1. The hot take that "D's need to learn to talk to the other side of the electorate" is absolutely the WRONG take.

I mean my god. Biden, Lincoln, the outside groups: they threw the best persuasion messaging in the history of persuasion campaigns at them.

What Ds need to do is

1. "They're leaving! They're leaving!"" yell seditionist as they watch House members fleeing the floor through the glass doors the only thing (+ some under-armed officers + office furniture" that protected our elected REPs (same ballot as Trump, each & everyone

@McConnellPress

2. of them felt so inclined towards martyrdom and/or possessed the weapons (Jesus, what if they'd has a grenade & guess what, in America, yes, you can come up w functional equivalents of that bc barring people from them is a betrayal of freedom so great we must simply acquiesce

3. their eventual death tolls. One functional "freedom grenade" down that hallway, tossed w ease through a hole in the glass door, could have easily hit anyone fleeing.Unless it was Mo Brooks, MTG, or one of their well-known crazy boosters, here's a thing @LeaderMcConnell ought

4. to reflect upon as he makes his CRITCAL pivot decision, which he could rally 17 people & start a fight for control of the party that rest of the country will help him with,EVEN AFTER ALL THE SHIT HE'S DONE TO PEOPLE, YES, THE REST OF THE COUNTRY WOULD HELP HIM IF HE WAS TO

5. RALLY 17 SENATORS FOR IMPEACHMENT, he'd find his whole 🌎awakened. And Mitch, as far as I understand it, you could do it anonymously!! How much would THAT fuck w them?? How great would it be, for the 1st time in 5 yrs, to be the one w power- you LOVE power! Think of the FUN!

1. The ideal outcome @JRubinBlogger & @AliVelshi IS that the MAGA faction turns on the "establishment" part of the party & they tear each other apart. This is why only 20 M.O.Cs are acknowledging Biden- they are TERRIFIED of this. But I should make something clear & this is

2. something that @rickwtyler and this panel doesn't seem to be sending a vibe off that it gets and that is that absent some type of intraparty Civil War 2, the Republican Party is not a party in decline, heading into a sunset, its a party primed to go into the 2022 cycle & take

3. the Speaker gavel from @SpeakerPelosi! I mean, jeez guys- all of the stuff just talked about in terms of its abandonment of sanity, of the rule of law, of its dereliction of duty to the Constitution while it performs gross fealty to a swamp creature, all of that was true 1

4. month ago and what happened?? They gained 11+ House seats and potentially will hold the senate majority even though Ds had 6 pathways to it. 6! No, as craptastic as it is, despite the fact that it stood ready to execute a coup it spent months preparing for w Trump, the GOP is

5. STRONG right now. Its voters- and NOT just the nuts you see at the MAGA rallies, I'm talking about mild-mannered regular folks you run into at the bank and work with at Progressive Insurance- those folks are STOKED on the Trump Admin (albeit the Right Wing media over the past

1. Yes, as @danielsgoldman is talking about now on @MSNBC is playing a big part. Rep Senator reluctance to go after Trump is MUCH MORE now than mere political reluctance. And frankly Trump made these threats openly known. Yet, he had his "lists" for primaries. But there is much

2. more going on here, that I'll touch on in the article which will also include the survey results ( there is STILL TIME to get involved w the survey. It is on extremism in the GOP- focused on MTW, GA-14 but also GOP extremism broadly. Ultimately, I waited to field it until

3. after the impeachment trial bc the survey wasn't really meant to test that (trust me, the big org will cover it!) and bc I was afraid it would impact what we are trying to measure. So now its time to get this puppy in the field. UNLESS, y'all care to asses some of this stuff

4. Impeachment may or may not impact attitudes on MTG and tribalism. Lord knows it had so many elements of extremism that times in. In order to add anything I'd gave to raise more money. 10K is not enough- survey research, the kids you see in wapo and nyt and such are like 30K

5. Some quotes I get are even for 50k!!! For 10K, with me doing analysis, we'd get to ask 5 or 6 questions and the most critical demos. (If you are reading this and willing to add your won pro-bono work to mine PLEASE DM me. This isn't some silly horse race poll. The goal is to

1. Been excited about @JoeNBC's sustained convo today about @KBAndersen's new book Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America which explains how the Republican Party radicalized OVER ECONOMICS over the past 30 years. It was launched w the radical tax cuts in Reagan's presidency, but

2. as the GOP evolved through the 90s & 2000s they became dogmatic about their economic philosophy- until it became a radical litmus test/position the party followed even when conditions screamed for different policy. It was a MIRACLE the party acted to stabilize the economy at

3. at the end of 2008 when it was crashing down around us (though they just barely did & some didn't and that's bc it was before the Great Purges of 2010,2012, & 2014). America doesn't know the hit job the GOP did on the American economy as they dogmatically pursued tax cuts to

4. the exclusion of everything else while denying any policy that could grow wages or improve the economic lives of the bottom 80% aside from the 2 or 3 times Ds managed to squeeze through policy while in charge (minimum wage increase in 2007-which was the 1st time in a decade

5. and now, of course, its been another decade. It's actually a miracle wages (all wages bc when the min wage is artificially low it affects all the wages above it, that's how you end up w $10 per hr EMTs & teachers) aren't even more out of wack w inflation. As @JoeNBC points out

This is what this means to me: as most of you know, I am British, and always will be. But, in February 2017, we became US citizens, after nearly 18 years here. For me it was bittersweet, I just could not get into it, it all felt wrong; I felt I was selling part of my soul. 1/6

When we came out after the ceremony, there was a cardboard cut-out of President Obama and Michelle Obama by the Democratic party booth, and I had my photo taken next to them as I registered to vote. 2/6

For the next 3.9 years I watched this country get suffocated by a president with no interest in the common good: dividing us all; inciting hate against anyone white, straight and able; totally disregarding science. Literally he assaulted every single one of my values. 3/6

And it really and deeply affected me. And I don't think I realised. But I believed that we could all work together to turn it around. That is why I got so involved with the election, as you've all seen on my timeline over the past few weeks, because everything was at stake. 4/6

Today, 7th November 2020, I now feel proud to be a US citizen, proud to have a president who will do his best to unite the people and heal us, allow us to move forward and make progress in solving many vital issues such as social & racial justice & climate change. 5/6

THREAD: CCP vs US Military, on home soil.

1. I watched the Executive Orders and I watched the media panic. I watched the MSM lies and I watched the treason. I watched the fake Russia narrative. I watched the calls for impeachment. I watched a stolen election, in full view.

Trump on climate: I don't believe it. Trump on Khashoggi: I don't believe it. Trump on Russia: I don't believe it. Idiocy? A canny game? Doesn't really matter as much as the underlying intellectual autocracy. In this administration only one opinion matters.

It's an assault on facts and reason. It's an assault on good governance. It's an assault on the bureaucracies that are being discounted. It's an assault on science and history. But it is also an assault on one of the underpinnings of democracy.

We live in a system that is grounded on the idea of collaborative government. Leaders may have a final word but even then, there are typically checks and balances. Hopefully, in this case, such checks and balances may work. But they also are being tested.

The president's position that he is smarter than all the world's scientists, than the entire intelligence community, than experts who have studied any issue all their lives, is, of course, asinine. But his belief that government turns solely on his opinion, is monarchic.

Louis XIV reportedly said, "L'etat est moi." That he was the state. Trump asserting that he knows better than all, discounts all advice, that his brain is enough to chart the course for America alone, is essentially saying the same thing.

#Thread Take action to defend free speech 📢

Stage 2 scrutiny of the Hate Crime Bill begins tomorrow, Tuesday 2nd February. Members of the Justice Committee will debate and vote on various amendments. It is vitally important that more, significant changes are agreed.

We still believe the best course of action is to drop the controversial stirring up hatred offences altogether. At the very least, MSPs must back changes previously promised by the Scottish Government.

The govt has pledged to: restrict the offences to ‘intent’ only; strengthen a free speech provision covering religion and insert a new provision on trans identity; remove provisions on 'inflammatory material' and provide an objective test for what ‘abusive’ behaviour means.

Other useful amendments have been lodged to: remove the vague term 'abusive' altogether; insert a broader trans free speech provision; provide a ‘dwelling defence’ for words spoken in the home; and insert a 'prosecution lock' requiring consent from a senior law officer.

Please take the time to write to Justice Committee MSPs and ask them to back these vital changes. Details of the amendments and how to contact MSPs are below.

#FreeToDisagree