Zack Beauchamp

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

McConnell isn't a Trumpist or post-liberal radical. Everything I've read suggests he's motivated, more than anything else, by partisan victory: by beating the other team as thoroughly and frequently as possible. People like this enable the radicals to threaten institutions. — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

This is a textbook example of how extreme partisanship forecloses the political reforms necessary to safeguard democracy — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@alexbward buddy i miss working with you 90 percent because of your awful puns — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@amandaripley That's a really interesting observation, about planning for the unexpected, that I hadn't thought of — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

RT @annagalland: This is a bracing, hard read from @zackbeauchamp, looking at some varieties of political violence that could lie ahead if… — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@cblatts @BrendanNyhan @jkertzer @jmurtazashvili @ethanbdm 💗💗 — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@CowboysStats Bottom right is stupid. Bottom left is innumerate. Top right is racist. — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

RT @dylanmatt: One of many things I appreciate about this essay from @zackbeauchamp is the work it does to surface Italy's Years of Lead as… — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@charlie_simpson @qjurecic This is great — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

RT @ezraklein: "Extreme polarization creates a kind of legislative Catch-22: Zero-sum politics means we can’t get bipartisan majorities to… — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

RT @normative: Stop looking for hidden smoking guns. As with Russia, they did it in public. You don’t need new secret information, you just… — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

Addendum: the piece talks about one big reason civil war is unlikely, the strength of US coercive apparatus. But a few other important factors not listed that I want to emphasize: -professional military -extremely high GDP per capita -no recent history of civil war — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

I wish the conversation about political violence in the US had more nuance. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition, civil war or civil peace. There's a lot of room between poles that's still dangerous. And something like that — America's Years of Lead — is what concerns me. — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

I take @bfwalter's argument that the US is experiencing the conditions that make a civil war more likely very seriously in the piece, because I think those conditions are setting us up for escalated political violence. But I repeatedly say *civil war* isn't likely in the piece. https://t.co/Hz5UqTFQZv — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

The piece outlines several long-term likely futures for the United States, including forms of authoritarianization and political reform. Civil war is not among them. In terms of political violence, the piece makes several immediate-term predictions. Here's what they look like https://t.co/6N6KsOjLp0 — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

I've seen scholars I really respect (@BrendanNyhan, @jkertzer, @jmurtazashvili, @ethanbdm, and @cblatts among others) responding to my new feature by arguing that the risk of civil war in the US is very low https://t.co/kxPElRox4y To which I say: I agree! And so does the piece — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

RT @ianbassin: If you want to really understand the democracy crisis and what could come next, this is an excellent piece by @zackbeauchamp… — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

RT @ccaryl: Excellent overview by @zackbeauchamp of possible scenarios for the breakdown of U.S. democracy. Someone please tell me why I sh… — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@CoreyRobin I’m aware of that work, and am in fact skeptical in the piece that this part of the strategy would work as intended! But I’m describing what elite Democrats might think and what the effects might be, not drawing a one-to-one literal parallel https://t.co/R3anyESWRR — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

RT @ThePlumLineGS: A host of new factors in our politics have dramatically raised the stakes when it comes to the battle for control of sta… — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@CoreyRobin This gets clarified later on, but I’m mostly talking about the early Cold War - because progress you’re taking about shatters the political consensus and low polarization that prevailed mid-century. — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

RT @AmyEricaSmith: I am an optimist by nature, too. It pains me to say this, but my scholarly opinion is that @zackbeauchamp is right. Th… — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@RogueWPA “Attendant radicalization”is referring to the right’s anti-democratic turn since 2010. Identity polarization is a key cause of that turn but not identical with it; the Great Awokening is (mostly) orthogonal to the dynamic — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@OsitaNwanevu I don't think any of that is wrong, exactly. But I also think that they're distinct phenomena from the root causes of our current crisis, which are decades older, and more directly on display on January 6 (the original point of contention) — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

RT @SwatiGauri: This is such an important (and terrifying) read: Where the crisis in American democracy headed? From @zackbeauchamp https:/… — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@ErikRobson @HeerJeet Yep — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@OsitaNwanevu I don't agree. There's not *no* connection, but there's much less than is commonly assumed. The Bush admin is the apogee of pro-immigration reform sentiment on the right and "globalist" politics like PEPFAR — there's a reason Trump ran away from him — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

@maxberger absolutely — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

These things are related to some degree, but not as much as some commentators have suggested. In a story of American decline — even relative power decline on the global stage — putting too much emphasis on the financial crisis and war on terror can be misleading. — PolitiTweet.org

Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp

To expand on this point: the root causes of America's crisis of democracy are not primarily economic crisis or military debacles, but rising polarization around race/immigration and the attendant radicalization of one of its leading parties — PolitiTweet.org