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In February 1981, pro-Franco army officers attacked the Spanish Parliament hoping to halt Spain's evolution toward democracy and liberalism. 1/x

 The coup was soon suppressed, in large part because of a miscalculation by the dying Franco regime. In 1975, the regime had restored the old Spanish monarchy, hoping to glamorize authoritarianism. Instead, King Juan Carlos opposed the coup - and most of the army obeyed. 2/x
Here's where the story gets interesting for our current purposes ...

The coup launched to thwart Spain's shift to democracy instead consolidated Spanish democracy. The next year, 1982, social democrats won the biggest landslide in Spanish electoral history. 3/x
The elected social democrats formed a government without a single minister connected to the old regime. State support of the Catholic church ended. Family law was modernized, minority language rights were protected. If Franco had opposed it - the new Spain wanted it. 4/x
The process was not instant. Not until 2019 would the state remove Franco's remains from the lavish tomb he built to himself. But the process was inexorable. The pro-Franco attempted coup guaranteed the total doom of Francoism in Spain. 5/x
The differences between the US in 2021 and Spain in 1981 are obviously huge. I'm not proposing an analogy at all. But what I do notice is that some on the pro-Trump side apparently fear that what happened to Francoists in Spain after 1981 could happen to them after 2021. 6/x
The day after pro-Trump insurrectionists invaded the capital, apparently with a plan to lynch the vice president of the United States, Tucker Carlson was on Fox News worried about the terrible risk of persecution of Trump supporters. 7/x https://t.co/sJfQ5F3c6F
Similar concerns are being articulated by other hard-line and soft-line pro-Trump voices. They lament that real victims of the attempted violent overthrow of a US election will be ... those who sympathized with that attempted violent overthrow 8/x https://t.co/ZfqGHkkG9x 8/x
Why, some of those who supported that attempted violent overthrow have already lost their book contracts and may have to republish instead with a less prestigious imprint! If that's not tyranny, what is? 9/x
But beneath the self-indulgent self-pity, these pro-Trump voices are saying something real and true. What was attempted on January 6 *is* discrediting in a democracy -and the disgrace will be shared to some measure not only by its participants, but by its sympathizers. 10/x
The discredit of Trumpism will not be unanimous, obviously - just as you can still find Francoists in Spain even today. But the balance of political and especially cultural power will shift. And Trumpists care even more about cultural power than about political power. 11/x
Trumpists often compare themselves to truly persecuted minorities: African Americans in the Jim Crow South, Jews under Nazism, Christians under communism. That's disgusting and also crazy. 12/x
But Trump's incitement of violence to overturn an election he lost - atop his horrifying mismanagement of the pandemic and the economic crisis in which so many Americans have suffered so much - will cast enduring, inescapable odium upon him and anything associated with him. 13/x
Trumpists already feel the chill of the thickening clouds of social disapproval. And the chill bites sharper because at some deep inner level, even the Trumpists must recognize - they deserve it. END
PS Spanish readers inform me that not all state support for the Catholic church was ended post-Franco. I stand corrected.

More from David Frum

David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
I got overnight via email a query from @briansflood at Fox News, the principal part of which I reproduce below. I answered by email too. I'll append that reply in the next threaded tweet:


My reply:


Hunter Biden's dubious business activities have been reported for years. Here for example is @TheAtlantic in September 2019, year *before* @nypost https://t.co/qZBTpyuysM


That emails attributed to Hunter Biden were circulating was also known well before the NYPost story in October. Here's TIME magazine https://t.co/JvpEKdG0U4


What @NYPost added to the work earlier done by others was a new *origin* story for the materials that circulated in Ukraine in 2019. When other media organizations attempted to corroborate that story, hijinx ensued. https://t.co/ZJGZWq7etU @thedailybeast account
BIDEN
David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
You're hearing a lot of talk about "irregularities" in the election of 1876 that led to a "disputed" outcome. What is being referred to in this hazy terms?

Across the state of South Carolina, white conservatives had used terror and massacre to deter former slaves from voting in 1876. Here's the story of an attack upon the small town of Hamburg in July

Hundreds of black South Carolinians were killed by white conservative militias. Blacks fought back in many places, but they were out-gunned.

The killings were not spontaneous outbursts. They were part of planned campaign of anti-black voter

Some of the elements of the conservative plan to suppress black votes in South Carolina in 1876 sound queasily familiar in our own time, adjusting for the antique language and technology.


But back of it all was terror and violence, more violence than could be contained by the limited federal forces in the area - who were anyway constrained by the white conservative Democratic House majority elected in 1874.
POLITICS , HISTORY
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David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
In an early episode of "Mad Men," the young striver Peggy Olson faces a traumatic experience. The principal character, a man whose life is built upon falsehood and evasion, offers his life advice: "It never happened. It will amaze you how much it never happened." 1/x

With the Tanden nomination, we are watching congressional Republicans put Don Draper's advice into effect.

They supported a profoundly corrupt, cruel, vituperative, and generally immoral and unethical president at the head of an inept and unethical administration. They knew it!

But of course those senators never said so. They were scared and they were shamed. Maybe they stopped some bad things - or at least they tell themselves they did. But the experience had to have been profoundly humiliating for almost all of them. And these are not humble people.

So how do they cope? They follow Don Draper's advice. "It never happened."

The Tanden nomination is the opportunity to rev the pretense loud and fast.

The lady was occasionally indecorous! Even ... sometimes ... untoward. We can't have THAT in the US government!

Hypocritical is not really the word to describe this behavior. It's more a kind of post-traumatic coping mechanism, a denial of the radical abuse that they also suffered, along with US allies worldwide, people of integrity in govt service, and so many bereaved American families
ALL
David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
Trump tweets about his health remind me of a story my late father-in-law Peter Worthington told about covering the Six Day War in 1967 ... 1/x

Pete was in Cairo on the day the war started. He was awoken early by air raid sirens. He turned on Radio Cairo to listen for news. Time passed until an announcer delivered a bulletin. "The Zionists attacked at dawn. We shot down six of their planes and suffered no losses." 2/x

Pete shaved and prepared to go visit the air ministry for himself. The announcer returned to the air. "Update: we shot down TWELVE Zionist planes and suffered no losses ourselves."

He understood the Egyptians had suffered a bad defeat. 3/x

He finished dressing, knotted his tie, and the announcer was back.

"Update again. We shot down FIFTY Zionist planes and suffered no losses ourselves."

That's when he realized that the entire Egyptian air force had been wiped out.

4/x

(NB I may have the figures wrong in the anecdote, I'm telling the story from memory, but you get the idea.)

5/x
TRUMP
David Frum
David Frum
@davidfrum
On October 16 2020, a secondary school teacher named Samuel Paty was beheaded with a meat cleaver in the street of a small town 20 miles down the Seine from Paris. 1/x

Paty's murderer, a young Chechen refugee, had never met the teacher. The killer was incited to the crime by a multi-day campaign of defamation and disinformation on French social media. 2/x

For 5 years, Paty had taught his classes a unit on free speech and its limits in a democratic society. As part of the discussion, he showed his students some of the famous Charlie Hebdo cartoons - after inviting those who might be offended to leave and then rejoin the class. 3/x

One parent of one student - not the student herself - then set in motion a campaign of denunciation against Paty. And the result was a crime that shocked France and pulled tens of thousands to vigils and protests. 4/x

France has suffered terrible crimes in the name of religion before the Paty killing. We're only 5 years from the horrifying nightclub attacks that killed 130 in November 2015. But past attacks caught France by surprise. This murder announced itself in advance. 5/x
EDUCATION

More from World

Heshmat Alavi
Heshmat Alavi
@HeshmatAlavi
THREAD

1)
Newsweek — #Iran has sent deadly "Shahed-136 suicide/kamikaze drones" to the Houthis in #Yemen. These advanced UAVs are deployed to the Houthi-controlled northern Yemeni province of Al-Jawf.

More reason why the West should not appease Tehran.
https://t.co/gtNDCGbtQs


2)
#Iran has long provided drones to the Houthis

March 22, 2017
“… seven Houthi Qasef-1 drones and one drone engine recovered by forces from the UAE. Six of the drones were captured in October on a known Iranian smuggling route that runs through

3)
US to designate #Iran-backed Houthis in #Yemen as a foreign terrorist org (FTO)
https://t.co/ILBCg3Pfvs

Iran’s IRGC long funded/armed/trained/provided for the Houthis.

Dec 30—Missile attack on Aden airport. Yemen gov holds Houthis


4)
#Iran provides at least $360 million, ballistic missiles, other ordnance, technology and training to the Houthis in

5)
The Houthis recently claimed responsibility for a missile attack targeting Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil
WORLD
Jakub Janovsky
Jakub Janovsky
@Rebel44CZ
/thread/ It has been almost 2 months since the end of the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh war and after observing it from the start and talking about it with (or listening to) some really smart people, here are IMO important lessons (new or old) from that conflict:

1. Even in smaller conflicts, U(C)AVs are making achieving air superiority, or at least denying it to the opponent, a lot more important than it used to be.

2. Effective distribution of real-time data from U(C)AVs (and loitering munitions, which can be launched to perform recon when other assets are not available) can significantly increase the effectiveness of even relatively old artillery systems.

3. While airpower is getting incredibly deadly and can quickly inflict massive material damage, you still need units on the ground with a strong will to fight despite taking casualties (and political will to accept that in serious modern wars, significant losses are inevitable).

4. Soldiers need to be aware that on a modern battlefield there are not really any "safe areas" and TTPs (tactics techniques procedures) need to be changed to reflect this.
WORLD , ALL
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Xy5Z89\U0001f1e9\U0001f1ea\U0001f1ea\U0001f1fa
Xy5Z89🇩🇪🇪🇺...
@Xy5Z89
-THREADE-
#Germany #China #5G #Huawei

In contrast to countries like Great Britain, Germany does not exclude the Chinese with 5G across the board. But now the cabinet has agreed on stricter rules for foreign network equipment suppliers.

The federal government has been arguing for two years, now there is a draft law, the cabinet is supposed to get it underway on Wednesday. In contrast to countries like Great Britain and Sweden, Germany does not exclude Chinese companies across the board.

But Berlin, too, subjects the use of companies to strict rules. This is a problem for the German network operators: they have made themselves heavily dependent on #Huawei over the past few years. In the radio network of Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica,

around half of all components usually come from Huawei. With the new 5G cellular standard, data can be transmitted in real time. This opens up new opportunities for industry, but also increases the risk of cyber attacks. The focus on security is correspondingly large.

The draft of a “Second Law to Increase the Security of Information Technology Systems” therefore now uses a two-stage test procedure. In addition to an examination of the technology, there should also be a political assessment of the trustworthiness of manufacturers.
WORLD
alan riley
alan riley
@profalanriley1
NS2 a response to Mr Wolfgang Munchau. Although I agree on a number of points with WM in his recent @spectator piece-I disagree with his central contention that NS2 is about more gas for Germany. There is no more gas & what gas there is not for Germany. Lengthy thread to follow.

1.WMs @EuroBriefing article has swallowed a huge dose of Russian (and indeed German) propaganda. Throughout the article WM refers to Nord Stream 2 as being vital to Germany because of the need for more Russian gas. This is

2.The key point about NS2 is that it is a diversionary pipeline. There is no new gas. This huge political effort by Russia and Germany to deliver NS2 will not bring a single extra molecule of gas to Germany.

3.What is more the gas destined to land on the German Baltic coast at Greifswald (in AM's constituency) will substantially go not to Germany. The connecting pipeline for NS2, called EUGAL has the same capacity as NS2 (55bcm) and heads eastward to the Czech Republic.

4.Our friendly gas propagandists may well say that in December 2019 Gazprom signed a gas transit contract with the Ukrainian state owned energy company Naftogaz for 40bcm a year from 2021-2024. So with NS2 there will be more gas. NS2 plus the gas transited via Ukraine.
WORLD
Adam N Weinstein
Adam N Weinstein
@AdamNoahWho
1. TLDR: What will it take for Pakistan to pressure the Taliban into a ceasefire? Pressure, concessions, clear priorities, & ultimately cooperation from Pakistan. A very tall order.

2. Many Afghanistan policy proposals require some action by Pakistan. But as usual there is a disconnect where Washington believes it can demand Pakistan "do more" without providing much in return and Islamabad thinks half-measures will suffice. It is a destructive dance.

3. Pakistan helped bring the Taliban to the negotiating table in Doha but stopped there & instead opted to tacitly support the Taliban’s bargaining position to enter into a ceasefire only after further concessions from Kabul & US troops leave.


4. The Taliban are overplaying their hand by delaying talks & escalating violence, while Pakistan is underplaying its hand by refusing to add pressure.

5. Why won’t Pakistan further pressure the Taliban?
- What’s in it for me? (sensitive to "do more")
- Less influence over current TB leadership.
- Scared of blowback from sectarian groups, TTP (so they say).
- Some sympathy for group.
WORLD

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Noah Smith
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1/People I know on the Right tend to be obsessed with the idea of "crimethink", taboos, and the (supposedly) oppressive, omnipresent enforcement of liberal cultural norms.

Why?

My new theory: A lot of it is guilt.

2/It's true that in some circles - the media, universities, many big corporations - liberal norms *are* enforced to some degree, and the enforcement has probably gotten stronger in recent years.

But I don't think this explains all of the Right's obsession.

3/The stereotype is that people on the Right tend to be more threat-sensitive. That would help explain the perception that liberal norm-enforcers are lurking everywhere, ready to pounce and anathematize anyone who makes a misstep.

But I don't think that's all of it either.

4/And of course, it's always fun - whether you're on the Right or the Left, or playing a video game, or whatever - to style yourself as the brave iconoclastic rebel fighting against the oppressive forces of blah blah blah.

But I don't think this is all of it, either.

5/The reason I think it's more than these things is that even *in private*, people on the Right express their "crimethink" ideas very gingerly and hesitantly.

I get the sense that they're not just afraid of external censure, but have also internalized liberal norms.
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Liz (Welsh) Beechinor \U0001f605
Liz (Welsh) Beechinor ...
@LizTweetsTech
My dad led an organization of over 300,000 employees.

When I took on my biggest marketing & events team to date (35 employees) I asked him how the *heck* he did it. Here's what he said and what helped me every day. 🧵

Remember you're leading all the employees under you, but you're not *managing* them all. You're managing your direct reports, which should be 5-7 individuals max. Focus on them.

When you interact with the employees you don't manage directly, get to know them as people first, that'll be the most valuable information in leading them. Remembering everything you learn about them is hard, but doing so will make you a superhero.

If you're not going to empower the managers under you, why do you have them? If you see room for improvement, let the manager know and let them make the change on their teams and come to you with questions/concerns. This will save you SO much time.

If you're the smartest person in any room - you're doing it wrong. As a leader, your job is bringing together the best people to get the job done - your skillset is identifying those people, not being one of them.
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Elizabeth May
Elizabeth May
@_ElizabethMay
This is NONSENSE. The people who take photos with their books on instagram are known to be voracious readers who graciously take time to review books and recommend them to their followers. Part of their medium is to take elaborate, beautiful photos of books. Die mad, Guardian.


THEY DO READ THEM, YOU JUDGY, RACOON-PICKED TRASH BIN


If you come for Bookstagram, i will fight you.

In appreciation, here are some of my favourite bookstagrams of my books: (photos by lit_nerd37, mybookacademy, bookswrotemystory, and scorpio_books)
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Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
Did you know?

When Saudi Arabia's King visited India in 1955, PM Nehru ordered all the Hindu Temples and Idols of Hindu Deities that came in Saudi King's way to be covered up.
Our temples are the architectural marvels in their own league.


Each of our temples tells the story of our rich history and cultural heritage. Was Nehru that ashamed of his own nation's heritage that he had to cover them up or there was some other reason? The answer would be best known to him only.

PM Nehru invited the then Saudi King Saud bin Abdul Aziz to India who accepted the invitation and planned a 17 day long official visit to India in 1955. Saudi King had brought a large delegation with him and he had to visit various Indian cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Agra,


Aligarh, Shimla, Mysore and Varanasi. However, when Saudi King reached Varanasi, Nehru ordered to cover all the temples and Idols with curtains that came in the way of the Royal Convoy. During his stay in Varanasi, Govt buildings were painted with the words "Kalma Tayyiba".


'Kalma Tayyiba' means 'There is not God but only Allah and Mohammed is his messenger'. In addition to it, Pooja and Aartis were also stopped at temples. I can call it the appeasement politics of the highest order and Nehru was indeed the greatest appeaser of all times.
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Emma Hilton
Emma Hilton
@FondOfBeetles
This is Kuinini ‘Nini’ Manumua, the woman who was ultimately displaced by inclusion of Laurel Hubbard.

She’s 21, and it would have been her first Olympics.
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