Walt Shaub: 'There's a movement in the West to overthrow democracy, and it's strong in this country.

[CousinIT]

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1384842015096115200.html

There's a movement in the West to overthrow democracy, and it's strong in this country. It's no coincidence that the movement's adherents lament the conviction of a murderer who crushed the life out of a Black man in broad daylight. Fascism thrives on racist brutality. /1

This movement is also hostile to government ethics, which at its core defends the foundational principle that power must be used solely and demonstrably for the benefit of all of us. Corruption, racism, corporate campaign finance and voter suppression are all related. /2

And we're not even close to being out of the woods. This guilty verdict still feels like an isolated case. State legislatures are trying hard to stack the deck to keep it that way. The wannabe authoritarian is out of the White House, but there's nothing to stop another rising. /3

POTUS can't stop any of it, not beyond his term. We need laws. HR1 passed Congress. Its companion bill, S1, is fighting for its life in the Senate. Without voting rights protection, government will never represent all Americans. Without ethics, it will continue abusing power. /4

Original thread:

Link to tweet

[colsohlibgal]

1. The Game Has Been Rigged For A Long Time.

As in the Electoral College, where we can get way more votes and lose, and the makeup of the Senate, where States with a population less than a big City get 2 Senators just like New York, California, etc with a population larger than some countries.

The game is rigged and not for Democrats.....a Democrat will never lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College.

There are considerably more of us than them but they’ve gamed the system.

[johnthewoodworker]

2. Anyone who thinks you can compromise with Republican/Nazis is delusional.

[area51]

20. +1 n/t

[Wounded Bear]

3. K&R...for truth...nt

[usaf-vet]

4. Our country is sadly infested with vermin. Until they have been eradicated the infestation....

..... will continue to grow. This is why the Democrats and the President need to do whatever they can to bring tRump and his delusional followers to justice.

Ignoring their transgression will only confirm what many believe, that there are two justice systems in America. One for the rich and one for the rest of us.

[Hortensis]

7. Fwiw, "eradicating vermin" is classic fascist talk. First step is to

dehumanize opponents as vermin, disease, dangerous animals, etc, then speak of the necessity of eradication. Since we're on the subject.

[usaf-vet]

21. Well I suppose I could have said it's time to put them all to death.

Some of us are not in touch with "classic fascist talk".

Sorry but I don't live in that world. I could have also said poison the cockroaches.

In the world, I live in deer ticks that cause Lymes disease are vermin that need to be "eradicated".

So when it comes to deer ticks I am for killing them, poisoning them, or eradicating them. Bring them to justice would make little sense.

[speak easy]

25. Delousing and the Holocaust

https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof so/9780198206910.001.0001/acprof-9780198206910-chapter-010

[Tiger8]

8. Most Right Wingers feel morally superior, and exempt from laws

You see this when they commit assault & battery, Hate Crimes, etc. with such a defiance.

Left unchecked, they got worse. They "peacefully" stormed the Michigan state capital. Nothing was done. So next time they stormed the US Capital and tried to overthrow the government. Some argue they're patriots defending the constitution, but got a little carried away. Give them a break.

Screw that! Prosecuting every one is not enough. Arrest and jail their leaders. Infiltrate and break up their militias. Otherwise, we will wake up one day and find them running the government.

[OldBaldy1701E]

32. For what it is worth

I have said several times that the simple fact is that if those insurrectionists had been anything other than pasty, beer gutted rednecks they would have been mowed down before they got to the door handles. Call me what you want, but that is what should have happened.

[dalton99a]

5. Democracy is a threat to white supremacy.

[marmar]

9. This

[Hortensis]

10. Equality and government of, by and for people are threats to EVERY supremacy.

Except that of the people, and there the individual has to be protected from the supremacy of the group. But we have evolved past the period when any group is seen to have a right to supremacy, and a majority agrees with that. We just need a tiny bit more of that majority to vote Democrat.

Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

"It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America." ~ Molly Ivins

[iluvtennis]

13. Truth. nt

[wnylib]

27. It is also a threat to the upper 1% income people

who use white supremacy to motivate followers to subvert democracy. The top elite would prefer a return to a more feudalistic society. Constitutions and democratic government stand in the way. So they encourage a divide and destroy cultural atmosphere, pitting white supremacists against POC and their allies, getting theircracist followers to do the dirty work of destroying the country.

MLK recognized the racial divide and conquer tactics used by upper classes in power to perpetuate their power. Keep Black people down through racism and keep white people down by making them feel like they belong to a system that "elevates" them above the lowest social rungs. MLK was accused of being a communist for speaking of race in terms of a class system problem. But you do not need to be a communist to see whst is happening and to oppose it.

[Pepsidog]

6. Watching the clergy spout political beliefs during Sunday service is infuriating. Tax the bastards.

[KS Toronado]

12. Yep, we really need a separation of church and state.......

Taxing them should curb their enthusiasm for getting political. Pat Q Robertson of the 7QQ club went on for
5 mins this morning how HR1 would destroy America. Bet he never applied that to Jan 6th.

[DBoon]

30. You will never have a free citizenry

When voting for the "wrong" party results in eternal damnation, because your preacher says so

[peggysue2]

11. IMHO, Shaub is on the money

No, we're not out of the woods. The Republican Party is no longer a 'loyal opposition,' but a group of men and women intent on bringing the house down. The anti-democratic fever is hot in their veins because it's the only way they can maintain any semblance of power and all the perks that follow. There is a growing swath of traitors in our House and Senate. They can howl all they want but they've turned in a decidedly unAmerican, anti-democratic direction, cheered on by the likes of Fox News and alt-right personalities.

This battle for the soul of America? It ain't over. In fact, it's only just begun. Which is why it's an all hands on deck moment. Citizens from every corner of the country, voters of every political stripe and color and age, etc. need to participate in the pushback against the continuing disinformation, the bothsiderism in the media and the 24/7 propaganda that would make a Tucker Carlson's introduction of 'replacement theory' sound reasonable. We might be called to the streets. We are definitely called to the polls for Every Single Election from this day forward. Because . . .

Replacement theory is not reasonable. It'a merely a cover, an excuse for bigotry, hatred and exclusion of the other. It's a prelude to something far worse and it's why White Nationalists cheered and applauded Carlson's reintroduction of the malevolent idea to his audience. The idea/theory isn't new. It set the table for the Nazi regime.

We know where this narrative ends. Which is why we cannot allow it to begin.

[Evolve Dammit]

14. Spot on peggysue2. "all hands on deck."

[secondwind]

15. Good stuff there.....

[Cosmocat]

18. Spot on!

nm

[wnylib]

28. You totally nailed it. This is an expanding

fascist overthrow of democracy which needs to be stopped and crushed before it goes farther. The fools who think they are in the political "in" crowd with their fascist-enabling racism will find themselves on the outside under a dictatorship. Their "freedoms" will no longer exist for them or anyone else. But POC will suffer the most and the earliest.

[firefly007]

16. In my opinion

we can never "fix" the already broken people. We need to out vote them in all elections, local and national. As the years pass the children of the broken will see for themselves that the Democrats are the party that actually cares about their well being.

[area51]

19. Welcome to DU, firefly007.

Hope you'll find DU shiny.

[niyad]

26. Welcome to our DU family.

[multigraincracker]

17. I was talking to a right winger

about Democracy. He said we are not a Democracy, we are a Republic. I told him that is correct, however there are only two types of Republics, Democratic Republics and Banana Republics. He had to agree.

[BobTheSubgenius]

22. Until pretty recently - say the last 3 or 4 years -

...I never thought that a win by these forces of evil had a chance. Even among the racists and the uber-greedy, there was still a palpable pride in Free America, shining city....etc. All that.

WTH are these people thinking? That having a say, however muted, in the governance of one's country is a BAD thing??? Do they really believe they'd thrive under a strong and unchallenged autocracy, or think that, somehow, they will make it to the uberclass and be one of those reaping the narrowly-distributed rewards?

I'd love to have one of them try to explain the steps that will get them there. ATM, I (quite incongruously) see and hear the Southpark episode about the Underpants Gnomes:

Step One - Gather all the underpants.

Step Two - ????

Step Three - Profit!

[NQAS]

23. I was thinking about this as I read the RW responses to yesterday's verdict

On the plus side, Walter Shaub said it better than I could.

The RW - yes, that's a broad brush - believes in the deepest and darkest parts of their beings that they are right. That immigrants are evil. That the deep state comprises child-trafficking, adrenal gland harvesting cannibals. They look out the window and see clear skies and report on Twitter that the skies are literally darkening and the world is coming to an end. They see joyful African-Americans celebrating the rare conviction of a police officer and see only former slaves deeply committed to the eradication of white people in America. In their world they are not disenfranchising non-white people but rather securing elections for white people. They don't see the impact on Black people because they don't consider them human. Or American. They don't see asylum seekers as escaping horrors in their own countries but rather as infiltrators into a white America. And on and on.

And if it takes the toppling of democracy to ensure that their world prevails, then so be it. For them it's not a choice. What they believe and the actions they are taking are the right path. They on the right side of history. They are convinced that history, so to speak, will view them as the saviors of America.

When Jim Caviezel can spout his adrenal gland nonsense publicly, something is very, very wrong. When Lin Wood can spout the utter tripe that he spoke, to the cheers of the faithful, something is very, very wrong. When everything they believe is reinforced daily by the utterances from Mar-a-Lago and from Fox and Newsmax and OAN, something is very, very wrong. When QAnon is their guiding light, something is very, very, very wrong. When not more than one or two Republicans call them out, something is very, very wrong.
They are blind to the reality that our foreign adversaries are exploiting their idiocy.

Whether or not the movement, if you can even call it that, has the goal of topping democracy is almost irrelevant. If that's what it takes to achieve their objectives - to rid America of non-White people and to dismantle the so-called deep state - then democracy has to go.

IOW, read Walter Shaub's comments as a very serious warning.

[Cha]

24. Rt TY

[uponit7771]

29. 1/6 is the beginning

[joetheman]

31. Because the west is just coming to grips with the fact that POCs outnumber white people all over the

world. Therefore no system of governance can be democratic because they are out numbered.