Thaddeus

Thaddeus

@democracywork.bsky.social

421 followers159 following1K posts

Thaddeus reposted

Leah Gremlinberg ❌👑
@leahgreenberg.bsky.social

This is state-sponsored media shit. Absolutely, shocking, insane dictator overreach

TheDesk.net@thedesk.net

#BREAKING: Sinclair says it will air a one-hour tribute to Charlie Kirk on its ABC-affiliated stations in the time slot that is usually occupied for "Jimmy Kimmel Live." The special will air on Friday, per a Sinclair spokesperson.

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Noting for the record that the @espiers.bsky.social piece on Charlie Kirk was word- and pitch-perfect. Any freedom-loving institution should have been proud to publish or fund it. www.elizabethspiers.com/whatta-week-...

elizabethspiers.comWhatta Week: Charlie Kirk, JD Vance, and My InboxI wrote a column for The Nation about why I don't celebrate Charlie Kirk's death, but I won't celebrate his life, either. I'm posting it below in its entirety. Since the column came out, it has been ...
Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Crazy. And crazy-making. Nothing that any commentator of prominence has said about Kirk compares in offensiveness to any number of things that Kirk said over many years. We’re being asked to believe not just that up is down, but that up is the wisest, kindest, most generous down that ever lived.

jamelle@jamellebouie.net

genuinely crazy that this is happening on behalf of charlie kirk of all people

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Stop acting like a Nazi. Stop acting like a fascist. Thank you for playing “Easy Answers to Hard Question.“

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com

Vance: "What is it that you want people to do when you call them 'Nazis'? What is it that you want them to do when you call them 'fascist'?...This rhetoric is completely out of control and it's part of this entire network of violence that exists on the far-left."

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

We live in an Orwell Moment, when plain speaking about unpleasant political facts is strangely rare and uniquely valuable—when simple truths, simply told, can have a marvelous tonic effect, even many people deem them hard to swallow. (Orwellian times, of course, open space for an Orwell Moment.) 1/3

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Nut graf: “My point here is that politics at this moment in this country consists necessarily in part in pretending that things are still roughly “normal,” because that’s the pragmatic thing to do to a certain extent, even though it’s pretending.

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

“The Republicans are insane, you can’t negotiate with them, but you have to pretend this isn’t true if you’re the Democratic leadership, … “Now at some point this won’t make any sense any more and I suspect we’re reaching that point quite rapidly.”

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

“Politics,” Steve Bannon said, “is downstream of culture.” When he’s right, he’s right! This sharp piece delves into the meaning of the larger MAGA project, a key part of which involves using a kitsch aesthetic to eliminate every vestige of liberalism. www.vox.com/politics/459...

vox.comTrump isn’t just remodeling the White House. He’s rebranding America.The president’s tacky aesthetic is a window into his quest to become the single most enduring symbol of America.
Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

All of this. Very much all of this. One way to understand MAGA is as an erasure of the Second Founding. Allowing Trump to run for president after Jan 6 was an act of constitutional suicide.

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Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Those who forget immunology are condemned to learn it again the hard way. Willful cultural amnesia explains so much of the current catastrophe. (Op. cit. John Roberts Voting Rights Act decisions.)

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Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Ha! Soon will come the day when Murc’s Law will be the only law that we have.

NY Times Pitchbot@nytpitchbot.bsky.social

Donald Trump posted “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR” on his Truth Social account, raising alarms about Biden’s mental state.

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

MAGA types, including DJT, are the ultimate “ bad fans”: They watch and presumably enjoy perfectly good movies without any conception of who the bad guys are. Nor, as others pointed out, do they have any conception of which side lost this particular guerrilla war.

Eliot Higgins@eliothiggins.bsky.social

Just Trump declaring war on a US city, a normal Saturday

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Brilliantly said. I totally agree with @mehdirhasan.bsky.social. Sweeping out top congressional Dem leaders is a necessary step forward. Yet it’s far from sufficient. It’s far from clear the leaders who would replace Schumer and Jeffries would be much better. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.comIt’s time for Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to step down | Mehdi HasanThis fascist moment, this age of Trump, demands outspoken, unrelenting and fearless opposition. We all deserve better
Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

The people who are ostensibly next in line (Dick Durbin, Katherine Clark) are hardly inspire confidence. The underlying problem: Donor-consultant capture has claimed the souls of far too many leading Dems in both chambers. Still, replacing Schumer & Jeffries would at least send the right signal.

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Why we are where we are, in 10 indelible words: “You can't policy your way out of a propaganda problem!”

Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social

I'm kind of shocked that anyone is still proposing technocratic solutions to the "debate" over immigration. Even if this were a good idea (and it is not), Republican elites and media will never tell their base about it. You can't policy your way out of a propaganda problem!

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Great thread. Very smart to connect “deliverism” with Dem leaders‘ current hapless strategy on the funding battle. Common denominator: Congressional Dems cling to the outdated idea that their primary task is legislation. No! It’s all about the info battle. It’s all about the war for attention.

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Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Imagined SNL skit: The Senate Dem caucus room, looking vaguely like an MLB clubhouse. In walks Casey Stengel (played by Bernie Sanders?), who utters the immortal line: "Does anybody here know how to play this game?"

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Then there's this—the glib dismissal, by Trump and (implicitly) by @nytimes.com, of the core principle that this kind of change must originate, and be deliberated, in Congress. The road to dictatorship is being paved with dozens of casually accepted assertions of unconstitutional power.

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

The key issue is that leading Dems, to this day, treat DJT as a legitimate member of the American civic community. It's a fundamental error—and it will likely keep Dems from fighting the battle for Trump's legacy in an honest or effective way.

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

"I refuse to pretend that any of this is normal.” This, this, this! Since January 20, I’ve been waiting for prominent Dems to commit to this simple, necessary principle.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Pritzker: "I refuse to pretend that any of this is normal ... I refuse to fall into the pundit trap that demands we sacrifice vital constitutional rights if it's being done in the fake guise of fighting crime."

Thaddeus reposted

Moira Donegan
@moiradonegan.bsky.social

The president is tweeting videos of his extrajudicial murders for the sake of entertaining his hordes of followers who cry out for enemy blood.

Adam Isacson@adamisacson.com

Here's the video Trump just posted to Truth Social, with the claim that 11 people aboard the boat were killed. There is zero evidence of self-defense here. Looks like a massacre of civilians at sea. Even if they had drugs aboard, that's not a capital offense.

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Brilliant thread by @anatosaurus.bsky.social. It’s ALL about attention. And for a political party today, the only way to gain and keep attention is to show that you’ll fight for people. Damn talk far too much about “distraction“ and not nearly enough about the laws of (political) attraction.

Anat Shenker-Osorio@anatosaurus.bsky.social

Messaging fascist power grabs as "distraction" fails to recognize politics is a shouting match not a soliloquy. Pivot to "but our prices" means you're not going to be heard. Further, you have to prove not just Trump's hurting you, but that Dems would fight back. www.cnn.com/2025/08/31/p...

cnn.comAnalysis: This one word captures the most important division among Democrats | CNN PoliticsAs President Donald Trump openly contemplates sending military forces into more American cities, the leading congressional Democrats almost invariably describe his actions as an attempt to create a “d...
Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Antisemitism watch: Will the Trump regime now force the Holocaust Museum to enter a multimillion dollar settlement? The ironies start to intertwine like the sides of a Mobius strip. (It’s OK to be antisemitic as long as you’re not anti-American. So hard to keep track!)

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Thaddeus reposted

Eliot Higgins
@eliothiggins.bsky.social

The conditions that have led to what’s happening in the US today exist in democracies around the world. They are an inevitable outcome of our collective failure to adapt to fundamental changes in the information ecosystem on which our democracies were originally built.

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

It’s truly a wretched, feckless editorial. But it has the virtue of offering a window into the institutional mindset that engenders NYT‘s mealy-mouthed, collaborationist coverage of Trump on both news and editorial pages. 1/2

David Roberts@volts.wtf

Holy shit. I knew this @nytimes.com editorial would be bad, but it's so much worse than I could have imagined. I mean, it is indistinguishable from a parody of reactionary centrism. This is every center-left pathology, laid out for your examination.

nytimes.comOpinion | There Is a Way Forward: How to Defeat Trump’s Power GrabThe patriotic response to today’s threat to American democracy is to oppose Trump soberly and strategically.
Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

I don’t have the heart to do it, but a parody of this paragraph—one that channels the voice of a German liberal newspaper as it discusses the early tenure of a certain chancellor in May 1933—almost writes itself.

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

If @nytimes.com reporters didn’t have liberals to kick around, how would they fill the empty spot in the pit of their souls? As a survey of what’s happening, it’s a decent piece. But NYT can’t help but frame it in terms of how libs and Dems are doing it wrong. 1/2 www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...

nytimes.comTrump Resistance? It’s Not a Full Movement, but It’s Growing. (Gift Article)Despite lacking a unified message or strategy, Democrats, universities, law firms and other institutions are starting to push back harder against the administration.
Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

No good reason not to frame it this way: “Despite lacking a single national leader, the anti-Trump movement has coalesced around a clear message of opposition to Mr. Trump‘s policies and his attacks on constitutional rights.”

Thaddeus
@democracywork.bsky.social

Incisive, useful effort to convert general, angst-ridden despair over [gesticulates manically] *all this* into a review of specific unconstitutional and anti-constitutional steps taken by Trump and his regime.

George Takei@georgetakei.bsky.social

If you've ever found yourself thinking, 'That can’t be constitutional' after one of Trump’s executive orders or deportations, you're not wrong. This piece breaks down the five core constitutional principles Trump has taken a wrecking ball to, so we can better fight back against the threat he poses.

thinkbigpicture.substack.comWait, That’s UnconstitutionalMaking sense of Trump's all-out assault on the foundations of our system