1. What @WillieGeist is trying to get across to @NikemaWilliams on @Morning_Joe is that the GOP is nationalizing their message & making their message high stakes, tapping into voters anger at Trump's loss to get them to vote in a Jan. run-off & that Ds NEED TO DO THE SAME. Its

1. Yes, @FareedZakaria's new book, Ten lessons From a Post-Pandemic World argues we don't need a big or small gov- we need a GOOD one.

We don't have that now & that is bc for decades now, the GOP has intentionally hallowed it out. Stripping it of funding under the auspice that

2. the only goal should be small. And as it turns out- that was stupid. And now we have a dysfunctional, as @maddow says, "big, bad" gov. Something that has been "wasted, and rotted and ruined." And its been intentional. Its been murdered, with no thought for how people would

3. suffer for it. COVID just put that suffering in a streamlined spotlight. But as @FareedZakaria points out- its the cherry on top of a 40 year plan that Bannon termed the final "deconstruction of the administrative state." As with the decimation of the economic tools that had

4. allowed the world's 1st middle class to emerge & flourish before The Great Lie ushered in the greatest wealth transfer in history. Not only were Americans bamboozled into voting away their wage increases, their pensions, & their health care (at least till 2010)- they were also

5. tricked into pissing away their country's superiority- its claim to fame, its ability to puff its chest out & say "look over here, we have the best _____. " I had no idea when I was a kid that we were not, in fact, the greatest country on Earth- at least not if you care about

1. I am thankful that at 12pm 1/20 the powers of the prez will be removed from the most dangerous person who has ever held them. I am thankful for the many wonderful fellow Americans from across the spectrum that joined me to help get him out & save America from authoritarianism

2. I am thankful for each & every person that had to make a hard decision, stay silent & normalize this man & his party's actions- which mirror so closely actions taken by other leaders & parties as they moved to consolidate power at the expense of democracy (as documented so

3. clearly by @anneapplebaum's book Twilight of Democracy) bc their lock on power is threatened. Those of us that took a holistic look at events in the U.S., the scope of the Right's propaganda network, and the lengths to which GOP influencers (electeds & media) were willing to

4. go to manipulate public opinion and knew without a shadow of a doubt that we were facing a five alarm fire. Trump, as dumb & self-sabotaging as he is, does one thing perfectly well- manipulate public opinion. Trump fully understands that public opinion flows from the top-down,

5. and that when you control the information diet of a group of people, as the Right is controlled, that manipulation level reaches profound levels. By the time Trump came down the golden escalator in May of 2015- the Republican electorate was primed for someone like him to come

1. In some respects @IgnatiusPost is right- @JoeBiden's cabinet IS built for comfort- BUT its imp to rem the context.

That comfort is a function of the extensive exp this cabinet has- the antithesis of Trump's appointments.

This country NEEDS the antithesis of Trump's cabinet

2. But its also built for another purpose. Its built to be an olive branch to one man- @senatemajldr who is expected to yield either total control over confirmation, or at the least, great influence. Its meant to signal to him that Biden is serious



2. about his "governing for all" campaign pledge & asking for a reset moment in American politics post-Trump. Something he continues to hope for even as more than 1/2 of the House GOP Caucus signs onto an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States that argues to end

3. democracy itself, as @SteveSchmidtSES articulates so clearly in this video that every American should see. Biden could not have presented to the GOP Senate, to McConnell, a more serious peace offering than this cabinet and its a good move that if it

4. works would pull America back from the brink of a civic collapse. So it MUST be tried even if people like myself think the odds of success are depressingly low. It simply MUST BE TRIED. BC if we are to plummet off the cliff, it needs to McConnell & the GOP who on their own are

1. When I hear @clairecmc talk about Dems learning to talk to the Piggly Wiggly crowd, I hope she'll want to join/help w my moderate messaging electioneering overall for Ds effort. BC its CRUCIAL to understand- Ds & outside groups tried already to cater to these voters on the

2. persuasion. That in fact, this cycle was the product of a very concerted effort of that strategy driven by high profile data firms on the D side (many of which who've been critical of my work) & it was a complete and total failure for 2 reasons. The main 1 is that it wants

3. to ignore the effect that polarization is having on voter behavior & the limitations that is placing on certain electioneering techniques that USED TO BE EFFECTIVE and are now not. I want to make something really clear- it is only in places where at least 1 element of the D's

4. operation "went rogue" that Biden pulled out wins: GA, where Abrams made electioneering about turning out the new coalition, AZ, where the AZ state party did the same, but with Latino voters, MI & WI where the state parties put into effect base-centric voter turnout strategies

5. at odds w the party's conventional playbook to focus on turnout, and/or places where concentrations of the D's new coalition: college-educated whites + minority voters (and young voters) are so high (like NE 2) that sub-par strategy doesn't matter, turnout surges are naturally

I am just one woman in Texas writing this to you @realDonaldTrump , not expecting that you will ever read this, but in honor of my family who fought in the Revolutionary war and every war America has fought ever since, I must cry out for freedom. 1/9

My family came to America to be free. We crossed the country in covered wagons, settled in inhospitable swamps and worked the land all the live long day until we could feed ourselves and our communities. Every drop of sweat & blood was worth shedding for because we were free. 2/9

We were a people free to worship our God when, where & how we wanted. We married in our churches. Buried our loved ones on our church grounds. We made choices for the betterment of our people & communities so we could all thrive. Life was hard but so good because we were free 3/9

We said goodbye to loved ones going to war. We lost loved ones on the battlefield who would gladly do it all over again if they had more than one life to give for America. We grieved as communities in tragedies and we laughed and danced during times of joy. We were free. 4/9

Then, the darkness came. Politicians we elected began to betray us in favor of foreign interests and big businesses who helped them grow fat and happy. Now we know their methods of obtaining and keeping power. 5/9

20 January 2021 #MAGAanalysis

The Day After

Here's the link to soon-to-be former President Trump's Farewell Speech. It's not easy watching, I can tell you that. But we boldly do what we must,