Yeah but *did* they, though?https://twitter.com/FiveThirtyEight/status/1197052513456930817 …
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Feels to me that Watergate proved our democracy was stable enough, our republic’s institutions strong enough, to actually check a corrupt executive, and that lesson convinced the GOP, not to abandon corruption, but to systematically dismantle both our democracy and institutions.
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Ford pardoned Nixon. The lesson: Yes, Republican presidents *are* above the law.
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Reagan taught the country the most destructive and inefficient and oppressive force in the world was government. This allowed the GOP to prove their premise by crafting government to be as destructive and inefficient and oppressive as they could make it.
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Government is simply the way we organize our shared lives together. It’s how we manage the fact that we are inextricably connected. The GOP made that our enemy. When you want destruction of trust, you don’t need to be trusted.
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And then they sold arms to Iran to fund nun-raping Nicaraguan militias in defiance of Congress, and then HW Bush, who ran it out of his office, pardoned his gang. And now these men are all Republican heroes. Not despite what the did. Because of. The lesson: we're above the law.
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And then Roger Ailes founded FOX News, to create a completely alternative reality for people to believe, if they were susceptible to fear and an authoritarian message. Because when you want to destroy, you don't need to be believed. You just need to destroy belief.
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And then, once trust and belief had been drained from our political forest, Newt lit a match to that dry wood. Open contempt for process, for order, for compromise, for all that makes government work. They impeached a president. The lesson: only WE are above the law.
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Yes, and by this time these lies had so permeated public consciousness that Democrats, who might have been thought the opposition, began to accept the bad framework. And even still many of them find civility preferable to justice; and confuse capitulation with healing.
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So, when George HW Bush's dim son, arrived, his cronies went went to war on a lie, killed every safeguard preventing global economic robbery, stole the entire world economy. The ultimate betrayal of the public trust they'd killed. It worked. Prosecution wasn't even considered.
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And then, even with a president from the opposition who let them get away with sending us to war on a lie and stealing the global economy, they absolutely refused to recognize his position. They didn't even impeach. They just refused to recognize. The lesson was clear.
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And yes also the theft of the judiciary. And yes the christian white supremacy. And the racism. And the police militarization. And the full-scale attack on democracy. And the glorification of sexual assault. The marginalization of all who don't fit. Destruction was the goal.
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The Republican worldview 2019: Truth isn't true. Trust can't be trusted. The law is what we say. America is what we we say. Americans are who we say they are. We rule. Fuck you. The Republicans didn't turn on Nixon. They became him.
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You want to see the perfected personification of the Republican worldview? He's the one in the middle. The others? Guys who want what Republicans want. No conspiracy needed. Just people who share a worldview.pic.twitter.com/khy71Lwl4I
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End of conversation
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