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@universeodon.com by znmeb Profile picture 30 subscribed
Mar 27 4 tweets 1 min read
Very interesting data, huge decline in right-wing media consumption and traffic. (via @oliverdarcy) Image Here's the link with more: therighting.com/election-year-…
Mar 26 7 tweets 2 min read
Conflicts of interest and deregulation are a toxic combination. 😱 Here's another story of conflict of interest without regulations (and why we now have food safety regulations). Do you like arsenic in your milk? No? But it makes it look so white and fresh and covers up the rotten stink, the business folks said: pbs.org/wgbh/americane…
Mar 18 5 tweets 3 min read
Trump is a dangerous demagogue who wants to become dictator in America. That's been clear since 2015 and undeniable since 2021. You could always tell by the way he used language.


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We're on fascism watch in 2024, the conditions are right for fascism. resolutesquare.com/articles/3JeW3…
Mar 17 8 tweets 2 min read
"In the fantasy of the strongman, politics vanishes and all is clear and bright. In fact, a dreary politics penetrates everything. You can't run a business without the threat of denunciation. You can't get basic services without humiliation. You feel bad about yourself." "You think about what you say, since it can be used against you later. What you do on the internet is recorded forever, and can land you in prison. Public space closes down around you. You cannot escape to the bar or the bowling alley, since everything you say is monitored."
Mar 15 5 tweets 1 min read
I don't usually use my @ResoluteSquare Rhetorical Tricks articles to offer rhetorical advice and strategy, but I did with this one. I see a rhetorical opportunity in the political chaos of the Trump era. resolutesquare.com/articles/2Ydsq… We're in what is sometimes called a "hinge of history" within which everything that was once known, assumed, and predictable--including the form of government, definitions of key terms, who or what the nation is, are being questioned and contested.
Mar 9 13 tweets 3 min read
Predict: If Donald Trump wins the presidency, then the United States will pull out of the NATO alliance and form a new alliance with the autocratic (or competitive autocratic) regimes of the world, including Russia, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, etc. The whole world order would change. You can find evidence that this is the plan--Steve Bannon has been talking about it for years. Trump has always aligned himself with autocrats and doesn't see the value of democracy.
Mar 8 44 tweets 5 min read
I've seen a few #SOTU excerpts. Y'all gonna like it. Dude's like a rock star, what is going on 😂
Feb 16 7 tweets 2 min read
The whole Cold War logic of mutually assured destruction only worked if both sides believed that the other side would use their nuclear weapons. So much of our national security was built around assuring our enemies that we meant it. There had to be a believable actual threat. Trump's Republican Party has repeatedly shown that they will capitulate to Putin, they won't do even the bare minimum to restrain Russian aggression. They're either stooges for Putin or don't understand that giving in a little actually gives up the whole logic that kept us safe.
Feb 11 8 tweets 2 min read
Imagine a year from now when Trump has been president for three weeks. He forms an alliance with the other autocrats of the world. Trump, Putin, Orban, Netanyahu, Modi, Erdoğan, MBS, maybe Xi, maybe Kim Jong Un, maybe softer nationalists like Meloni and etc. Each one supports the other's unlimited autocratic rule in their nation. Together they control most of the world's oil, food, & weapons. The rightwing billionaires support the autocrats, the rest of have no choice.
Jan 13 15 tweets 4 min read
Scholars estimate that 70-80% of the American public actively avoids political news. The rest of us are "highly engaged" political true-fans and, basically, party extremists. This dynamic has warped politics completely. See The Other Divide, Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan: amazon.com/Other-Divide-P…
Jan 5 13 tweets 3 min read
Biden’s “time for choosing” speech. I didn’t have the speech text in advance, but this is what I told a reporter today would be in the speech. (my rhetoric witchery is undefeated 😂) Image
Dec 30, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
The "great replacement" conspiracy lie works with the "election rigged" conspiracy lie. Both are enabled by the "politics is war and the enemy cheats" conspiracy lie. All three "poison the well," creating chaos, distrust, polarization, & position political opposition as enemies. Image His "election rigged" conspiracy lie is preemptive framing for his eventual 2024 election loss. He's telling us (again, as he did in 2016 & 2020) that he will not be accountable to the will of the people or the rule of law. He's running for dictator, not president.
Dec 21, 2023 15 tweets 3 min read
Fascism Watch 2024: Conditions are right for fascism, we have all the ingredients for fascism, but fascism is not pre-determined—we can still stop it. I wrote up a thing about the signs of an autocratic takeover. 🧵 Image 1. Media intimidation and restrictions (autocrats intimidate the media, so that they won’t try to hold the autocrat accountable to the rule of law).
Oct 14, 2023 9 tweets 2 min read
Vanilla holiday present prep. 😍
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vanilla extract (vanilla beans + vodka, shake shake shake, steep for 6-8 weeks). I get my beans from this awesome co-op: indrivanilla.com/collections/va…
Sep 24, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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, 2023 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.