Thomas ZimmerWhat would you say if I told you there was a state in Germany (which also has a federal system in which education is largely in the hands of the sixteen states) that was effectively outlawing the teaching of any critical reading of Germany’s history and present? (Thread - 1/)
A state that was specifically targeting any teaching that emphasized the central role of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust to modern German history and banned the use of scholarship that looked into continuities of anti-Semitism in Germany since the end of World War II? 2/
A German state that tried to suppress all inquiry into structural, systemic anti-Semitic discrimination in Germany today, and tried to purge all traces of such critical thinking from the libraries, the classrooms, the syllabi, the school curriculum? 3/
A German state that specifically banned books by the most prominent Jewish intellectuals and scholars by declaring all of them dangerous radicals and “woke” activists who were trying to indoctrinate children, hoping to undermine the nation and subvert German national unity? 4/
And what if I also told you that similar initiatives were being pushed in about half the country where these efforts to suppress, ostracize, and purge were viewed as a blueprint and were already being emulated, as evidenced by hundreds of bills outlawing critical thinking around anti-Semitism and systemic discrimination? 5/
What would you say? Because while this is not a perfect analogy (analogies never are), it comes really close to capturing what is happening in Florida, and in red states around the country. And I believe that if something like this were happening in Germany, the reaction would be - and certainly should be - different. 6/
Is the political and institutional response to what is happening here commensurate with the threat to academic freedom, free speech, and the pillars of democratic culture? Is the mainstream media coverage conveying how radical, how drastic, how dangerous this is? 7/
What would you say if the nation’s leading newspaper focused on how the illiberal leader of this hypothetical German state who was banning Jewish voices and was ruthlessly pursuing his authoritarian agenda was, in fact, taking on the “establishment” and successfully building “his brand”? 8/
We dove deep into the situation in Florida in today’s “Is This Democracy” episode and dissected the authoritarian takeover of education, the escalating reactionary campaign to stifle, censor, and ban any dissent from the white nationalist woldview. This is a proper emergency. It needs to be treated as such. /end https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/13-the-murder-of-tyre-nichols-the/id1652741954?i=1000597862704
Is This Democracy: 13. The Murder of Tyre Nichols, the Authoritarian Takeover of Florida Education, and the Case *for* Teaching “CRT” on Apple Podcasts
Show Is This Democracy, Ep 13. The Murder of Tyre Nichols, the Authoritarian Takeover of Florida Education, and the Case *for* Teaching “CRT” - Feb 3, 2023
Several people have rightfully pointed out that if this were to happen in Germany today, much of the American Right could be expected to cheer such authoritarian initiatives - we only have to look at their enthusiastic embrace of Viktor Orbán as a defender of white Christian patriarchy.
I have zero illusions about Republicans suddenly seeing the light or returning to “normalcy” - they know exactly what they are doing and are committed to imposing their fundamentally anti-pluralistic vision on the country by whatever means. But what about everyone else?
My question is directed at those who are nominally in the pro-democracy camp, who claim to be standing against the forces of authoritarianism - specifically, it is directed at the institutions tasked with upholding and defending democratic culture.
The New York Times, for instance, had no problem describing Orbán’s crusade against “liberal” education as part of an authoritarian, nationalistic project. They’re definitely treating Florida Orbán differently, approaching him through a deliberately normalizing lens.
I know “What would you call it if it were happening elsewhere?” has become something of cliché. But ultimately, I am really just grasping at straws here, trying to convey how extreme and drastic these developments are - and how inadequate the response has been so far.
GrooveMD, Queer Time Machine@tzimmer_history See also: It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (1935). Book cover attached.
@tzimmer_history Spoiler Alert: It ends up happening there.
@tzimmer_history If anyone is curious about the unofficial sequel, in which It Did Happen There, check out 'They Thought They Were Free': real life accounts of German citizens you never heard of who lived the through the rise and crash of the Nazi party.
helplessduck@tzimmer_history @tzimmer_history I'm cynically hoping they self-destruct. The problem that I see, as you point out, is that the response from those supposedly protective institutions is abysmal.That leads me to believe that they can't be effective and liberal pluralism is just going to take more and collateral damage until...
Let's hope I'm wrong and they self-destruct in private.
Let's hope I'm wrong and they self-destruct in private.
HalDe 🧢🦕@tzimmer_history I seriously do not understand why someone isn't challenging all of this in the courts? Seems like the ACLU or SOMEBODY would be able and willing to make an attempt to stop same reverse most of his draconian policies
Hao Ye@HalDe @tzimmer_history There are efforts, see e.g. https://www.lawdork.com/p/floridas-war-on-school-speech-a-law
But the politicians will keep doing it because they keep getting press and donors and political power and can generally shrug off the repercussions of passing laws that get shut down later.
Seth Johnson 
@tzimmer_history The Florida Democratic Party has been pretty inept on messaging and political strategy since I’ve been here. You would think this was an important state.
I know I’m just throwing rocks too. I guess it’s time to get involved now that they are burning books. Sigh.
Wenslauw@tzimmer_history Florida Orbán, I’m going to remember that.
Coach Pāṇini ®@tzimmer_history @philip_cardella they’re just in it for the clicks, the incentives aren’t complicated or uninterpretable
Meeche@tzimmer_history The media conglomerates like not paying their fair share of taxes
Neo-Athenian Empire@tzimmer_history Wisconsin, North Carolina, and now Florida haven't been functioning democracies for years now. Like Trumps fascist tendencies those are only going to get called out after (hopefully) they are defeated. And even the only by the Post, Times and MSNBC.
Zorro Notorious MEB 😡@tzimmer_history This has to be coming from the top at the NYTimes ... they're more cautious than Murdoch has been, so they've stayed out of the courts, but there's no question there's a "conservative" bias at the top of the "paper of record".
Paranoid FactoidI know this has nothing to do with the NY Times, but that #CJR article downplaying Russian interference by Jeff Gerth is an indication that elite circles among journalists and editors HAVE LOST THEIR WAY.
The Times may be out to lunch here (they are!), but in mainstream press the NY Times isn't the only problem.
I can't even imagine what the editors at CJR were thinking. Same for the NY Times.
Lana@ParanoidFactoid seems to be the editors in most cases, possibly bowing to owners preferences.
Oran Magal@tzimmer_history They have to keep on the good side of a likely ruling political faction! All other considerations are secondary.
Morgana@tzimmer_history Unfortunately, you are correct….Is it brcause he might be a future president????
MusiqueNow 
✡️ 🇵🇸 
How would you like to see the #globalcitizenry respond to the #growingfascism in Amerika? How could we help?
Hi
So, how would you like the rest of the world to respond? (The question seems more respectful than: 'Right! Out the way! Let the rest of the #globalgrassroots handle this!'
Henry Farrell@tzimmer_history Florida Orbán condenses nicely as Florbán. Just saying.
Old Man Mike@tzimmer_history “liberal” education? That would be… checks notes… “education”, then?
T. Austin Brown@tzimmer_history I think, and this may be simplistic, but the editorial board at the NYT has nothing to fear from Orban. He’s across an ocean, and reporters can still get stories out. With US republicans, they’re here, can limit access to important scoops, and they’re also the friends, acquaintances, and advertisers for the NYT and people who work there. Between “It Can’t Happen Here” and not understanding something because their salary depends on not understanding it, you have the NYT.
Joan of Contention 😷"What would you say?" is a fair question.
"What can we do?" is an understandable response. Is there an answer to that?
Graydon@tzimmer_history No one is in the pro-democracy camp.
People are in the my-perceived-interests camp, and the alternative to letting the GOP have a theocratic ethnostate is to kill them, which means a major civil war. (Well... maybe not. Vigorous application of the rule of law might do it, but that runs into the plutocracy, mammonism as the unchallenged state religion, and the US constitution having been written to allow a theocratic ethnostate as long as the theo part is unofficial.)
@tzimmer_history If you want a political movement, is has to show an immediate practical path to reducing people's daily insecurity.
(It then has to win the fight with the mammonites who are aware they won't be as rich post-decarbonization and who ignore the whole "but alive" part as a problem of the little people.)
"What does democracy get you?"
has to deal (in the US) that the majority of the electorate is so racist they'll vote against their own health care if black people also get it.
@tzimmer_history so the minimum ante is a conscious ethnogenesis.
It has to be a conscious ethnogenesis that puts black women in the majority of positions of power and control (because if it can't do that it won't not be white supremacist), it has to be prepared to explain why it's better ("do you want your grandchildren to be alive? Better off than you? this is what we need to do..."), and it won't be a continuation of the Oil Empire as a functional power structure. (perhaps the forms.)
@tzimmer_history I don't disagree with the fatalism, but it's worth being precise. There are a relatively few people in the Republican Party itself who have meaningful control over anything, to say nothing of voters, and the same was true in Nazi Germany. Most people on the right are at most guilty of... not fleeing an organization they may have known all their life, and which they can't change, now that it's being corrupted. It takes courage to rebel, more since they pretended to be family.
DavePerrino ✅@tzimmer_history Very happy to see you here Thomas!
Dry as toast@tzimmer_history Put some scrutiny on Iowa next. Nine anti-LGBTQ bills this legislative session alone. Removing fresh meat from a lost of goods SNAP participants can purchase. They’re reveling in their cruelty, and it’s all spearheaded by a extremist group called The Family Leader, which seems to control the Iowa GOP.
@tzimmer_history *list of goods
Molly Cantrell-Kraig 🍷@toast @tzimmer_history as an Iowa native, it pains me to witness the devolution of my home state. I moved to Chicago ten years ago and have said numerous times: had I stayed, I would've died from COVID-19. People think of Chicago as this cesspool of murder, but there are so many times that I feel as if my neighborhood of 67K has a much stronger "small town" vibe than the 2K population of my home town.
B.J. Smith v7.tbd@mckra1g @toast @tzimmer_history
As a former Iowan myself, I can relate. The longer I'm away, the more clearly I can see it was never as fine a place as I once thought it was.
BeachwoodReport@mckra1g @toast @tzimmer_history Yes! I have often said that #Chicago neighborhoods are like their own small towns or villages, where you know your neighbors and your merchants. They each have a "downtown" and yet have the diverse offerings of a big city, are placed next to each other within a big city, and then there's downtown.
@mckra1g @toast @tzimmer_history A lot of people don't understand what big city living is all about. (Look at "Seinfeld's" depiction of NYC: sure, some problems with diversity, but they basically live in a small town filled with characters. Real small towns are desolate and not neighborly; I've lived in them, I know.)
eswillwalker@beachwoodreport @mckra1g @toast @tzimmer_history And, while I lived there, every Chicago neighborhood, excepting Hyde Park, was a racially segregated enclave. Very “small town” and not a model to emulate, IMO.
nshrubs@toast @tzimmer_history Utah is pretty bad too - book banning, anti-trans, etc. And while they didn't offer legislation on what SNAP recipients can eat (yet), welfare in Utah is basically run by the Mormon church, & people feel pressure/obligated to join.
https://www.propublica.org/article/utahs-social-safety-net-is-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-what-does-that-mean-if-youre-not-one
https://www.propublica.org/article/utahs-social-safety-net-is-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-what-does-that-mean-if-youre-not-one
justin fergusonThings are no better down here in #Missouri, and maybe even worse. Republican majority in House and Senate (and governor) has basically declared that anti-trans, anti-gay, and anti-non-white-people legislation is their top priority.
justin ferguson (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image · Content warning: MO Politics - LGBTQIA+ erasure
Cykonot@tzimmer_history corporate media will never serve the national/public interest when that conflicts with the personal interests of the wealthy owners
Irwin DeVries@tzimmer_history I would say crap take of the year.
@tzimmer_history And this is how Fascists arrive!!!
Brent, in a jar
DinCA 🏳️🌈 🎾 🐶 🖖🥄@tzimmer_history It's a fucked up headline.
Stephen Brannen@tzimmer_history this is one of my biggest issues with The Times and similar outlets.
Misleading editorials, hyper-critical coverage of President Biden, and forgiving reporting on Trump.
They’re terrified of appearing to favor democrats that they go too far in the other direction.
Lee 🌏@tzimmer_history
When your government decides what can be taught in schools, to meet its own political agenda.
When your government decides what can be taught in schools, to meet its own political agenda.
Scott Danzig@tzimmer_history @parkermolloy he built his brand by dumping people with hopes and dreams for a better life on Martha’s Vineyard, as a prank. Also holding a whistleblower and her baby at gunpoint. And the whole Don’t say Gay thing. At this point, it’s really hard not to know who he really is, and it’s up to us to choose whether or not to vote for… that.