their main concern. A 🧵... 2/ Sure, that's an issue for some. But there's a bigger motivation beneath their contempt for IVF: namely, the belief that women use it for selfish reasons: to delay childbearing for career pursuits, which takes them away from their "natural function" as breeders and moms...

The right can make fun of the Harris/Walz "joy" theme all they want, but what they miss about this critique is telling, and demonstrates how they've managed to paint themselves in a corner for years. And now, it's one they can't get out of. A 🧵... 2/ So for years, what has the right been telling us about Dems, liberals, the left, etc? That we're all a bunch of scowling, PC, humorless scolds who never smile bc we're so busy hating everyone and everything. We can't take a joke, laugh, etc. We're bitter, dour, etc...

The whole uproar over the "white people tacos" thing with Tim Walz and Kamala Harris is a great example of how lots of white folks just lack the ability to laugh at ourselves. It's not "racist against white people" to say what Walz said, FFS. A 🧵... 2/ Self-deprecation (not the same as self-hatred) is a positive personality trait. It's a key component of empirically funny comedy, and what separates the often mean-spirited snark of Bill Maher or Dennis Miller from the actual and effective irony of Jon Stewart or Colbert...

People who spend precious moments of their lives policing the boundaries of race, gender, sex, nationality, and ethnicity do so because of their own insecurities and desire to marginalize others. It has always been this way. A 🧵... 2/ White folks used this kind of identity policing to determine who could be enslaved and who could not, who would be "black" or "white" under Jim Crow, who was indigenous under the Dawes Act (blood quantum is a white notion largely meant to limit indigenous land rights)...

The right wing focus on birth rates and the need to boost them (but let's face it, they only mean among white women) is fascinating and disturbing, for what it says about their actual plans for women moving forward...A 🧵... 2/ To begin, there is no doubt that a decline in birth rates CAN be problematic for an economy. And especially when you couple it with anti-immigrant bigotry that restricts the number of working age people who can enter your country when your own population is aging...

JD Vance's claim that people without kids don't have a real stake in the country is not only a slap in the face to folks who can't have children for reasons of infertility, it's revealing of the sickness of the right-wing worldview. A 🧵... 2/ The right cannot imagine caring for the collective good of the country, for other people's kids, or for the health of families not their own. They are selfish, narcissistic misanthropes whose tribalism cannot allow for the possibility of altruism, or solidarity with others...

Folks calling Harris a DEI candidate bc Biden picked her for reasons of identity ignore that all VP choices are for reasons of identity: geographic, ideological, etc. It's only a problem for some when the balancing act elevates a woman of color. Palin was fine of course. A 🧵 2/ Running mates are never chosen based on some objective standard of merit. By definition they're about how they fit the main candidates ideology/policy positions, and can they help deliver key states/constituencies, etc...

When JD Vance says Kamala Harris isn't "grateful" enough for America, he is repeating the same trope racist white folks have always offered: Black people aren't grateful enough for all they've been "given" in this country. I have thoughts. A 🧵... 2/ First, folks of color haven't been "given" anything by America. Had it been up to most of "America" and especially most white folks they wouldn't have gotten freedom or the right to vote, etc. They fought for and earned those things. They weren't gifts...

The problem for progressives is not that we can't prove things like Project 2025 or Trumpism pose threats to democracy. I think we can. The problem is, we are assuming people are still sold on democracy because WE are, and that's not as true as we think. A 🧵... 2/ The left has an unnatural faith in the power of pure reason (even though facts don't tend to sway political decisions), and a faith that most people embrace values like democracy, such that they'll oppose any threat to it, once demonstrated. But what if that's not the case?..

Those claiming we have to stick with Biden, OR that we should have an open convention are both wrong, for reasons that should be obvious but apparently aren't. A 🧵 to explain the way forward... 2/ First, the idea that we're stuck with Biden is neither factually nor practically true. A change can be made and given the post-debate polling out today should be. Even if the debate didn't help Trump directly it will suppress Dem enthusiasm and that spells disaster...

The reason Joy Reid said most GOP voters vote based racial resentment and fear is bc it's true. What problem do they NOT blame racial/ethnic minorities for? Literally every single one. Follow along....🧵 2/ Crime? Black & Latino folks, in their mind. Kid didn't get into the college of their choice? Affirmative action, naturally. Plane doors falling off? DEI efforts at Boeing. Taxes too high? Must be welfare for "those people..."

While it's true that Trumpism has given the green light to overt expressions of bigotry (racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, etc.), perhaps an even bigger horror is how it has bred a deep cynicism about democracy itself. One intended to pave the way for an authoritarian future... 🧵 2/By attacking the press as fake whenever it doesn't parrot MAGA talking points, questioning election outcomes (even when they win, bc they didn't win by enough!), by attacking higher ed and scientific expertise, Trumpism seeks to cast doubt on every guardrail of democracy...

1/ If you believe aviation accidents (which are down over the past several years and reached a high in 1994) are the fault of DEI, as Elon "Apartheid Boy" Musk believes, you're a racist and an idiot. Elon's rockets literally blow up regularly. No DEI policy to be found... 2/ Hell, forget aviation: Elon's cars wreck on autopilot and it's not the fault of DEI. Tesla has a history of racial discrimination against Black and brown folks, not DEI on their behalf. Perhaps Elon's companies NEED more diversity. The white boys he relies on suck.

1/ I'm amazed at the ignorance of the pro-Palestinian protesters who think blocking entries to airports (happening at JFK apparently) is a good move. And as someone who opposes Israel's actions in Gaza, it sickens me because it makes our side look ridiculous... 2/ I know, I know...they'll say, "your inconvenience means nothing, it's a genocide!" But that amounts to little more than shaming people for not already being in the streets with you...

1/ How ignorant must protesters be to think spray painting Free Gaza w/a hammer & sickle on a Lincoln statue in NY will help Palestinians? The fact that they're all standing around recording their work tells you It's about their narcissism. "Look at ME!" Performative bullshit... 2/ The people of Gaza deserve better than a bunch of self-absorbed pseudo-revolutionaries in their hastily-purchased keffiyehs who think spray painting slogans on totally unrelated shit will liberate anyone...

A few thoughts on the Claudine Gay plagiarism “scandal.” This seems a case where multiple things can be true, but folks are so committed to using the case as a weapon against the academy (which they hate for its supposed leftism) that they ignore all nuance and logic. A 🧵... 2/ First, let’s remember how we got here, because it helps us understand why. The attack on Gay only began when mostly right wing Israel apologists decided to go after her for supposedly not taking antisemitism seriously enough...

The craziest thing about the "Great Replacement Theory," is that it gets completely backward how most of us on the left think about immigration. Not that facts will matter to most, but it's worth spelling this out for reasonable people to consider. A 🧵... 2/ So, according to replacement theory, the left broadly speaking (at the behest of Jews in the most hateful versions) is hoping to replace white people with brown folks from the global south, bc, as Tucker Carlson puts it they are "more compliant" or docile or something...

A few thoughts about anti-Semitism, as someone who has experienced it.

First, some background...

A 🧵 2/ I come from a family (my father's father's side) that was run out of Russia by pogroms and systematized anti-Jewish bigotry. THAT was anti-Semitism: hate and bigotry aimed at them because they were Jews...