Historian here, with a message for folks arguing against holding people accountable for the siege of the Capitol because "history will be the judge." We are in this mess, BECAUSE people in the past didn't hold their contemporaries accountable. Please don't repeat that mistake.

Wish folks cared as much about countering the political culture of far right hyper-nationalistic populism that traffics in anti-Semitic tropes and naturalized conceptions of racial and gender hierarchies, as they care about dissing those who use the word “fascism” to describe it.

Ultimately, I think that’s what lay behind this terminological dispute. Is democracy more threatened by “center-left/center-right neoliberalism” or by the far right? People who resist the f-word say the former is the *real* threat. People who use the f-word focus on the latter.

My sense is that the people who use the "f-word" are not the neoliberal simpletons their critics tend to think they are. And likewise, the f-word refuseniks are no fans of the far right, they just don't see it as being as powerful and threatening as others do.

This might be overly reductive, but I think at least some of this has to do with where one lives. If one lives in a very blue part of the country, I can see how the threat of far right paramilitaries would seem hyperbolic and exaggerated.

I happen to live in a state capitol were heavily armed, far right paramilitaries have spent the past year assaulting people on a regular basis and working in cahoots with GOP legislators to invade and shut down the state legislature. Things feel quite edgy here.

The "center" of American politics is not a fixed point, it shifts over time. What is "the center" today would have been considered pretty far left in the 1990s. Likewise, what was the imagined "center" in the mid-1980s would have been considered pretty far right in the 70s.

One of Lincoln's skills as a politician was that he moved the center of American politics into an antislavery place, and he also evolved in his own thinking about slavery and race. Finding and helping to move "the center" is one (not the only) form of effective politics.

There is no such thing as a democratic political culture that lacks an imagined "center" and people who inhabit it. This is especially the case in a diverse and often fractious nation. The politics of persuasion is all about moving that imagined center in the direction you want.

Most of the people currently on the American far right are highly unlikely to move to the center, because their basic political commitments are hostile to America's multi-racial democracy. One task ahead is to prevent that segment of our political culture from growing.

How to do that is unclear. History shows that deplatforming can often work. History also shows that sometimes right wing radicals can gain fame and attention by presenting themselves as "martyrs" who've been persecuted by "elites." There's no iron clad formula.

The 90's called and it would like it's sneering depictions of "pathetic right wing rubes" back. I know it makes a certain segment of the educated classes (of which I'm a member) feel good about themselves to read paragraphs like this, but it's lazy political analysis.

That crowd was comprised of scores (if not hundreds) of well off business owners as well as highly skilled paramilitary warriors (many of whom were trained by our own government) who came very close to achieving their goal. Their gauche affection for Olive Garden is irrelevant.

This is the article. I share the author's revulsion at what this mob did. But this is not a time for ribald humor at the expense of people who erected a gallows upon which it appears they intended to hang the Vice President and probably

Every violent political upheaval is messy and chaotic and disorganized and comprised of people who are far from paragons of wisdom and rational thought. Wednesday's uprising was not uniquely pathetic...to think it was is just to invert a celebratory American exceptionalism.

I can guarantee you, none of the people of color in the Capitol building, especially the officers who bravely fended off this mob, mistook them for a second as bumbling rubes.

🧵
Asst Chief Filice (@rfSalinasPD),

I'd like to report crimes in your jurisdiction:

1. Louie Alejo (@SupervisorAlejo) took bribes from Mike Hackett of Casa Sorrento fame. (cocaine dealer and @maryrduan's soft spot) - it's on recording.

2. Dave Drew was involved in a fraud

2/

scheme involving Frankie Lane, Anthony Lane (Cotroneo boys from Montreal), Jimmy Gilbert (deceased Monterey wharf biz owner) and McGilloway (accountant with an office in Unicool's W. Market office complex) and the Fox Theater in Oldtown Salinas.

The fraud was documented in

3/

a civil suit laid out by Monterey attorney Hugo Gerstl (smart man) in 2016 - two years before @JerryBrownGov pardoned Drew.

3. The Bankers Casino boys are involved with narco-trackers and money launderers. They also have ties to organized crime figures.

Please let me know

4/

how you wish to proceed?

Also, @Kelly_McMillin has a troubling connection to all of these issues.

I'm also concerned about reports a @SalinasPD officer has received financial assistance to buy a house on the border with Mexico 🇲🇽 with the help of Rolando Cabrera who is a

5/

member of the Cabrera crime family.

Would you please enlighten the public on this relationship between the Cabrera's and one of Salinas' "finest"?

Thank you for your immediate attention.

Exhibits to follow:

21. Military Intelligence Contact Update continued:

Twitter•Yesterday at 12:17 PM
Ashli Babbit ALIVE and WELL The FALSE FLAG Shooting
You have been PLAYED. Chalk one more for the DeepState. Sheeple will still believe whatever they are told. In this Slowed Down & Stop Motion...

#AssangeCase bail hearing Thread:

Ed Fitzgerald is in court. Julian hasn't arrived. The proceedings should start soon.

Judge comes into court. #JulianAssange walks in and identifies himself to court.
#AssangeCase

The Court will hear arguments against bail first.
Clair Dobbin: The high court can overturn the conviction, the court must be careful not to render the result academic.
#AssangeCase

Dobbin: In Kromberg's affidavit referring to #Assange helping @snowden flee justice. #Assange openly assisted @Snowden evaded arrest. Mr. #Assange said that he and @wikileaks orchestrated the escape and avoiding arrest.
#AssangeCase

Dobbin: Reads an interview from Terminal F Snowden documentary.
This shows that Mr. Assange has the resources and abilities to evade justice and also that Mexico has announced that they will grant #Assange asylum, so he could hide in their embassy or arrange a flight to escape.