People who are surprised that the GOP is siding with an autocratic dictator over Western democracy miss an important part of American history:
Autocracy is deep in our history.

A multi-racial democracy didn't come to America until recently.

Slavery was autocratic. . .
. . . Jim Crow was autocratic.

The GOP's pushback against America transitioning to a true multi-racial democracy goes hand-in-hand with supporting a dictator like Putin.

It's perfectly consistent.
Putin stages elections in which the result is known beforehand.

Members of the GOP were cool with fair elections when the choice was between two white men.

Now . . . not so much.
There's a theory on Twitter that goes like this: All was good until the GOP turned into a lawbreaking party.

Me =🤦‍♀️

(I can't fit the rebuttal to that in a Tweet, but I've written lots of threads countering that view with a history of our laws.)

Russia transitioned from communism to oligarchy.

Instead of the government owning all the resources and industries, they're owned by a few wealthy men.

The GOP hates communism but loves oligarchy.

Oligarchy is also part of our history. . .

In these books and elsewhere, @HC_Richardson explains that we've had two oligarchies and we're slipping toward a third.

The first was slavery when wealthy plantation owners—who were 1% of the population—controlled all three branches of government.
Next came the age of robber barons when industrialists had the power to exploit workers, manipulate markets, fix prices, grab women, and kill Black people who tried to vote.

That's the oligarchy the GOP wants to recreate.
That's what they mean by Make America great "again."
It is not a coincidence that Trump picked Paul Manafort to be his campaign chief.

Manafort worked for an anti-NATO party in Ukraine and supported a Russian puppet president who fled Ukraine amid charges of corruption and collusion with Russia.
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/w…
Dropping this here, because I agree.

This is what the Republican Party supports.
They think Putin is "strong" and Biden is "weak."

Putin is pure, unmitigated evil. He doesn't care who gets hurt.

You know what?
Either do the Republicans.

And here you have the leader of the Republican Party praising Putin as "smart" because Putin gets a whole country and he only has to pay $2 in sanctions.

More unmitigated evil.

(h/t @TonyMoonbeam)

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More from @Teri_Kanefield

Feb 23
I'll start with what we know about the Manhattan DA story.

The NYT reported that two prosecutors, Dunne and Pomerantz, resigned.

(The information in the article comes from “people with knowledge of the matter.”)

1/
Here's the NYT story: nytimes.com/2022/02/23/nyr…

Reportedly they resigned because Bragg, the Manhattan DH, has doubts about moving forward.

It also appears that Weisselberg will not cooperate (he won’t flip on Trump) and either will any other executives.

2/ ImageImage
Bragg doesn’t say much, but he says the investigation is “ongoing.” (Who knows what that means.)

We do know that Weisselberg and the Trump Org are indicted and set to go to trial.

One (very unlikely) possibility is that it's slam dunk case and Bragg got cold feet.

3/
Read 10 tweets
Feb 21
Putin knows how to wield disinformation and he knows that the United States is divided: A large portion of the population, including the most influential voices from a major political party, want the United States to emulate his Russia.

1/
Some background:

After Russia enacted anti-homosexual legislation, Pat Buchanan said Putin was “entering a claim that Moscow is the Godly city of today" because he was stamping out western evils like easy divorce and homosexuality.
buchanan.org/blog/whose-sid…

2/
British right-winger Katie Hopkins, in an article in which she was interviewed with her friend Ann Coulter, said “Putin rocks.”

Katie Hopkins then went on to praise Russia as being “untouched by the myth of multiculturalism and deranged diversity."

rt.com/uk/429777-kati…

3/
Read 4 tweets
Feb 18
Trump lost in court THREE MORE TIMES today.

Trump tried to get all three of these cases⤵️ dismissed and lost. I analyzed one of the cases last April, Blassingame, here: (Transcript on my blog.)

He tends not to do well in court, where facts matter.

1/
The defendants made the following arguments (screenshot #1)

Trump also claims, among other things, that he has absolute immunity. (#2)

It turns out that the absolute immunity question isn't as easy as you might think (but Trump still lost).

2/
If you want to get caught up on one of the cases, my analysis from last April is here:terikanefield.com/blassingame-v-…

And here:

You can read the court's decision here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

3/
Read 8 tweets
Feb 16
Um . . . this isn't the defense Trump thinks it is.

Trump published a letter he received from Mazars dated (it looks like) 2014. He then summarized the letter.

#1: What Mazars said
#2: What Trump says Mazars said

Me = 🤦‍♀️

Does he think nobody can or will actually read it?
Mazars said, "Trump is responsible for preparing the financial statement."

Also Mazars does not "undertake to obtain or provide any assurance that there are no material modifications that should be made . . . "
Trump posts the letter and says Mazars "strongly states that all work was performed in accordance with professional standards and that there were "no material discrepancies in the financial statements."

There is no "I don't know how to read" defense.
Read 7 tweets
Feb 13
For this week’s blog post, I edited and combined a few of my recent threads.

I started with a reading of the newly unredacted sections of the Mueller report, then talked about some of the responses on Twitter . . .

terikanefield.com/is-social-medi…
. . . and concluded with thoughts about how social media brings out authoritarian instincts in large swaths of people who ordinarily would not be given to authoritarian impulses.



It's too easy for truth to lose, and when truth loses, democracy loses.
Right. And not all "manipulators" are bad actors, but all people need to learn to evaluate sources.

Reflectively saying, "Professor X should know" is not how to do it. It takes more work. Falling in line is always easier than doing the work.

Read 4 tweets
Feb 12
I'm tired of the word "accountable." It's a weasel word. Don't say "accountable." Say what you mean.

Does "accountable" mean
🔹Lose elections?
🔹Go to prison?
🔹Lose a lawsuit?
🔹Be hated?

It would be nice if all the good people were rewarded and the bad people punished.
So you want to start indicting people and gather the evidence after they're indicted?

Or not worry about evidence?

There are rules of evidence, which means that the stuff you've read in newspapers and Tweets probably isn't admissible in court . . .
Indicting people and having juries return "not guilty" verdicts because there isn't evidence to prove each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt may not accomplish what people think it will accomplish.
Read 10 tweets

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