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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 8h

There’s no one on Earth more Un-American than Donald J.Trump.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 11h

Amen to that.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 13h

That will require communication skills and listening skills that current Democratic leadership doesn't have and likely can't cultivate. In the Owens piece linked above, the Lincoln example ending Antebellum required a new party, a lot of luck, & a lot of pain. I hope it doesn't come to that.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 13h

But my 2¢: The Democrats need to draw a stark contrast with Republican corruption and elevate voices with newer ideas (think Mamdani).

E.g.: Admit Reagan's trickle-down economics was a failure & pursue a return to a progressive tax structure favorable to an economy serving *all* Americans.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 13h

Wish I had an answer for you. On the timescales I most naturally think in terms of, this ship will right itself (but that does not preclude a lot of suffering, on the part of a lot of Americans, in the interim).

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Minority Rule Cannot Last in America

It never has.

www.theatlantic.com

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 15h

The Republican coalition has shrunk itself into a corner, where they can’t afford to lose any element of it— no matter how corrupt or detestable they may be.

The rest of us should see that as a weakness to exploit, and act accordingly.

Brian Beutler @brianbeutler.bsky.social · 18h

JD Vance’s unwillingness to condemn the Nazi GOP groupchat provides the press corps yet another opportunity to probe his personal associations, and take note of how the whole administration exists to please them and make sadistic content go viral. www.offmessage.net/p/governing-...

Governing For The Gram

Republicans are obsessed with finding non-existent connections between Democrats and "the violent left" Meanwhile...

www.offmessage.net

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 17h

Some of us can't shake the notion that the last time Fascism reared its ugly head... It was accompanied by a disruptive new media technology that facilitated more immediate & more personalized delivery of propaganda to the masses.

Hard to know if it's mere coincidence or an interesting rhyme.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 19h

I see this on my campus as well. There is a remarkable amount of siloing that occurs on social media, which serves Authoritarian interests well… But to be fair, these are folks trying to find joyful moments in an increasingly stark environment.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 21h

Netanyahu was never going to engage with any measure of sincerity. His prison sentence for corruption looms too large for him to let the narrative shift toward a real peace.

The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 1d

That seems uncharitably harsh...

But then, we are talking about MAGA. The folks facilitating a return to the suffering we last endured in 1940s Europe.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 2d

Look, if countries start prosecuting dictators for corruption, that would set an awful precedent

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 4d

The Trump Admin thinks (misdemeanor) immigration *is* violent crime, and removes law enforcement officers from *legitimate* criminal investigations to enforce this nonsense. Antifa (i.e., anti-fascists) they view as anyone who opposes their criminal enterprise.

Maybe that should be the story?

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 4d

They imagined them. They did all they could to create a system that would reward democratic participation and punish would-be tyrants. They may not have imagined that politics would organize into just two parties, or that one would go full-tyranny

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 4d

Tale as old as time. Antebellum slave owners maintained their minoritarian power base as long as they did only because they formed a political coalition with northern bigots upset about immigration from Ireland and Germany

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 5d

I suspect “luck” has nothing to do with it

The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 5d

Needs more scaffolding. I recommend something along the lines of the Piazzale Loreto in Milan...

The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 5d

I'ma' predict that (a) Trump will not pull off a peace deal (Bibi will extend the war to extend his govt) and (b) Trump will not celebrate in Oslo.

The Nobel Committee already has expressed its opinion that democracy is a predicate for peace. A system of values Eliot Cohen does not grasp or share?

The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 5d

Death by apoplexy.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 5d

"Pushed the boundaries of"? These boundaries you speak of seem to be much more infinitely elastic than one might have imagined legality to be, oh, say, ten years ago.

The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 5d

They will do whatever they can to intimidate the American people against using their collective voice. They know, as we know, that We the People are all that stand between us and their dreams of dictatorship.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5d

Mike Johnson: "We're so angry about it. I mean, I'm a very patient guy, but I've had it with these people. The theory we have right now -- they have a hate America rally that's scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall. It's the pro-Hamas wing and antifa people ... "

The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 6d

Okay now THAT’S cool. The fundamental root of adaptive behavior.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 6d

If there is a hell, Trump is more deserving of it than anyone… And being listened to rather than laughed at will not be part of his hellscape agenda

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 6d

That’s not a matter of “psychologists fear”… The patterns of increasing bullying, domineering, intimidation and violence at all levels of human interaction from interpersonal to statecraft are demonstrable.

The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 6d

No doubt this will come as a great relief to the National Guard and conscripted LEOs (such as FBI drawn from drug enforcement and other task forces that used to do good in the world).

Less so perhaps the MAGA folks and former domestic terror militia members in ICE.

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The Last Bastion... @twainspatriot.bsky.social · 6d

RFK is correct that Trump Derangement Syndrome is a pathology, but he’s bass-ackwards in thinking that the Columbia Associate Professor is among those directly suffering its effects…

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6d

RFK Jr: "Somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman at 8 months pregnant -- she's an associate professor at the Columbia Medical School -- and she is saying 'F Trump' and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta. The level of Trump Derangement Syndrome is now a pathology."

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