Joseph Britt Profile picture
Wisconsin and the world. Opinions my own except for RTs, which are other people's. Once a Republican. Now on Post. https://t.co/O1InMto5gr
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Oct 9, 2018 25 tweets 5 min read
I'm out, too. After more than 40 years, I'm leaving the Republican Party. <thread -- I'm afraid it's a long one. Sorry.> 2. I started my professional life as a conservative Republican, moving from a entry-level job at @NRO just after college to Washington to work on the Hill. I've worked on campaigns for Republican politicians in four states, and in government for...
Oct 5, 2018 16 tweets 4 min read
HT @SCClemons for this by Justice Kagan. Her full thinking is no doubt deeper than this comment, which misses the point of the entire episode that began with the death of Justice Scalia: a Supreme Court majority loyal to the Republican Party and its sponsors. 2. The traditional rhetoric about what the Court is meant to do has obscured in recent years what it actually has done when purely partisan interests were at stake.
Sep 30, 2018 8 tweets 5 min read
Meanwhile...the Trump administration’s White America program proceeds. From @itscaitlinhd Meanwhile (part 2)... Yemen bleeds, and starves, and it’s getting worse.
Sep 11, 2018 16 tweets 4 min read
Re-upping this @lawrence_wright interview, about 9/11 and related subjects, from earlier. And I've thought about it. <thread> 2. I’ve never believed in apocalyptic thinking, believing it to be an excuse for willful impotence (in a religious context, also, an excuse for lapsing into sin, but that’s another story). And yet there is no denying the power of a moment that changed so much even while...
Sep 2, 2018 13 tweets 3 min read
I’ve seen this @HeerJeet thread about John McCain’s funeral retweeted a lot this morning. It deserves attention, though I think the analysis here has limitations. 2. I think the main one is a failure to reckon with what McCain was — not an establishment figure or the leader of a political movement, but rather an American Cold War politician grappling with the meaning of politics after the Cold War ended.
Aug 27, 2018 14 tweets 3 min read
I had another thought about John McCain: Americans have a weakness for following electoral politics like sports. McCain ran for President twice, reaching the finals — the general election — only on the second try, in 2008. 2. The 2008 race — the one McCain, burdened by the Bush administration’s toxic unpopularity, had next to no chance of winning — is the one most Americans remember. But his 2000 primary challenge to Bush was more significant. It was a turning point.
Aug 14, 2018 17 tweets 4 min read
Stipulate right at the start that I am not mad at @benjaminwittes over judicial confirmations. He is going in @TheAtlantic for the safe, respectable "both sides" position, though, and deserves to be dinged for that. Personally, I tend toward the conservative side...<thread> 2...with respect to judicial philosophy -- though conservatism to me means giving due respect to legislative history (as, say, Scalia did not) and recognizing the practical necessity of Chevron deference to agency judgement (as Scalia did but Kavanaugh does not).
Jun 17, 2018 17 tweets 4 min read
It does feel as if humanity is on a losing streak in America lately. America’s great national vice — our weakness for self-congratulation & self-praise — has combined with long prosperity to produce a toxic decadence. <thread> 2. Americans may have forgotten one of the very first things the then-new administration did upon taking office was to give a good hard kick to Syrian war refugees, people as cruelly oppressed as any in the world. They were all terrorists, we were told, & had to be kept out.
Jan 12, 2018 13 tweets 4 min read
Seeing a number of tweets like this tonight. What it looks like: people still on staff in the Trump White House made their peace with this kind of thing long ago. Either they share Trump's resentful, fearful racism, or they've made up their minds not to think about it. 1/n 2. What about Republican elected officials? A couple of Florida representatives, and one from Utah (of Haitian extraction) have expressed their dismay, as has one Minnesota Congressman (@RepErikPaulsen ). Orrin Hatch has asked for an explanation from Trump, whatever that means.