The Trump administration is backing the full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Joy Reid says: Maybe it isn’t spite. Maybe it’s what Yale prof. @TimothyDSnyder calls Sadopopulism. “What the heck is that?” you ask? Snyder talks about sadopopulism here. Sadopopulism explains how oligarchs—those who seek to have both power and wealth—stay in power. It works …
Subtitle: How Democracies Die—and How They Are Saved [View here as a Twitter thread] The Constitutional showdown this week is over who gets to decide whether the president is guilty of crimes: AG William Barr or Congress. Since before Barr published his 4-page summary, I’ve been talking about why I think Mueller wouldn’t indict, even …
[View here as a Twitter thread] Barr released a four-page summary of Mueller’s report. It’s short, easy to read, and here. From P. 2: “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” That quotation comes from the Special Counsel (Mueller). …
[View as a Twitter thread] @QueenieG2017asked me to predict where we’re heading, and talk about strategies: We have a two part problem (1) work through the current authoritarian moment and (2) find a better way of dealing with the 1/3 of the population that will never feel comfortable in a liberal democracy. By “authoritarian moment” …
What is our best outcome, and how do we get there? Read More »
[View as a Twitter thread] DC asks this: Recall that the GOP has been taken over by RWAs. RWAs have personality characteristics that enable them to seize power beyond their numbers. (If you missed my thread how the GOP became authoritarian, it’s here.) Reason #1: RWAs tend to fall in line. RWAs “favor obedience and …
[View as a Twitter thread] Elliot Broidy is in the news again. Let’s begin the Elliot Broidy story on April 9, 2018 when the FBI raided Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen’s office and seized material. A few days later on April 13, Elliot Broidy made news when it was reported that Michael Cohen had brokered …
[View here as an (uncorrected) Twitter thread] Jan asks: Graham— as a Trump ally—is behaving according to script. After the house voted overwhelmingly to release a Mueller report, Graham blocked the Senate from voting & insisted that the Senate vote to look into alleged DOJ/ FBI misconduct, particularly misconduct in the HRC investigation. This kind …
[View here as a Twitter thread] A new indictment has been brought against Paul Manafort. The NY DA charged Manafort with 16 counts of Residential Mortgage Fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. Evidently he falsified business records to illegally obtain millions of dollars. While we don’t learn much that’s new about Manafort, the larger picture …
Manafort’s crimes, presidential pardons, and GOP cynicism Read More »
[View as a Twitter thread] The same thing happened in California. During the years it took to correct the situation, people were frustrated. The point of this story is to keep our current situation in perspective and tamp down panic—and to address some of the outrage over Nancy Pelosi’s statement yesterday. California used to be …
[View as a Twitter Thread] I started reading this book: And I got stuck in the preface, where the author explains why Trump won: It seems to me that these concerns can’t be economic: Those in Trump’s base who aren’t wealthy vote against their own economic interests. The author of this (excellent!) WaPo article on …
