Happy New Year 🪅🎉🥳

Goodbye 2020 and good riddance.

Thank you all for sharing the journey with me. Thank you for the questions, comments, gifs. We got through 2020. 2021 will be better.

2021 will be the year to Make Democracy Cool Again.

How about a few resolutions?

#1: Run for Something

(or help someone else run for something)

Want to really make a difference in politics and government? Don’t just march, @runforsomething.

Make sure things are done right. Be the person in charge.

https://t.co/gGCVWFnUo7
#2: If you can’t run for something, find someone you know who would be terrific, and encourage that person to run.

You can also volunteer to help Run for Something screen candidates.
#3: Be a Community Organizer

Do you have a talent for organizing? If so, democracy needs you. One reason the Tea Party was successful was that they organized locally and put pressure on local officials.
#4: Register New Voters

Start now. It's not too early.

In some states, you can become an official volunteer voter registrar. James Williams in Maryland told how he did it in his state. https://t.co/mv1PtliBuV
#5: Be An Institutionalist

Our democratic institutions are under attack. So what should you do? Defend them.

Defend Institutions is #2 on @TimothyDSnyder's list in his book, On Tyranny.

What's an institutionalist and how do you become one? See: https://t.co/GhtIDHIs6D
#6: If you are a teacher consider an assignment requiring students to advocate on behalf of an issue of their choice, or allow / encourage your students to substitute an assignment with a civic engagement activity of some kind.

They are the future. Empower them.
#7: Also, if you're a teacher, assign novels and stories about real-life young people who step and do what the adults seem unable to manage.

#8: Become a Social Engineer.
What do I mean? See: https://t.co/uEVsJwFaQ5
#9: Help People Become Citizens

Support low-cost immigration services, volunteer at an organization such as @CUNYCitizenship, or at organizations that tutor English and civics for the naturalization test.
#10: Subscribe to local newspapers and national journals that do good investigative reporting.

If everyone does this, lots of money will get pumped into news reporting. We need good reporters.
#11: Take lots of mental health breaks. You can't help save democracy if you are worn out and stressed.

Here is a photo from my mental health break today ⤵️

JJ is working hard though, keeping me safe from seagulls.
It's a never-ending cycle:
We push forward. The reactionaries push backward.

If the universe is unfolding as it should, Trump awakened enough people from complacency and spurred us to treasure our democracy and take the necessary steps to preserve it.
https://t.co/F8RzeQpGaP
This thread is now a blog post, here: https://t.co/V2fu3J0AYv

More from Teri Kanefield

Reading recommendation: Rand Corp, "The Russian Firehose of Falsehoods Propaganda Model," includes advice on how to counter a rapid and continuous stream of lies.
https://t.co/1Jg5CvgrJC

1/

The liar has a “shameless willingness” to tell outrageous lies that lots of people know are lies.

The liar doesn’t care about consistency.
He doesn’t care if it’s obvious he’s lying.
https://t.co/C08paJsKTT
In fact, that's the whole point.

Putin perfected the method.

2/

It seems to come naturally to Trump.

@TimothyDSnyder tells how reporters were often so astonished by Putin's outrageous lies, that they focused on the lies instead of Putin's latest atrocities.

The lies became the news.
The actual news gets pushed off the stage.

3/

The goal is the “disruption of truthful reporting and messaging.”
https://t.co/C08paJsKTT

That's why Trump really wants an actual trial, and why he was so annoyed with the Supreme Court (and other courts) refusing to hear the case.

He wants a stage for the lies.

4/

From the Rand study: The Firehose of Falsehood technique “entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”

I think the "entertainment" part applies to the GOP leadership who know Trump is lying but cheer the lies because they are so destructive.

5/
This is what he wants to do.

No matter how this trial plays out, the US will remain divided between those who choose truth, Democracy, and rule of law and the millions who reject these things.

1/


The question is how to move forward.

My mantra is that there are no magic bullets and these people will always be with us.

Except for state legislatures, they have less power now than they have for a while.

2/

The only real and lasting solutions are political ones. Get Democrats into local offices. Get people who want democracy to survive to the polls at every election, at every level.

It’s a constant battle.

3/

Maybe I should tell you all about Thurgood Marshall’s life to illustrate how hard the task is and how there will be backlash after each step of progress.

4/

Precisely. That's why Thurgood Marshall's life came to mind.

We are still riding the backlash that started after the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

That's why I keep saying there are no easy
January 6th will be a freak show. Biden will become president because the only way to stop it would be for the House to agree, and that won't happen.

Going forward, the GOP becomes even more dangerous and radicalized.


A few hopeful points:

The GOP could very well lose control of the Senate.

Because these GOP Senators will force a vote, the GOP may fracture, with moderates forced out. While this radicalizes the party, they lose


A few reasons. As @ProfBrianKalt points out, refusing to seat them because they say the election wasn't valid gives credence to the lie that the election wasn't valid.

Moreover, there's no authority to refuse to seat an elected rep for telling lies. .


. . . which is what refusing to seat them would amount to.

The Democrats say, "You are doing really bad things so we won't seat you."

See the problem with that?

(1) It's illegal. The House doesn't get to decide who is seated. The states send their own reps.

moreover . . .

(2) If you say, "The House gets to refuse to seat a person who tells a lie about the election," where does that lead?

If things continue this direction, the political divide will not longer be liberal v. conservative.

The divide will be pro- democracy v. anti-democracy. . .
It looks like 45 Republican Senators voted against holding an impeachment trial for Trump.

I hope nobody had high hopes that the GOP would do the right thing.

The GOP remains the Party of Trump and is hardening into an extremist anti-democratic

They are the anti-rule of law, anti truth party.
https://t.co/e6EME39xNn
Fortunately, they're outnumbered.

Not by much, but they're outnumbered.


Hi, everyone.

A lot of these doomsday comments are annoying me.

Have you all learned nothing over the past few years?

You might want to duck because, I'm about to go on a tear . . .

The same people telling me we're doomed and democracy is dead are probably the same people who told me (1) Trump would make himself dictator (2) The Supreme Court would keep him in office and (3) he would never leave the White House.

Nobody owes you a democracy . . .

My mantra the past 4 years: democracy will survive if enough people want it to, and are willing to do the work.

Did the doomsday people happen to see that the vote was 55-45 in favor of holding a trial?

I think the problem is there has been so much peddling of hope porn. . .

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