1/ A really thoughful thread from my friend, and fellow Iran dissident @memarsadeghi, on the terrible choice between good-on-Iran-but-awful-in-most-other-ways Trump and decent-person-but-likely-awful-on-Iran Biden. And why she won't vote for Trump. https://twitter.com/memarsadeghi/status/1297911692656082946

2/ As Mariam correctly notes, character matters a lot. Until 2016, that was a cornerstone of the right's thinking.
And as I've grown older, I've come to belive it too: that a candidate's stated views matters less than his/her character and general worldview.

3/ No matter how hard you spin it, there's just no way to say anything positive about Trump's character. He is, to borrow a phrase from @SamHarrisOrg, "a child in a man’s body. He is a malignantly selfish, ignorant and petty person." That matters. https://twitter.com/KerryHowley/status/1296637315352272908

4/ My friends who work on Iran (in the US and elsewhere) may say: "but what does that have to do with us?" I can see the case for focusing on only one cause, but I'm not sold on it. The movement for freedom and democracy in Iran is intertwined with the movement globally.

5/ A United States that is transformed into a more cruel, more racist, less democratic place is bad for the cause of democracy and human rights everywhere around the globe, including Iran.

6/ Much like Mariam, I think the answer is to support Biden, but to try, as much as possible, to hold him to account. Don't let the #IranLobby surround him and his advisors. Continue to draw attention to the evils of the IRI and the lies its lobby tells to Americans.

7/ The cause of democracy & human rights in Iran may take longer if the US stops supporting Iran's freedom movement, but it will ultimately prevail because it is just. And it'll be stronger for not having become a pawn of the most cruel administration in US history. /END