The level of denial of historical reality is staggering

Over a week ago Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa posted a new Gaslit Nation bonus episode (which means you must be a donor to listen to it). This one is titled The GOP Megadonor at Twitter. Kendzior noted that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has been ousted. His replacement didn’t catch Kendzior’s interest, though the reason behind the ouster did. That reason is Paul Singer. Kendzior described him (at length) as a rich guy, a vulture capitalist, a GOP megadonor, and a full-on conservative determined to remake the world to his desires. Singer bought a stake in Twitter, enough of a stake to drive out Dorsey (and apparently install a stooge in his place). This is something Singer vowed to do when he bought that stake 18 months ago. The big question is how will this affect Twitter? Kendzior and co-host Chalupa said that Twitter was, under Dorsey, already a cesspool. Far right trolls appear to run the place and Twitter does very little to stop them. Similar to Facebook, a great deal of disinformation is spread through Twitter. Of course, the site isn’t all bad – I quote it frequently (though I’m not a member). Kendzior and Chalupa are on it because, in spite of the harassment, it is a great way for them to get their message of encroaching authoritarianism into the wider world. It is also a place where they do a great deal of their research. But Kendzior has noted a few months ago (still under Dorsey) the algorithms changed. People who had been a part of her feed stopped showing up. She thought they had stopped tweeting, but when she specifically looked for them she found they were still active. After a while she realized what the missing people had in common – they all promoted voting for everyone. So what will Singer do to Twitter? Some hints are appearing. David Neiwert of Daily Kos reported that Twitter announced a new policy. Wrote Neiwert:

“Beginning today, we will not allow the sharing of private media, such as images or videos of private individuals without their consent,” Twitter Safety announced Tuesday. “Publishing people's private info is also prohibited under the policy, as is threatening or incentivizing others to do so.” ... Within hours, white nationalists and neo-Nazis were openly strategizing how to use the rule to have accounts by researchers and antifascists suspended and their posts removed—and then easily succeeded in doing so. ... “It’s going to be emboldening to the fascists,” said antifascist researcher Gwen Snyder, whose account was suspended on Thursday for a 2019 tweet showing photos of Philadelphia mayoral candidate Billy Ciancaglini consorting with Proud Boys at a public event.

Snyder’s account was restored after the Washington Post asked about it. Neiwert mentioned a few others whose accounts were removed and not yet restored. He also discussed the reaction of the trolls and their successes. Much of that success is through filing false reports.

When announcing the rule, Twitter claimed it would help “curb the misuse of media to harass, intimidate and reveal the identities of private individuals, which disproportionately impacts women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities.”

The rule is doing the opposite of its intended goal. Leah McElrath, one of the people I follow on Twitter (and her account is still there), examined the change of policy from her perspective. Will this policy ban images of members of Congress being confronted by activists? What about those working to identify people in images of the Capitol attack? What about images of self-proclaimed white supremacists? What about activists protecting themselves by posting images of undercover security forces? What about those fighting government corruption? This will be weaponized against the people Twitter claims will be protected. Another thought (and I don’t remember who said it) – Twitter banned the nasty guy. He’s creating his own media company to have his own substitute for Twitter. But perhaps it would be easier for one of his cronies to control Twitter and reinstate him. Biden created a commission (that has far right members) to recommend what to do about the partisan takeover of the Supreme Court. About two months ago the commission issued a draft report suggesting an expanded court might “reinforce the notion that the Justices are partisan actors” and other such excuses to do nothing. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the commission has...

finally and somewhat surprisingly issued a report that doesn’t argue for the status quo. That’s because it doesn’t argue for anything. It spent the last eight months meeting, eating up time, giving Biden an excuse for a delay on moving to fix the courts, to come up with, in essence, this: “We do not see to evaluate or judge the weight of any of these arguments, and the Commission takes no position on the wisdom of expansion.”

So the whole thing is back on Biden’s desk. McCarter added:

Take Back the Court has [a timeline] detailing all the damage the Supreme Court has done since [the commission] was announced on April 9, 2021. In the intervening 8 months, the court has radically curtailed workers’ right to organize; further gutted the Voting Rights Act; gave a boost to dark money organizations to make it easier for them to buy elections; interfered in Biden’s executive power in conducting foreign policy to impose Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy on the administration; further eroded Biden’s executive power by overturning the CDC’s pandemic eviction moratorium; allowed Texas to ban abortion and has kept that ban in place even while it is being litigated in lower courts; and heard oral arguments that could end up dismantling states’ gun safety laws and throw out abortion rights nationally. ... The risk is worth taking because the stakes are ... well, everything. The continued existence of this nation as a democratic republic rather than a white supremacist fascist state is in question. The literal future of every human on the globe if climate change isn’t tackled. We’re teetering on a tipping point with multiple dimensions of disaster below us. Expanding the Supreme Court isn’t sufficient action to stabilize us, but it’s absolutely necessary.

Many comments to this post were highly critical. Why waste time calling for something that is never going to happen? The votes aren’t there and, with the refusal to remove the filibuster, never will be there. In addition, if we did rebalance the court, Republicans would be motivated to vote and when they next gain power the would rebalance it again in their favor. Besides, we can’t get the other high priority items passed. Then Jayden said the way to do it is to actually talk about stuff like this and do so loudly and often. And too few people in important positions are doing that. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Elon Musk called for the government to end subsidies for electric cars – actually an end to all government subsidies. Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla, which is a company that used a government loan and has been able to sell its electric cars because they’re subsidized. Musk’s other company, SpaceX, exists because of government funding and subsidies. No government money and it would be Elon who? With government money Musk is extremely wealthy. So why is Musk now against government funding? Sumner wrote:

Now that he has climbed to the top, Musk is extremely anxious to burn the ladder below him.

That’s a supremacist move. Now that he’s towards the top of the hierarchy he wants to make sure no one can follow him. The rest of Sumner’s post is a discussion of how government subsidies help improve the nation. Sometimes they fail. Sometimes they succeed. Laura Clawson of Kos reported that Adam Sexton, a reporter for WMUR, an ABC affiliate in New Hampshire, asked Rep. Erica Layton of the state’s legislature a few questions about history. Layton is a sponsor of a bill that would prohibit “teaching that the United States was founded on racism.” So, asked Sexton, how should a teacher talk about the Three-Fifths Compromise? For those who don’t have a copy of the Constitution in their back pocket, the Three-Fifths Compromise was a way for slave owning states to count their slaves towards how many seats a state got in the House, but the slaves could not vote for representatives, giving the white people of those states more political power. That’s racism right there in the founding document. Layton struggled with a response. In describing the Compromise she got a lot of things wrong. And she wouldn’t agree it was racist. Clawson wrote:

The level of denial of historical reality that goes into the Republican campaign against CRT or The 1619 Project is staggering. The people pushing this campaign have to be able to look historical facts like hundreds of years of legal slavery written into the nation’s Constitution in the face and say, “Nope, not evidence of racism at the founding.” And they do it. They do it constantly. They are writing that insistence into law in state after state. At a certain point, the only explanation for this is the one that is both obvious and draws the most hysterical denials: The people pushing these laws are themselves really f’ing racist.

There is a reason why people deny something happened. It’s that they want to keep doing it. Rebekah Sager of Kos reported that the North East Independent School District in the San Antonio, Texas area, pulled about 400 books from its shelves. There isn’t a state law about this (yet), though GOP lawmaker Rep. Matt Krause has sent letters to state schools provide information on 850 books he wants reviewed. Not at all surprising that most of the authors of those books are women, people of color, or LGBTQ. Sager wrote:

Krause wrote that the books on his list are based on what might make students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.

I learned from previous tweets by Michael Harriot that in statements like that there is usually at least one word missing (and I point to Krause, not Sager, for leaving out that word). So that sentence should read:

Krause wrote that the books on his list are based on what might make white students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.

Krause certainly doesn’t care whether black or LGBTQ students feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish. Perhaps the sentence should more accurately read:

Krause wrote that the books on his list are based on what might make parents of white students (who are Krause’s constituents) “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.

There is no Texas law (yet) banning certain books from schools. However, Krause and the school board at NEISD are way too eager to act like there is. I have two performances this weekend. Next week Brother comes for a visit of a few days. I may not get a lot of posts written. And I think I should go through my more than thirty browser tabs and admit there are some articles I’m just not going to get to.