1/ Since Bernie dropped out I’ve been seeing a lot of (mostly) white nonsense about people withholding their vote & making the spurious claim that it is morally reprehensible to vote for Joe Biden - that he is the same as Trump (a thread).

2/ Let’s break down this absurd, ill-informed, absolutionist, take bit by bit. I’m going to address each of the things I have seen floated as “proof” that Biden and Trump are the same. Maybe a few of you will learn something, since you clearly haven’t read a history book.

3/ First, I want to address the idea that somehow voting in Trump for another term will usher accelerationism resulting in a revolution. To understand how absurd that notion is - 1) that more Trump will lead to a Socialist revolution and 2) that revolutions go well. First, the…

4/ …more likely outcome of a second Trump term is a 7-2 conservative activist Supreme Court for the next several decades that overturns Roe v Wade, dehumanizes immigrants, and greenlights outright voter suppression / vote manipulation, a further breakdown of our institutions,…

5/ …and even more power grabs resulting in authoritarian rule (think Warren court in reverse). Possibly a SCOTUS that allows a president to cancel elections at worst, further removal of oversight at the very best. If we don’t protect our courts we have nothing.

6/ 2) on the idea that revolutions will give you the socialist utopia that you want. Please for the love of God read a history book, any history book. Revolutions all follow a pattern. This pattern is civil unrest, forming of quiet subversion networks, government retaliation,…

7/ …overthrow (sounds good until the revolutionaries start executing their own in response to purity tests), then replacement with a weak moderate leader - this is where government becomes oligarchic and all the ideology of the revolution is forgotten about.

8/ After that usually all the radicals are taken down and things are put back to the status quo you hate so much. Revolutions are by and large unsuccessful events. You don’t want a real revolution, you just think you do.

9/ What you really want is closer to a “velvet revolution” but you won’t get there with Trump.

10/ This is something smarter politicians like AOC and Elizabeth Warren understand, and though don’t pass your purity tests they are much more effective because they understand that “burning it all to the ground” is not a solution.

11/ Second, the claim that Joe Biden is the same as trump because he’s a “segregationist” who voted for conservative justices. Let’s talk about the segregationist claim. I won’t lie.

12/ Biden’s history on busing is very complicated and not great, but he’s also been in politics for 40 years. People evolve and grow. It is no small thing that he was Obama’s VP. He is not a racist.

13/ He took a back seat and was the biggest cheerleader for a black president for 8 years, never once opposing him. Black voters trust him. Jim Clyburn and John Lewis trust him. You can’t tell me that means nothing.

14/ You can’t sit from a place of privilege and tell me civil rights leaders who believe he is a good and decent man are lying and supporting a racist. I trust the civil rights leaders who trust Biden, and I defer to them on if Biden is a racist. You should too.

15/ Third, I’m not asking you to love Biden. I am asking you to think for a second about what you’re voting for, and not to make terrible and absurd false equivalencies.

16/ You are voting for women’s ability to have safe abortions, you are voting for RBG and Breyer’s replacement, you are voting for an end to babies in cages. You are voting for doing something about climate change before it’s too late.

17/ You are voting for an expansion of healthcare (even if it doesn’t go as far as you want), you are voting for a president who will hire experts so we don’t again lose a year of our lives over something like this pandemic. You are voting for expansion of IDEA funding.

18/ You are voting for the least of us, the vulnerable people, those on the margins, who have their very lives in the balance. Simply put, this isn’t about *you*. Fascism, racism, and authoritarianism is on the ballot.

19/ If you can’t “hold your nose” to save lives and protect transgender people, POC, women, disabled people, non-binary people, LGBTQ people, then the notion that you are in any way progressive is a massive farce.

20/ If you feel no obligation to care about these folks, please don’t call yourself a progressive. Purism is not progressive. Leaving people behind and claiming your "conscience" is not progressive.

21/ I don't know how to teach you to care about other people, but if you sit this out you don't. Voting is your duty. If you will waste it, then you can spare the rest of us your shitty political takes, because I don’t see a reason anyone should listen to them. /fin.

I forgot to address the Supreme Court Scalia thing, but here's a short thread that does: https://twitter.com/JRROwens/status/1248051413004898305?s=20