Gijs NijholtJan 20
Nina Bernstein
Paul Krugman:
“How did a great, sophisticated nation, one of the world’s longest-standing republics, end up so fragile that it can be undone by one man’s dementia? …The answer…lies in the straight line from Bush vs Gore & the Roberts Supreme Court, to January 6th, to the execution of Renee Good. However, what’s more important is that we realize where we are right now, that we don’t try to sugarcoat & sanewash what’s happening: A petulant, violent and deranged individual is running America.”
Jan 20 at 1:35pmWeb
Show threadNicole ParsonsJan 20

@NinaBernstein1

That petulant, violent and deranged individual that is running America has had help.

These people bought an election for this fascist hijack.

1. Elon Musk $291,482,587
2. Timothy Mellon $197,047,200
3. Miriam Adelson $148,304,900
4. Richard Uihlein $143,498,936
5. Ken Griffin $108,402,284
6. Jeff Yass $101,128,680
7. Paul E. Singer $66,800,800
8. Marc Andreessen $42,365,113
9. Stephen Schwarzman $40,202,039
10. Timothy Dunn $35,780,200
11. Rob Bigelow $34,991,500

1/

Show threadNicole ParsonsJan 20

2/

All of them need RICO investigations.

It's not campaign finance anymore; it's racketeering & foreign threat funding.

12. Diane Hendricks $33,165,417
13. JJ Ricketts $32,273,650
14. Shirley W. Ryan $32,198,116
15. Warren A. Stephens $25,895,650
16. Laura Perlmutter $25,344,890
17. Vince & Linda McMahon $23,961,659
18. Ronnie & Nina Cameron $21,372,500
19. Jan Koum $20,855,091
20. Thomas Klingenstein $17,410,263
21. Rob Walton $17,572,601
22. Janet J. Duchossois $16,306,033

Show threadNicole ParsonsJan 20

3/

OPEC doesn't need to fly planes into buildings anymore. It can just buy a few tech oligarchs.

23. Howard W. Lutnick $16,503,667
24. Kelcy L. Warren $16,151,105
25. Walter W. Jr. Buckley $15,522,500
26. Thomas Peterffy $14,305,900
27. Anthony Pratt $14,000,000
28. Sherrilyn Fisher $13,299,894
29. David Millstone $13,413,486
30. Lynne Walton $13,037,750
31. Charles Schwab $12,801,600
32. Stephen Wynn $12,518,750
33. Anthony Lomangino $9,529,705
34. J. Christopher Reyes $9,536,425

Show threadNicole ParsonsJan 20

4/

Pay a few million to Trump & you too can get awarded a sovereign nation, like John Addison got Venezuela and Rob Citrone got Argentina. Soon Ron Lauder may get Greenland.

35. Jay Winters Faison $9,084,324
36. James Davis $8,497,854
37. John W. Childs $8,694,286
38. Patricia Duggan $8,446,099
39. Richard G. Haworth $7,500,800
40. Marc J. Rowan $8,721,299
41. Jeffrey & Loeffler Specher $7,052,013
42. John L. III Nau $7,030,556
43. John & Shannon V. Addison $6,757,065

Show threadNicole ParsonsJan 20

5/

They bought a civil war, WW3, global financial crisis, & a kleptocracy

44. Robert H. Book $6,986,387
45. Susan Fox $6,687,414
46. Patricia Perkins-Leone $6,606,600
47. Jeffrey Hildebrand $6,508,389
48. Bernard Marcus $9,397,150
49. Steve Brodie $6,481,298
50. Daniel Newlin $6,063,928
51. Trevor D. Rees-Jones $5,765,124
52. Sarah Perot $5,643,416
53. Harold C. Simmons $5,596,530
54. Kelly Navarro $5,373,100
55. Alice Walton $10,248,000
56. Rob Granieri $5,587,899

https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donors

Who are the Biggest Donors?

Who are the biggest donors in the 2024 election cycle? See the details.

OpenSecrets
Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyJan 20

@NinaBernstein1 That paragraph makes no sense though. It starts out right; America, you did this to yourself - and then it makes a complete U-turn at speed & makes it all a problem of one man.

HOW did a deranged, corrupt madman come to run America? Because America wanted him, that's how.

Find out why, or it will happen again.

Show threadLucy BJan 20

@jwcph @NinaBernstein1

The poison has always been there. Before Reagan, there was Nixon. Before that, it was McCarthy. The segregationists, the anti Communists, the secessionists, the anti feminists, the Moral Majority, the billionaires. They’re all part of the insanity, the fear, the need for control. They are inherently anti democratic, with some more overt than others. I have always phrased it as this: They would rather be king of a dung heap than share any power. That’s where we’re headed.

Show threadRegJan 21

@lucybeahere

The new means of production are information and infrastructure, and if US tech companies can manage to monopolise those areas and force individuals and States into tech dependency then they will have successfully recreated the conditions of the first industrial revolution, with all the same issues of war, poverty, wealth and class inequality and environmental degradation.

@jwcph @NinaBernstein1

Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyJan 21
@ReggieHere @lucybeahere @NinaBernstein1 I always believed that the term "means of production" was just a phrasing of the time & the actual message of it is "means of value creation" - which, yes, means it applies to the information landscape now, just as it applied to factories & machines back in the day.
Show threadRegJan 21

@jwcph

Exactly, it's the same model, right down to factory owners (tech companies) luring rural workers into towns and cities (tech jobs) for better wages and then cutting the wages and hiking rents.

@lucybeahere @NinaBernstein1

Show threadRudiJan 20
@NinaBernstein1 I'd like to add that that one insane person is not alone. It is the vast majority of the Republican party which is behind him, happy with the state of things. If T would "leave the stage" tomorrow, nothing would change. The fellows at the top plus the Republicans would just move on in the same direction.
Show threadmtc_ukJan 20
@NinaBernstein1
That's the same question people still ask about Germany. Same answer.
Show threadRobin BartonJan 20
@NinaBernstein1 The mistake goes back to the start of usa with a constitution that created a King with a different name. Add gerrymandering and corruption and the results is as you see today
Show threadKarin SorenbyJan 20
@NinaBernstein1 ..with a little help from his friends..that is how the orange brown idiot got there.. and we all know the names of many of them..and we should never forget the names...and some day the street thugs with masks will have their masks removed too...
Show threadKen M SweeneyJan 20
@NinaBernstein1 maybe the answer is that it was never that great.
Show threadNeil MoffattJan 20
@NinaBernstein1 The American public are effectively mandated with evicting a faux president themselves or obliging whats left of mental health services to do so for them
Show threadFedi FoxJan 20

@NinaBernstein1

A precise analysis of the situation with the important changes in law that needs to be made to fix the system would be a very needed book right now.

Show threadᛋᛁᚵᛁᛋᛘᚢᚾᛑ ᚾᛁᚾᛃᛅJan 20
@NinaBernstein1 It probably started much earlier. Reagan? It's hard to see how 40+ years of market fundamentalism won't kill democracy and make the country politically unstable. This is not new and has been covered by philosophers like Locke, Smith and Marx 150+ years ago. Plato probably considered this as well. Almost seems like the cycle of power concentration and self destruction is unavoidable...
Show threadᛋᛁᚵᛁᛋᛘᚢᚾᛑ ᚾᛁᚾᛃᛅJan 20
@NinaBernstein1 actually, US liberal democracy could probably be considered dead 10+ years ago. If it ever really existed. Because of the huge and accelerating economical inequality, and implied political inequality. Trump just made it explicit. The Dems lost because they seemed (were/are?) fine with status quo. Many European countries are in the same situation.
Show threadᛋᛁᚵᛁᛋᛘᚢᚾᛑ ᚾᛁᚾᛃᛅJan 20

@NinaBernstein1 I wonder what part the joker, weirdo or "The Mule" plays in this cycle. The catalyst. The Hitler or Trump that just takes over without any significant resistance. Against all odds. Probably because systems and norms are unstable or in transition. I.e. is it more probable that the joker takes the role of the catalyst?

Probably time to sleep instead of speculating into the void. And I should probably read the Foundation again.

Show threadBwazJan 20
@NinaBernstein1
It is important to remember that this isn't only Trump's doing. Without the near complete support of the Republican Party, this damage wouldn't be happening. A vote for a Republican, ANY Republican, is your blessing to all that this administration is doing. Any decent person would have left the GOP by now.
Show threadJakeKbJan 20
@NinaBernstein1 If you don't stop idolizing your 'great, sophisticated nation' and ignoring that it was founded by genocidal slave owners, there is 0 chance that you will make a correct analysis of how maga came to power which will guarantee that you will not change anything meaningful. However painful it may be, you need to come to actual terms with your history, otherwise you will always repeat it.
Show threadKarl AuerbachJan 21

@NinaBernstein1 There are other starting points:

1. The rise of Murdoch's media.

2. We did not punish those guilty in Iran-Contra.

3. The senate confirmation of C. Thomas to SCOTUS was nothing but the approval of a know-little lawyer, with clearly expressed rejection of Constitutional law in favor if make-it-up-natural law, who was (and perhaps still is) a sexual predator, and who was the beneficiary of grossly misplaced "affirmative action" because he was a) black replacing the black Thurgood Marshall, and in some odd contrition for the rejection of the clearly unqualified Bork. (Guess who headed that confirmation committee and voted to confirm?)