1/ When this is all over, Republicans are going to try to convince you the Trump thing was just a phase and Tom Cotton or whoever is a serious candidate.

Don’t believe them. (thread)

2/ The modern Republican Party (which is NOT the same entity as “the Party of Lincoln”) underwent an existential crisis after Goldwater’s crippling defeat in 1964. They could have responded simply by adjusting their platform to meet America’s needs. They didn’t.

3/ Instead the game became how to take back and hold onto power by any means necessary, which is how we got a cobbled together coalition of social rejects dedicated to nothing in particular but being against whatever mainstream America was for.

4/ You’ve got your business leaders against regulation. Gun nuts against same. Racists against civil rights. Christian radicals against modern society in general. And war hawks upset that we stopped war spending when we stopped the war.

5/ (yes, the war never stopped. But that’s kind of deliberate, isn’t it? And yes I know the Democrats are just as bad with imperialism, but there’s this peculiar overlap in the Republican coalition between obscene levels of military spending and jingoistic culture warriors)

6/ Though they have some common interests, the coalition is objectively absurd. If you were to explain to a Martian who Ayn Rand was, who Jesus Christ was, and that the American government worships both, you’d learn what the Martian for “GTFO” is.

7/ The party has been gaslighting us for a long time. The contradictions seem to be a deliberate strategy. “David Duke / Roy Moore / Donald Trump etc isn’t who we are.” Until he needs to be to win Oklahoma or whatever. But the “respectable” Republicans can distance themselves.

8/ It’s kind of like the blind men and the elephant (heh), they show one part to poor white folk and another to rich business leaders, and they see entirely different things — even though these groups are diametrically opposed, they both mark the box that says “elephant.”

9/ They come up with a bunch of haughty thinkpieces about how elephant’s butt is really the same thing as the head, but at the end of the day that’s just plausible deniability for the folks who are squeamish about voting for a butt. The reality? They can’t do without racism.

10/ If the Republican Party we’re not the Party of Trump, we would never have to hear about them. They court grievance culture, no matter how despicable, no matter how dangerous, mo matter how treasonous, because they know damn well they couldn’t win without it.

11/ I’m rambling a bit. I want to go back to the beginning. Take a look at this ad — Nixon’s 1968 campaign.

12/ Nixon’s campaign 50 years ago would be very familiar to folks today. For reference compare the RNC’s recent attack ad:

13/ A bunch of similarities strike me, but I’ll just point out one to attempt to keep this relatively short: ‘68 ad has a mannequin on the ground to suggest actual violence where is was none; ‘18 ad portrays a fictional art photo as a real physical threat.

14/ Why do these ads exist? Because in 2018 as in 1968, there are no realistic policy objectives to be discussed. The campaign is entirely centered on “aren’t you tired of black people / young people / artists” causing so much trouble?”

15/ The hidden assumption is that the unrest started with the angry people at protests, riots, speeches, rap videos, etc.. and not with the assassination of King, the massacre in Vietnam, the caging of children or the ascension of white nationalism.

16/ It is extremely intellectually dishonest and it does not care about hiding it. It is a bald-faced attempt to appeal to white privilege and fear of the other. Again, “law and order” is a racist dogwhistle.

17/ The question that arises, then, for any “traditional conservative” who wants to convince you they don’t align themselves with this shit, is why? Why is it every time politics gets so contentious you stoop as low as possible? Why aren’t you talking about the tax cut?

18/ The answer should be obvious: they’d lose in a landslide. There simply is not a sizable market in the body politic to sell “fiscal conservatism” to. The academics know it’s failed repeatedly and uneducated folk are more interested in angry tribalism.

19/ If we had a proportional Parliamentary system like they do in other countries, where a lot of different parties try to reach a consensus, there would always be this bitty faction of Ayn Rand nuts. It takes all kinds. They’d have a bit of sway... but not like this.

20/ Because Americans don’t want it. They want healthcare. They want to be able to pay the bills. They want their schools to be well-funded. They want homeless people off the streets. They want to know that if disaster strikes, someone’s got their back.

21/ There will never be a market for fiscal austerity (it goes a bit farther than “conservative”) in a country where there is such a sizable gap between the richest and the poorest. Despite the media’s attempt to sell a wealthy New Yorker’s campaign as “populist.”

22/ Trump is not forever. But when he is booted out of office, or dies of old age, or (heaven forbid) serves two terms and retires (assuming we still have elections by then), we will still have to reckon with the political entity that gave him the green light to spew his bile.

23/ If recent events do not ultimately lead to the Republican Party to officially splinter into different entities, the most likely scenario is they will continue to court white rage in order to force through unpopular economic policy, and claim they’re not.

24/ Because let’s be real. Even with the racists, the fake Christians, and the culture warriors on board, they lose the popular vote. They have only the slimmest hold on the Senate, which by design is easier for the least popular party to control. They gerrymander and barely win.

25/ If you think they’re going to kick those people to the curb and start campaigning the hard way, you haven’t been paying attention. The song they’re playing today is the same one they played in 1968, and the same one they will play in 2068 if we let them.

26/ Because Trump cranked the volume up to 11, they’re going to try to blame it all on Trump when he goes down. But they will begin humming the exact same tune the next day, and when you say it sounds familiar they’ll call you crazy to add insult to injury.

27/ Don’t believe any Republican that tells you they’re sad about the state of their party. Demand action, and when it doesn’t appear (it won’t), vote them out of office. Again and again and again until that elephant, head and butt and all, is a relic of history.

/thread