Thomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
Debating whether or not Republicans *really* want to erect a cruel regime of merciless white patriarchal dominance is futile. The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is the state level: Wherever they are in charge, they are embracing an authoritarian vision of society. (Thread!)
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
We discussed this on today’s episode of Is This Democracy: The idea that Republicans are just nihilists who want to burn the system down is not plausible because wherever and whenever they can, they pursue a specific vision to which they are fully committed. 2/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/10-republican-extremism-maga-nihilism-and-the-rise/id1652741954?i=1000594264018
‎Is This Democracy: 10. Republican Extremism, MAGA Nihilism, and the rise of Ron DeSantis on Apple Podcasts

‎Show Is This Democracy, Ep 10. Republican Extremism, MAGA Nihilism, and the rise of Ron DeSantis - Jan 13, 2023

Apple Podcasts
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
Ban abortion, control women; criminalize LGBTQ people.
 
Install an authoritarian white nationalist education system, ban dissent.
 
Restrict voting rights, purge election commissions, criminalize protest.
 
These are not disparate actions - it’s one political project. 3/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023

It’s really hard to keep track of everything that’s happening, on so many levels, in so many states, so many communities, all at the same time.

But it’s all one big story: A multi-level reactionary counter-mobilization against egalitarian multiracial, pluralistic democracy. 4/

Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023

Let’s be clear: The country is the United States of America, and it is the twentieth century, any time before the 1960s rights revolution - that’s the vision.

Mercilessly restore and entrench traditional hierarchies of race, gender, religion, and wealth - that’s the project. 5/

Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
Conservatives are pursuing a deeply anti-democratic, anti-liberal, anti-pluralistic vision for American society, and the Right has a clear strategy for how to impose it on the country against majority will. They are fully committed to this reactionary political project. 6/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023

More news from just the past 48 hours.

Wisconsin. Nebraska. Michigan. North Dakota.

One political project. A comprehensive reactionary offensive. Everywhere, all the time. 7/

Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
This is not the doing of nihilists and chaos agents. It is the work of committed ideologues, fully determined to impose their reactionary vision of what America should be on as many people as possible and to punish those who dare to deviate and dissent. 8/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
Ideally, the Supreme Court would step in and put a stop to the escalating attempts to undermine democracy and roll back civil rights. But the conservative majority on the Court is doing the opposite, acting instead as the spearhead of the reactionary counter-mobilization. 9/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
Republican-led states and communities undermine democracy and entrench white reactionary rule, with or without the support of a majority of voters; the Supreme Court says: Keep going! All Republicans in Congress have to do is block any national counter-legislation. 10/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
Too many moderates, centrists, and liberals have bought into the idea that conservatives are just – and at least somewhat justifiably – pushing back against certain “excesses” of “woke” leftism, and that they will stop once those excesses are kept in check. That’s nonsense. 11/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
That’s what the term “backlash” suggests, and why we need to be skeptical about a “backlash” narrative that tends to put the agency solely with traditionally marginalized groups - who are therefore ultimately at fault for causing an inevitable reaction. 12/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
What we are up against is an escalating counter-mobilization: Reactionaries are actively mobilizing, they are deliberately pursuing a political project. They have agency – and therefore should be held accountable for the policies they support. 13/ https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/democracy-faces-a-reactionary-counter
Democracy Faces a Reactionary Counter-Mobilization

A Reflection on What We Are Up Against – Part I

Democracy Americana
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
At the heart of the reactionary project is the refusal of resentful people to compromise with the vision of egalitarian multiracial pluralism, with anyone who deviates from their idea of the natural/divinely ordained white patriarchal order, because they feel entitled to dominate all spheres of life. 14/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 14, 2023
These people won’t stop because they have an epiphany that they shouldn’t go *that* far. They will either *be stopped* - or install a system in which only they and those who reflect their image back at them are entitled to rule and are recognized as equal. /end
Show threadEffective tool of Satan
@tzimmer_history It is also the fact that the economic system as it is has reached a boiling point. Capitalism is devouring itself while fueling this kind of reactionary movements. Hell, capitalim IS hierarchy and the dominion of one class over the rest.
Jan 15, 2023 at 11:20pmWeb