tzimmer_history

tzimmer_history, 3 months ago to random

The biggest challenge in 2024 is to get enough people to actually listen to what Trump and those around him are openly, consistently, and explicitly promising to do once they get back to power.

It is utterly deranged, and discounting it as just rhetoric would be a disaster.

tzimmer_history, 9 months ago to random

“This should be decided at the ballot box” is such an utterly deranged thing to say when the reason why we are in this situation is that Trump and his enablers didn’t respect the decision at the ballot box and instead engaged in a vast conspiracy to end constitutional government.

tzimmer_history, 7 months ago to random

The American Right is fully committed to a fundamentally anti-democratic project, and the Republican Party has a comprehensive strategy to put it into practice.

Some thoughts on the radicalizing threat of authoritarian minority rule: 1/

https://bsky.app/profile/stephenwolf.bsky.social/post/3kch65wc6rc2q

tzimmer_history, 1 year ago to random

It’s really hard to overstate how acutely dangerous this is: All strands of the Right - leading Republicans, the media machine, the reactionary intellectual sphere, the conservative base - are openly and aggressively embracing rightwing vigilante violence.

tzimmer_history, 3 months ago to random

A deliberate campaign to create a permission structure to support rightwing extremism for people who don’t want to think of themselves as supporting rightwing extremism - combined with the eternal mainstream media quest to demonstrate “neutrality” and “balance.”

The result is a bizarre monstrosity.

tzimmer_history, 10 months ago to random

Now would be a good time to discard the analysis and opinion of any member of the commentariat who has been on the “free speech crisis on campus” beat but somehow only ever focuses on the threat of leftwing “cancel culture” instead of the escalating assault from the Right.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/25/texas-a-m-professor-opioids-dan-patrick/

tzimmer_history, 6 months ago to random

Rightwingers are promoting aggressive anti-bikeism as a key element of the reactionary political identity. Just the most destructive people, reflexively raging against anything coded “left” or “woke.” And so even the most universally beneficial trends and behavior are declared evil and “Un-American” 1/

tzimmer_history, 8 months ago to random

Shamefully silly to publish such utter nonsense even at the best of times - a complete disaster doing it in the current situation in which a paper that has adopted “Democracy dies in darkness” as its official slogan should have other things to alert and inform the public about.

Some thoughts: 1/

tzimmer_history, 2 months ago to random

Exactly! All this “let the people decide” talk is remarkably backwards. The people decided in November 2020: Trump lost, and attempted an auto-coup in response. That is the sole reason why the insurrection clause came into play at all: January 6 was the anti-democratic part. 1/

tzimmer_history, 1 year ago to random

Turning the purely ratings-driven platforming of a spectacle that only helps the far-right demagogue who once before tried to abolish democracy and constitutional government as a necessary civic service to get Libs and Lefties to leave their echo chambers is utterly cynical and insulting. 1/

https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1656813612491501568?s=46&t=1xecvNVImNo8TKt3oEvqnA

tzimmer_history, 10 months ago to random

This is exactly the kind of society the reactionary majority on the Supreme Court wants: Every business in the country gets to claim they are engaging in expressive behavior and then discriminate against whatever protected group they don’t like - because “free speech.”

https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/national/article277196783.html

tzimmer_history, 9 months ago to random

This type of militarization and brutalization of the border is the manifestation of a level of cruelty and disregard for the lives of fellow human beings that is simply disgusting, disturbing, and outrageous. No one who is ok with this gets to call themselves “decent” in any way.

https://twitter.com/laikenjordahl/status/1688976652234371072?s=46&t=1xecvNVImNo8TKt3oEvqnA

tzimmer_history, 4 months ago to random

Neutrality-theater journalism gravitates towards the “polarization” narrative precisely because it obscures rather than illuminates, dissolves the specifics of the political conflict into a vague lament over “division,” allows journalists to signal how above the fray they are. 1/

tzimmer_history, 7 months ago to random

The past few days were a stark reminder of how unbelievably more toxic Twitter/X has become and how it’s lost most of its utility as a political communications platform. I wrote this a while ago - I think it’s still relevant:

On the sabotage of Twitter, and what democracy is losing

(Thread: 1/)

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-sabotage-of-twitter-is-a-disaster

tzimmer_history, 10 months ago to random

It’s quite terrifying how profoundly mindless these tech bro pseudo-prophets are - apparently incapable of understanding the world around them beyond the silliest level of superficiality, and yet enabled to have an outsized influence on the lives of future generations.

tzimmer_history, 8 months ago to random

Always remember that people like this are a problem only because one of the two major parties is pursuing a reactionary political project that deliberately enables them as deputies of the authoritarian state and relies on them to chase down anything deemed subversive or deviant.

tzimmer_history, 5 months ago to random

This is such a crucial distinction - and a key point about what animates the American Right more broadly. I find the “Republicans are just Putin’s puppets” talk really misleading - it misses the point: Both are pursuing a project of anti-liberal, ethno-religious nationalism. 1/

tzimmer_history, 11 months ago to random

Key point by Moira Donegan - and exactly the intended effect: Make Twitter completely unusable for those who dare to use it as a tool to publicly question reactionary dominance in any way.

A weaponization of “free speech” to sabotage whatever is left of Twitter as an instrument to democratize the public discourse.

tzimmer_history, 7 months ago to random

Is 2024 really “the most important election” ever?

I’ll say this: For the foreseeable future, the fate of democracy hangs in the balance - and is on the ballot! - in every single election.

And those who seek to subvert and abolish democracy might only have to win once to get what they want.

Thread: 1/

tzimmer_history, 8 months ago to random

The Triumph of Weaponized Nostalgia

Past eras of stable white Christian patriarchal dominance are widely sanitized and mythologized in our political discourse.

A thread, outlining the key arguments of my new piece: 1/

tzimmer_history, 9 months ago to random

Moralizing Nostalgia Leads to Bad History – and Helps the Anti-Democratic Right

David Brooks’ “How America Got Mean” offers an ahistorical tale that obscures rather than illuminates – and provides fertile ground for a politics of reaction.

A thread, based on my new piece: https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/moralizing-nostalgia-leads-to-bad

tzimmer_history, 6 months ago to random

“Faith and Family” vs Democracy

On the normalization of Mike Johnson, the media’s inclination to accommodate power, and the perpetuation of “real American” extremism.

A thread, based on my new Democracy Americana piece: 1/

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/faith-and-family-vs-democracy

tzimmer_history, 3 months ago to random

The perfect manifestation of the permission structure that governs rightwing politics: Nikki Haley and Bill Barr both giving us versions of “Trump is totally unhinged, but I’m voting for him anyway, because Joe Biden is a radically Un-American woke leftist extremist.

Remarkable.

🧵1/

https://www.npr.org/2024/02/22/1232961899/nikki-haley-south-carolina-primary-super-tuesday-biden-trump

tzimmer_history, 21 days ago to random

The Students Have Never Been the Enemy

Student protest movements have historically functioned as an indispensable corrective for America and the West. That is the legacy of 1968 we should be talking about.

A thread, based on my new piece:

🧵1/

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-students-have-never-been-the