Steve Schmidt: Many can't see the fight, the threat or the danger.

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:
Steve Schmidt
@SteveSchmidtSES
Events build on each other. Actions cause reactions and shape what happens next. This will always be so. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Our present reality has been shaped by actions, decisions and events in the past. This is why it is important to understand History. 1/
9:04 AM · Jun 6, 2021

Unrolled thread here
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1401570738532986888.html



Events build on each other. Actions cause reactions and shape what happens next. This will always be so. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Our present reality has been shaped by actions, decisions and events in the past. This is why it is important to understand History. 1/

.@JoeManchinWV has laid out an argument that is deeply untethered to the realities of our current national crisis. His words float upwards like puffs of smoke from an ivory tower before they evaporate into nothingness because they were released into a world that doesn’t exist. 2/

American democracy is in the greatest crisis we have faced since the Civil War. The Republican Party is controlled by Donald Trump and it is the malignant vessel by which Trump’s cult of personality metastasized into an autocratic movement. 3/

That movement poisoned faith and belief in our democracy with lies and bad faith. The lie is simple and inelegant at its core. It is that Trump won but black votes appeared out of the midnight ether and it was stolen. 4/

The bipartisanship that @JoeManchinWV is talking about is a fantasy. The world that Manchin is inhabiting is a delusion. He doesn’t get that there is only bad faith to be found from the party of cowards that is both terrified of Trump and fully in league with him. 5/

.@JoeManchinWV, is another name on histories long roll of the willfully blind who approached danger with naïveté and certitude about the gentle intent of people who keep making it clear that its anything but. 6

Manchin’s fears about filibuster retaliations in a future GOP controlled Congress are off base. American politics are zero sum now. There is a pro democracy side and an autocratic Trump side. The Trump side only has to win one election to end the American experiment. 7/

The repeal of the filibuster was necessary to pass the 1/6 Commission. @JoeManchinWV refusal to do so has sentenced the country to at least a decade of escalating political violence because there won’t be any accountability for a murderous insurrection. That is the threat that 8/

should be worried about. It exceeds the danger of GOP legislative reprisals in a post filibuster world by orders of magnitude. There have been hundreds of pieces of sinister legislation intro’d across America aimed at making it harder for Americans to vote. 9/

What those voters share in common is their black and brown skin and the oppression that came with it in a country that must never retreat in the long struggle and advance towards becoming what our highest ideals proclaim us to be . 10

The biggest thing that @JoeManchinWV doesn’t understand is that we cannot turn away from the great political conflict that will rage in this country for years. That is the consequence of Trump who remains a clear and present danger. A senate rule should not be held in higher

Esteem than the US Constitution which was assaulted on 1/6. The filibuster should be repealed for the moral purposes of 1. Defending democracy, 2. investigating the insurrection 3/protecting and expanding voting rights. The fight we are in is existential. The problem is, many

Can’t see the fight, the threat or the danger. @JoeManchinWV is one of them and that is how we lose the country. @ProjectLincoln. High minded calls for bipartisanship with a hungry wolf pack that is content to tear our democracy to pieces is not virtuous. It is appeasement.
• • •

[FoxNewsSucks]

1. Sounds like he's been reading some of the threads here.

[Crunchy Frog]

14. I doubt it. He's been very consistent in his messaging for a long time now.

I believe he has a very clear eyed understanding of what's happening right now, and has arrived at it through his own observations and thought processes.

[dem4decades]

2. So the Republican guy that ran Republican John McCain's Republican campaign for President is

more of a Democrat than the Democratic Senator from west Virginia? I know Manchin wants to be elected again but how about some courage? Everyone wants to go home from combat but sometimes a hero jumps on a grenade so that the war can be won.

[madaboutharry]

5. Steve Schmidt is now a registered Democrat.

He says he will only vote for Democrats for the rest of his life.

[dem4decades]

6. I like the guy now but his efforts to promote the Republican party got us to here.

[madaboutharry]

9. I believe in epiphanies.

When someone has one, I am willing to cut them some slack.

[SergeStorms]

10. He didn't do anything...

to get a turncoat like Manchin elected. When Democrats vote like republicans real Democrats are screwed.

Sorry, I'm so pissed off at Manchin and Sinema right now I cant see straight.

[Crunchy Frog]

15. Right now there is only pro-democracy and anti-democracy.

All other distinctions, including past or present affiliations, party labels, or past actions, are immaterial to me.

[NewHendoLib]

3. even at DU, here, many can't see what's right in front of them.

[bottomofthehill]

4. The only way manchin wins is by changing parties

Let’s hope he continues to read the tea leaves and stays a Democrat as it looks as if we will hopefully hold the senate. If it looks close, he will cut a deal, change parties, pick up a committee chairmanship and we will be fucked…..

[bucolic_frolic]

7. I don't know what's going on at The Lincoln Project

Steve Schmidt is back to winning form. Maybe he should shake up his colleagues and guide their messaging toward Steve's own bent, sort of like Tom Paine's Common Sense for modern times. Because TLP videos are more about jabbing Trump, and living inside his head is not derailing him, it's not educating the public. Congratulating one another for videos that make Trump look ridiculous is redundant. Trump already looks ridiculous.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

8. We need Manchin locked in a room with Schmidt.

As a former Republican, Schmidt can use language Manchin may understand. Although I think it's the West Virginia voters who have JM by the nads.

[MOMFUDSKI]

11. Manchin has put himself

into a LOSE/LOSE position and it wasn't even that hard for him. He certainly wasn't able to see the big picture. What an idiot.

[SledDriver]

12. "The Trump side only has to win one election to end the American experiment."

[uponit7771]

13. Too many dems are whistling past the graveyards when it comes to GQP intent

[colsohlibgal]

16. Exactly

Mansion and Sinema are either closet Republicans or lack any critical reasoning skills.

I hope they get a serious primary challenge. Of course we might be in a full fledged Autocracy by then.....when legislators might be able to change election results at Will we have to realize we’re on the doorstep.

[oasis]

17. K and R. Thanks, Nevilledog for this valuable OP.