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THREAD: When thinking about what happened today, Trump, the violent insurrection he incited, and enablers like Senators Hawley and Cruz, it's instructive to listen to or read Edward R. Murrow's March 1954 news broadcast on Joseph McCarthy's demagogic, scorched earth politics. 1/
Murrow: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another." 2/
"We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular." 3/
"This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities." 4/
"As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves as...the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." 5/
"The actions of the junior senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies." 6/
"And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear. He merely exploited it, and rather successfully. Cassius was right. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'" 7/
The core of what Murrow said in his 1954 broadcast remains true: The fault doesn't begin with Trump or Hawley.
The sickness that allows demagogues like them to take root predated them. They merely exploited it. Only a serious, ongoing reckoning will make healing possible. 8/
The sickness that allows demagogues like them to take root predated them. They merely exploited it. Only a serious, ongoing reckoning will make healing possible. 8/
And what must we reckon with? A lot. The founding bloodshed of indigenous peoples; our enslavement and apartheid regime against Black people; the deep rooted doctrine of white male supremacy that we never abandoned ourselves of, allowing Trump to exploit it. 9/
Today's insurrection was a continuation of what happened in Charlottesville.
Attempts in 2020 to disenfranchise Black voters is a continuation of America did in the Jim Crow South.
The caging of immigrant children is a continuation of what America did to Japanese Americans. 10/
Attempts in 2020 to disenfranchise Black voters is a continuation of America did in the Jim Crow South.
The caging of immigrant children is a continuation of what America did to Japanese Americans. 10/
Every death of an unarmed Black woman or man at the hands of police is the continuation of centuries of bloodshed, violence, murder & a lack of belief in the idea that Black lives matter.
We cannot heal until we recognize our deep-rooted disease—and fight it. 11/
We cannot heal until we recognize our deep-rooted disease—and fight it. 11/
It's not about this guy. It's about us.
And by "us," yeah, I guess I mean the country generally. But, really, it's about white people.
