BC POLITICS
Saved by @Jacobtldr

I want to tell you a short story about a man named Joshua Abraham Norton. Born in 1818 and a resident of the city of San Francisco, CA. Joshua Norton in 1859, declared himself "Norton I, Emperor of the United States.

 In 1819 he sent out a letter to many newspapers, which several of them printed. It read:

> At the peremptory request and desire of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton... declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States.
He held no formally recognized powers, he decreed that elected officials assemble at a music hall to "remedy the evil." He wanted to clear Congress and abolish it as it stood for "fraud and corruption prevent a fair and proper expression of the public voice."
He spent time inspecting the streets of San Francisco in an elaborate uniform, given to him by officers of the United States Army. He doted the city, examining the condition of the sidewalks and cable cars and the state of public affairs.
When a man sent his private security guards to arrest him, the citizens were outraged. Scaring editorials were written in the newspapers defending him, proposing he was more defensible than the other men of his time.

The official police issued a formal apology.
From then on, he was lauded as if he were a real politician. The people accepted him the emperor. Police officers saluted him as he walked on the street. He issued his own money, which local restaurants accepted in exchange for food.
He sent letters in attempts to establish global diplomatic leaders and even met with Emperor Pedro II of Brazil. King Kamehameha V officially recognized him.

When his uniform began to wear, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors bought him a very nice replacement.
> Local newspapers printed a number of decrees that were probably not issued by Norton; it is believed that newspaper editors themselves drafted fictitious edicts to suit their own agendas. The local Museum and Historical Society maintains a list of the decrees believed genuine.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote of him, he "was a gentle and kindly man, and fortunately found himself in the friendliest and most sentimental city in the world, the idea being 'let him be emperor if he wants to.' San Francisco played the game with him."
He had no formal powers granted him by any laws, local or national. But merely by his own declaration and the willingness of the people, including kings, to play along. Norton believed himself to be Emperor, and the people loved and recognized him as such.
He died, collapsing in the streets of the city he loved and loved him back just as much.

It became apparent that he was not rich and lived in complete poverty. He owned nothing, but made nearly all of his money from the generosity of others.

His funeral was large and mournful.
Two hundred years later, there have been efforts to commemorate his reign, with plaques being installed at various places around the city. A movement to name the Bay Bridge as the Emperor Norton bridge partly succeeded.
There are two morals of the story:

1. Merely a shared recognition of someone's authority is sufficient to change the public's opinions dramatically.

2. Once accepted, the shared game can go on forever.

The photo of Joe Biden up top is unrelated.

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Democrats & DNC Media are going to LITERALLY have nothing coherent to say in response to that.

Mueller's team was 100% partisan.

That's why it's brilliant. NOBODY will be able to claim this team of partisan Democrats didn't go the EXTRA 20 MILES looking for ANY evidence they could find of Trump campaign/Russian collusion during the 2016 election

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They looked underneath every rock, behind every tree, into every bush.

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People in a free society are entitled to any point of view no matter how obviously wrong or outlandish or destructive provided they do not impose their views on others.

But suggesting that something ignorant or divorced from reality warrants the same kind of treatment in public debate as something based in fact or at least credible is absurd and when done on behalf of a society in public media or academic settings it is self-destructive.

We would not grant media coverage or much bandwidth at all to a group that argued that unicorns exist or that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet views like denying climate change or basing policy decisions on sweeping, obvious lies, are just as unsound.

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For decades, it embraced greedy nihilists in order to win elections.

In the last 10+ years, a well-funded insurgency has infiltrated and captured it.

They are now threatening & purging any remaining opposition.

We can’t address the threat they pose to democracy without addressing the methods by which they maintain popular support.

This requires action across multiple fronts.

In terms of public policy, we are working on the right things:

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-Addressing the immediate socio-economic pain that places people in anxiety-laden debt traps, makes them feel isolated, and makes them ripe targets for disinformation/authoritarian messaging appeals (fighting Covid with a plan, financial relief, genuinely empathetic leadership)

Biden and the Dem Congress are working on all of these things already.

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2) campaigns while in West Bengal they're themselves in alliance with Congress and a Muslim party ISF, founded by an Islamic cleric. In West Bengal they are appealing on the lines of social justice, Dalit emancipation and Muslim empowerment.

3) Their candidates in Bengal, most of whom would distance themselves from anybody visibly Muslim and would leave no chance to demonize them, are now flaunting pictures with Muslim men and women covered in skullcaps and Hijab. In Kerala, they once disowned their own party leader

4) because he performed Umrah. Meanwhile, their PR agency called NewsClick is publishing pieces suggesting how TMC's violence helped BJP make inroads in Bengal while ignoring that it was CPIM's vote that shifted to BJP and hence it should be them who should be called out for not

5) being able to keep their votes intact. I am not in support of Mamata in Bengal or Congress in Kerala. I only hope and wish ISF, IUML, SDPI, AIMIM, AIUDF, Welfare Party and other Muslim outfits win as many seats as there are! #ApniQayadat

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