Twitter: The Essential Battleground for The Resistance

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Last week, after Donald Trump, the purported President of the United States, learned the Democratic-dominated House of Representatives would, in fact, begin impeachment inquiries, he took to Twitter to tweet more than 100 times in a single day.  He went from whining, to bragging, to threatening a whistle-blower, to predicting civil war if we didn't stop messing with him.

Trump has latched onto Twitter like a leech on the jugular and uses it as an unseemly venue for official policy, as his own personal PR firm, and as the delivery system for threats and intimidation against anyone or any organization threatening to expose or topple him.

It's because he understands the power of Twitter better than almost anybody.

Almost anybody.

There are Trump acolytes, there are trolls, there are bots, there are masters of disinformation everywhere, but I'm here to talk about those of us working against Trump, using Twitter to do it.

We are the #Resistance and we never sleep. We're out there and our numbers are growing. For us, Twitter is a battleground, it's a staging area, it's headquarters for those leading the charge against the tyranny that is Trumpism.

We're the witnesses, the couriers, the voices of the opposition. We follow the good guys and shed light on the disinformation coming from the bad guys, and, if nothing else comes of it, we take satisfaction where we can get it: We know we're getting to Trump when he has to tweet more than 100 times in a single day.

Through Twitter, we get real-time updates on the battles raging on every front, and we send them on, like smoke signals, to the resistance pods all around the country.

Is there a protest coming up? We know about it. Is there a March in the works? We pass along the info, right down to where to catch the buses.

When this rogue administration abuses citizens or foreigners or refugees, we've read the first hand accounts from the victims or their families and we send out tweets to lawyers or scholars or social justice warriors who are known to us now and are ready to help.

When someone fights the system and is in danger of being harmed, we expose the abuses. We know who to tweet to give them a hand. Millions of us retweet the information to give it more visibility.

Twitter is a morass of bad information but it's also a funnel for good journalism.  When the press and/or the pundits get it right, we send their stories into the viralsphere. When they get it wrong, we show them the error of their ways--and we often win. We win because they can't ignore the Twitter warriors coming down on them, forcing them to look again.

Because the other side Tweets, too, we know their thoughts and see right through them. In mere minutes we can counter and dilute their lies. In mere minutes.

As with any war zone, there is a dark side. You may have noticed. There are forces working against the resistance, and they're experts at obfuscating and gaslighting. They're ruthless and formidable and sometimes terrifying. They come from every corner of the planet. Sometimes they're real and sometimes they're not.  It's easy to get caught up in a whirlwind attack meant to intimidate and shut the resister down, but the Twitter Resistance community knows the difference and spreads the word.

That's where courage comes in, and we're bravest when we're not alone. The list below is my own personal list of people to follow on Twitter. I look to them for expertise, for analysis, for inspiration. I trust them. I know they've done their homework, and I know if they make a mistake they'll own up to it.

If you're new to Twitter, don't be intimidated by its uniqueness. Embrace it. When you follow any of these people, be sure to retweet their tweets. Retweeting begets retweeting and, if it begets often enough, it sends a viral message to the opposition. There are more of us than there are of them, and we're real. Don't buy into the lie that retweeting does no good. Getting our message out is part of being a community. This is how we do it.  Commenting helps, too, even if you disagree. This is a dialogue, a conversation, a convention. Be a part of it.

These are our people and they're preaching to the choir, they're using their bullhorns to yell it loud, they're showing us by their light that ethics and decency are not dead. (Some of them are hilariously entertaining, but we need that, too.)

If Trump wants a digital civil war, we're way ahead of him. We're already at the battlements. New recruits are coming in every day. We're an all-volunteer army and we won't stop until we've stopped the madness.

Some of our Twitter buddies, in first name alphabetical order. (Because it just looks better.)
Check them out. This isn't a complete list, by any means, and I've left off politicians and publications (because they're easy to find and I needed to save space), but it's a start. I'll be adding to the list so come back often. Let me know if I've missed someone you think should be here:


Adam Parkhomenko
Alyssa Milano
Amy Siskind
Andrea Chalupa
Andy Lassner
Ana Navarro-Cardenas
Asha Rangappa
Aunt Crabby Calls Bullshit

Barbara Malmet
Barb McQuade
Bob Cesca
Brian Beutler
Brian J. Karem 
Bryce Tache

Charles Blow
Charles P. Pierce
Charlotte Clymer
Connie Schultz
Chris Savage - Eclectablog

Dan Froomkin
Dan Rather
Daniel Dale
David Corn
David Rothkopf
David Weissman
Dean Obeidallah
Debra Messing
Dr. Dena Grayson
digby
Driftglass

Elie Mystal
Eric Boehlert 
Eugene Robinson

Glenn Kirschner
GottaLaff 
Greg Sargent

Heidi N. Moore
HoarseWhisperer 
Howard Dean

Ian Millhiser

Jacob Soboroff
Jason Johnson
Jason Karsh
Jay Rosen
Jed Shugerman
Jennifer Rubin
Jill Wine Banks
Jim Acosta
Joan Walsh
John Fugelsang
John Pavlovitz
Josh Marshall
Joshua Holland
Joy Reid
Joyce Alene (Joyce White Vance)
Judd Legum

Karoli
Kurt Eichenwald 
Kyle Griffin

Larry Sabato
Laurence Tribe
Lawrence O'Donnell

Malcolm Nance
Margaret Sullivan
Mark Hamill
Maya Wiley
Michael McFaul
Mimi Rocah 
Molly Jong-Fast

Natasha Bertrand
Neal Katyal
Neera Tanden
Nicolle Wallace
Norman Goldman

Patton Oswalt
Preet Bharara
Prof Helen
Paul Krugman

Rabbi Jill Zimmerman
Rachel Maddow
RAICES (@RAICESTEXAS)
Renato Mariotti
Rob Reiner
Roland Scahill

Rosa Brooks

Sarah Kendzior
Scott Dworkin
Seth Abramson 
Shannon Watts
Simon Rosenberg
Soledad O'Brien
Steven Beschloss
Susie Madrak

Tim O'Brien
Tony Schwartz

Uncle Blazer 

Walter Shaub
Will Bunch

Yamiche Alcindor

 Susan Elizabeth (my daughter)
And me: Ramona Grigg. Because, as you can see, I know people.

News from Michigan, the Nation's First Dictator State

It could be that with all that's going on in the world you might have missed what's happening closer to home, in the sovereign state of Michigan.  In just over two years, since businessman and venture capitalist Rick Snyder became governor, bringing along with him a Republican majority in the legislature and in most courts (including the Supreme one), with a push from the Tea Party, the Koch Brothers and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, our beautiful state has suffered under the country's first duly elected dictatorship.

In March of 2011, two months after his inauguration, Snyder pushed through a draconian Emergency Financial Manager law, essentially giving him the authority to appoint one person to take over the governing of any municipality or school system deemed failing by Our Man Snyder.

In November, 2012 the voters, finally coming to their senses, soundly voted down that outrageously unconstitutional law.  A few weeks later Snyder's minions, ignoring the wishes of the voters, not only reinstated the law, they added wording that would keep the voters from ever voting it down again.

This slid by just days after the Republicans stuck it to the already bruised and bleeding unions by making Michigan, the home of the labor movement, a Right-to-Work state. 

Just last week, the Republican legislature was back working on a bill that would allow health care providers to refuse services to patients/customers for religious or moral reasons.  It's a transparent smackdown of abortion and contraception, but it could also affect anybody from gays to Muslims to blacks to liberal Democrats.

And two days ago, DemocracyTree reported this:

Today the Michigan House Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee passed a bill that will punish any university that negotiates with its union for an extended contract prior to the Right-to-Work law going into effect on March 28th. If this bill becomes law, universities stand to lose 15 percent of their funding for any contract negotiated between the Dec. 10th lame-duck RTW law and the March 28th enactment.
The Associated Press reports that Wayne State University could lose $27 million if they follow through with renegotiating their contract. Among universities rumored to be in contract talks are Michigan State University, Lansing Community College, and Western Michigan University.  

And this dispatch from Eclectablog yesterday.  It appears the GOP is caving to Tea Party interests in Michigan again. Medicaid expansion and the state-run Obamacare health exchange will be dead in the water unless they either grow hearts or come to their senses. (I won't hold my breath.)

And it goes on.  Because that's how it works in Michigan now.  The goal is to stop all democratic processes, including governing, in order to allow private profiteers to take over and make bundles off of us.  Roads?  Bridges?  Schools?  Health?  Human services? Out of our hands and going to the highest bidder. (They'll still collect taxes, of course, because. . .why not?)

Now they're working at making life even harder for old and disabled veterans.  The Grand Rapids Home for Veterans, one of two state vets homes, has been turned over to private contractors and, as predicted, it's a mess.  (I'm still trying to figure out how a state-run veteran's home, partially funded by the Feds, can just willy-nilly decide to privatize, but apparently it's one of those loopholes none of us ever has access to.)

From the Free Press this morning:

The contract employees are paid about half as much as the state employees, who made a little more than $20 an hour at the top of their pay rate.
The state workers, who belong to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, say the lower wage results in inexperienced and inadequately trained workers and high turnover.
Tammy Porter, a licensed practical nurse who still works at the home, cited examples of inadequate and negligent care she said she had witnessed. She also read a letter from Andrea Rossman of Saginaw, who works as a nursing director at a health facility and whose father, Joe Vela, lives at the Grand Rapids Home.
On Saturday and Sunday, the home was understaffed and Vela wasn't given a chance to go to the restroom, eat breakfast, or take his medications in a timely manner, Rossman said in the letter. The delayed medication meant "my father's life was put in peril," she said.

There's more.  There's always more.  I can barely keep up, but thankfully there are others who do.

Chris Savage at Eclectablog works tirelessly to get this information out.

Democracy Tree keeps Michigan political news out there, too, as do many others.

Scroll down to the bottom of my "Michigan Under Siege" page for the growing list.

If you want to pass any of this on, we would appreciate it.  We need all the help we can get. (And, by the way, we're worth it.)

Lower Tahquamenon Falls - Upper Peninsula (Photo: Ramona Grigg)