politicsTwitter is an ephemeral medium. You scroll through tweets just fast enough for them to register in your head, and then they’re gone forever. If you want to find something again, you can go to somebody’s profile and scroll through, one tweet at a time, until you find what you wanted.
This is a lousy way of capturing history. That’s not great, because Twitter does such a good job of capturing important moments, as they happen. If you want to save that moment, though, what can you do? What do you do if you think a day’s tweets are important? Print them out?
Well, I did. Here is what I tweeted and retweeted, on a page. Tactile. To be read.
Fri Jan 01 00:21:56 +0000 2021i wonder what will happen
(edit 2021-01-11: added a few more tweets in here)
What would we do without the police?§
Wed Jan 06 20:42:54 +0000 2021Cops are taking selfies with the terrorists.
Wed Jan 06 21:00:08 +0000 2021RT @envinyon: "wow the police must be overwhelmed"
the police:
Thu Jan 07 01:49:51 +0000 2021RT @dpetrohilos: .@DCPoliceDept just claimed they don’t do mass arrests in dc
I’ve been mass arrested once, charged with felonies from a…
Thu Jan 07 02:14:24 +0000 2021RT @AthertonKD: If police as currently constituted are unwilling to hold the line against an armed takeover, then they have failed in their…
Thu Jan 07 03:30:36 +0000 2021RT @GravelInstitute: D.C. police only arrested 13 people today.
Fri Jan 08 03:31:55 +0000 2021RT @gregpmiller: Pentagon leaders installed as part of Trump purge last month blocked DC National Guard from getting riot gear and ammuniti…
Thu Jan 07 22:55:47 +0000 2021Now that we know for sure (lol) that the conservative movement was infiltrated by terrorists, it’s going to take years to unravel republican policy and filter all the evil bits out, if they even try to do it.
Fri Jan 08 02:38:34 +0000 2021RT @thisisbrookeb: waving the blue lives matter flag as you openly disobey law enforcement is extra cool because it illustrates how your fl…
There are two Americas.§
Wed Jan 06 20:59:08 +0000 2021RT @thejuliacarter: There are two Americas.
Thu Jan 07 01:34:13 +0000 2021RT @MartyOropeza: For the record this was the US Capitol during the BLM Protestors
Wed Jan 06 22:35:02 +0000 2021RT @Public_Citizen: For reference, there were 14,000+ arrests at the George Floyd protests.
Thu Jan 07 01:22:50 +0000 2021RT @KrystinaArielle: Black people have been killed for just existing. Black children have been killed for just playing. These people storme…
Wed Jan 06 22:34:07 +0000 2021One of the pro-Trump rioters on the Capitol steps gets a hand down the stairs from a D.C. police officer.
Thu Jan 07 01:44:14 +0000 2021RT @AshleyEsqueda: Remember the old guy who got shoved into the ground because he walked toward a cop
Sat Jan 09 19:14:54 +0000 2021RT @socialistdogmom: that's cool. when i was arrested for standing on a sidewalk while i was on my way to cover a protest that hadn't even…
Sun Jan 10 21:11:24 +0000 2021RT @GWillowWilson: I'm really having trouble reconciling this new FBI that is suddenly bound by due process and red tape with the one that…
Sun Jan 10 21:42:54 +0000 2021RT @__seab: I don’t think it’s wild that the republicans and Blue Lives Matter people don’t care that a cop died. I do think it’s interesti…
Trump incited it§
Thu Jan 07 01:20:46 +0000 2021RT @maggieNYT: NEW: Trump initially rebuffed and resisted requests to mobilize the National Guard, according to a person with knowledge of…
Wed Jan 06 21:02:26 +0000 2021RT @charlie_savage: Trump told his supporters on the Mall that Republicans have been too nice, like a boxer with his hands tied behind his…
Replying to charlie_savage:Wed Jan 06 20:10:30 +0000 2021“demand” that Congress “confront this egregious assault on our democracy” (that is, his loss to Biden), & kept exhorting them that “you have to show strength and you have to be strong” and “you will never take back our country with weakness.” /2
Wed Jan 06 21:03:17 +0000 2021RT @EdStern: Well that escalated steadily for four years.
Thu Jan 07 01:26:43 +0000 2021"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" wasn’t just a joke
Thu Jan 07 03:01:52 +0000 2021Trump takes the turbulent priest thing to a new, more dangerous level by providing these little (plausibly deniable) tidbits for his extremist base to organize around twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
Thu Jan 07 18:34:32 +0000 2021RT @zeynep: I wrote about why Trump's latest—threatening a Republican electoral official to try to get him to “find 11,780 votes" for him i…
Thu Jan 07 02:08:51 +0000 2021RT @DavidCornDC: .@SenatorDurbin leans hard into Trump's call to the GA SoS and slams Trump: "This mob was invited to come to Washington on…
Thu Jan 07 03:28:48 +0000 2021RT @gabrielsherman: Per source, White House counsel Pat Cipollone told west wing staffers today not to help Trump stage a coup or else they…
Fri Jan 08 00:47:45 +0000 2021Well, I'd like to see the QAnon community rationalize THIS new development instead of facing reality.
*The QAnon community rationalizes this new development instead of facing reality easily*
Ah! Well. Nevertheless,
Fri Jan 08 01:05:52 +0000 2021If you listen to his speech, Trump goes out of his way not to mention Biden or conceding. It's carefully chosen language designed to encourage people like this. twitter.com/travis_view/st…
Fri Jan 08 03:08:01 +0000 2021RT @Olivianuzzi: Donald Trump was annoyed by the violent siege on the Capitol Wednesday — which left several dead — because it looked “low…
Fri Jan 08 03:08:06 +0000 2021RT @Olivianuzzi: The adviser confirmed that he was watching television coverage of the siege enthusiastically, but noted that the sight of…
Sun Jan 10 01:06:13 +0000 2021RT @andrewkimmel: Here’s Alex Jones admitting the orders were coming from Donald Trump.
This shouldn’t surprise you.§
Wed Jan 06 21:07:18 +0000 2021I am legitimately baffled by anyone who is surprised by today’s events.
Replying to giovan_h:Wed Jan 06 21:09:52 +0000 2021What did you think antifa has been protesting about? Why did you ignore years of police showing extreme bias in their use of force? What did you THINK was going to happen?
Replying to giovan_h:Wed Jan 06 21:16:54 +0000 2021I’m glad this is the last straw for SOMEBODY, but it shouldn’t have been. People have been warning about this exact danger for years. To be surprised today is to be ashamed that it took you this long.
Replying to giovan_h:Wed Jan 06 21:24:13 +0000 2021At this point anyone involved in policy or nat. defense should drop everything they’re doing, run to antifa, and plead “How did you know this was coming? Please, teach us”
Replying to giovan_h:Wed Jan 06 21:26:13 +0000 2021Because today we learned that antifa -- whatever political theories they use, whatever assumptions about human nature they made, whatever dangers they saw in institutional racism -- were right.
Thu Jan 07 00:46:33 +0000 2021RT @BreeNewsome: Again--the ppl who didn't see this coming a long ways off, who didn't appreciate that Trump needed to be removed from offi…
Thu Jan 07 01:48:22 +0000 2021RT @IwriteOK: People keep giving me credit for "predicting" this.
I predicted nothing. I read what these people wrote online about what th…
Thu Jan 07 03:34:56 +0000 2021White House officials were shaken by Trump's reaction to a mob of his supporters descending on the Capitol today. He was described to me as borderline enthusiastic because it meant the certification was being derailed. It has genuinely freaked people out.
Thu Jan 07 04:32:18 +0000 2021There is a small contingency of people who wouldn't let themselves see it until now. There's an "oh my god, I've been serving a monster" moment. twitter.com/kaitlancollins…
Thu Jan 07 22:40:08 +0000 2021i joined the leopards eating people's faces party for their economic policy. i never expected this
Sat Jan 09 19:13:47 +0000 2021RT @juliacarriew: If you spent time in pro-Trump, Back the Blue, Reopen, or QAnon Facebook groups over the past 9 months, this will be less…
Rewriting history in real time§
Wed Jan 06 20:27:23 +0000 2021CNN has begun calling these individuals anarchists and the events an insurrection
Thu Jan 07 01:32:38 +0000 2021RT @RottenInDenmark: Ah yes, "anarchy," the thing where you want to keep an incumbent president in power forever. twitter.com/TalKopan/statu…
Thu Jan 07 04:40:19 +0000 2021RT @magpiekilljoy: anarchist does not mean "anyone opposed to the current government" and people attempting a coup on the behalf of the sit…
Thu Jan 07 20:06:25 +0000 2021Lindsey Graham says he doesn't support invoking the 25th Amendment right now but “if something else happens, all options would be on the table."
Thu Jan 07 22:13:21 +0000 2021For some reason the phrase “moving the goalposts” springs to mind twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/st…
Thu Jan 07 00:39:23 +0000 2021Here's Lou Dobbs and Rep. Mo Brooks baselessly speculating that the hundreds of insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol today actually may have included antifa false flag elements.
Replying to MattGertz:Thu Jan 07 00:47:35 +0000 2021Now Sarah Palin, on a Fox "news" show, says "we don't know who all were the instigators in this of these horrible things that happen today, I think a lot of it is the antifa folks" per "pictures she was sent, no response at all from Martha MacCallum.
There is no Fox "news" side.
Replying to MattGertz:Thu Jan 07 01:21:56 +0000 2021"Maybe there were antifa infiltrators" just jumped to Tucker Carlson's show.
Replying to MattGertz:Thu Jan 07 02:05:55 +0000 2021Fox's senior political analyst.
Replying to MattGertz:Thu Jan 07 03:04:56 +0000 2021Laura Ingraham says the insurrectionists were "antithetical to the MAGA movement" and "there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been sprinkled throughout the crowd."
All three Fox primetime shows have now pushed this baseless rumor.
Thu Jan 07 04:00:06 +0000 2021Stop saying history will judge them. Judge them now. With judges.
Thu Jan 07 05:58:26 +0000 2021History is famously bad at judging. Let judges do it. In courts. This is why we have them twitter.com/JoeSondow/stat…
Replying to Mike_Pence:Fri Jan 08 18:37:05 +0000 2021Officer Sicknick is an American hero who gave his life defending our Capitol and this Nation will never forget or fail to honor the service and sacrifice of Officer Brian Sicknick.
Fri Jan 08 19:34:37 +0000 2021If he died defending the capitol, that would make what happened an “attack” on the capitol twitter.com/mike_pence/sta…
Fri Jan 08 02:38:06 +0000 2021RT @mguybowman: I can tell you what IS Orwellian: the characterization of yesterday's events as involving "antifa" in any way is a delibera…
The Undesirables§
Fri Jan 08 03:33:40 +0000 2021falling back on “terrorists” to describe people who committed acts of war against their own country
Thu Jan 07 01:55:30 +0000 2021RT @samwineburg: Take this in: Never once, in the years 1860-1865, was this flag ever paraded in the halls of the American capitol. https:/…
Wed Jan 06 22:28:40 +0000 2021Journalists still asking if this was planned or it just "happened" somehow.
Thu Jan 07 04:18:47 +0000 2021RT @melissagira: they had fucking merch twitter.com/willjennings80…
Replying to igorbobic:Wed Jan 06 19:57:21 +0000 2021Several people got on to a scaffolding outside Senate, took it to second floor, which looked like the area where McConnell’s office is located, and started banging on windows
Thu Jan 07 04:19:42 +0000 2021RT @SethColaner: He...threw the American flag to the ground to make room for the Trump flag. That's it...that's the whole metaphor. https:/…
Replying to MalcolmNance:Wed Jan 06 21:00:45 +0000 2021@MalcolmNance They were planning to take hostages.
Thu Jan 07 04:20:30 +0000 2021RT @IwriteOK: a protester in the Capitol with what appears to be a handgun on his hip and zipties, to take congressional hostages. hundreds…
Fri Jan 08 19:37:09 +0000 2021RT @jimbourg: I heard at least 3 different rioters at the Capitol say that they hoped to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by…
Thu Jan 07 14:31:42 +0000 2021SCOOP-
The devices found near the RNC and DNC headquarters on Wednesday were actual explosive devices, not phonies, according to a senior federal law enforcement official briefed on the investigations.
Thu Jan 07 18:01:43 +0000 2021RT @BostonJerry: They brought real bombs, and then the cops just let everyone go.
The bombmakers are out there, free and clear, and there'…
Fri Jan 08 00:34:07 +0000 2021RT @333333333433333: the "anti-woke" mocked AOC for tweeting "im okay" as if she's some self-obsessed selfie-millennial stereotype and not…
Thu Jan 07 17:22:39 +0000 2021“This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.” bit.ly/2LbkWpp
Thu Jan 07 20:07:21 +0000 2021Oh look, the quiet part out loud again. twitter.com/thenation/stat…
Fri Jan 08 00:03:22 +0000 2021RT @adamgurri: It really doesn't get starker than this, laying out this particular worldview twitter.com/thenation/stat…
Thu Jan 07 18:35:43 +0000 2021RT @vexwerewolf: Decades of careful propagandising and doublespeak to hide the exact same intent this white woman just blurted out in full…
Thu Jan 07 18:41:37 +0000 2021RT @Acosta: Source close to the VP says Trump pressured Pence to engineer a coup, then put the VP and his family in danger. https://t.co/nC…
Fri Jan 08 00:09:40 +0000 2021Terror attacks by people worked up into a violent frenzy warrant an examination of the technology* that incited the emotional frenzy.
*A broad category including Facebook but also broad ideas like advertising campaigns and the quality of journalism
Replying to giovan_h:Fri Jan 08 00:14:13 +0000 2021“Why angry people staged a riot” doesn’t interest me. It’s trivial. The interesting question here is “Why did they believe the lies that made them angry?”
Replying to giovan_h:Fri Jan 08 00:17:57 +0000 2021Some platforms made an attempt to combat disinformation campaigns (because they realized disinfo campaigns lead to people believing legitimately dangerous lies) but didn't have a coherent approach for systematically preventing them
Replying to giovan_h:Fri Jan 08 00:19:59 +0000 2021(A coherent ban on disinformation, of course, leads to all SORTS of other extremely hard problems which, if you're a giant tech company, are terrifying. Half-assing it irritated everyone on both sides but wasn't as offensive as taking an actual position.)
Fri Jan 08 00:33:06 +0000 2021RT @ClaireJChu: Friend just texted me, horrified, after realizing that her ex was a part of the violent mob in the Capitol today. He’s a we…
Thu Jan 07 14:21:45 +0000 2021I wonder what all the people who ransacked the US Capitol yesterday are doing today.
Thu Jan 07 18:31:23 +0000 2021RT @EricHaywood: Half of them put their uniforms back on and returned to patrol duty. The other half went back to being your doctors, your…
Wed Jan 06 20:20:44 +0000 2021This may be the lasting image of today
Thu Jan 07 06:30:30 +0000 2021RT @elisethoma5: For me, the striking thing about so many of these images of rioters in the Capitol is that what they're doing - all of the…
Sat Jan 09 04:15:32 +0000 2021RT @dynamicsymmetry: And here’s what really gets me.
Do people like Cruz and Hawley actually think they would have been safe?
They proba…
Sat Jan 09 19:21:01 +0000 2021RT @Olivia_Beavers: Meanwhile, this what’s happening on Parler
Sat Jan 09 19:32:33 +0000 2021Bad news for the economic conservatives who are rightfully outraged by Trump’s mob: as of this week, when people say “conservatives”, they are no longer talking about you.
Sun Jan 10 01:06:03 +0000 2021RT @59dallas: Trump supporters chanting 'HANG MIKE PENCE' at the Capitol Building
Sun Jan 10 01:06:05 +0000 2021RT @steve_vladeck: The insurrectionists were attempting to kill the first and second people in line to succeed the President and to prevent…
Sun Jan 10 21:12:41 +0000 2021RT @FrankLuntz: The mob beat an unconscious Capitol Police officer in full uniform to death.
What do you think they would have done if the…
Sun Jan 10 21:43:35 +0000 2021RT @OlgaNYC1211: Chilling
"They had a map of the tunnels [in the basement of the Capitol], and they were talking about how they're going…
Sun Jan 10 21:44:49 +0000 2021
tech companies§
Thu Jan 07 02:29:56 +0000 2021RT @eevee: well it took three years and 351 days, including three months of explicitly fostering violent insurrection against the us govern…
Sat Jan 09 01:16:32 +0000 2021In the past 48 hours:
-Twitter banned QAnon accounts
-Twitter banned Trump
-Reddit banned r/donaldtrump
-Reddit banned the head moderator of r/conspiracy
-YouTube banned Steve Bannon's show
-Discord banned TheDonald dot win's channel
-Google banned Parler from its app store
Sat Jan 09 03:05:02 +0000 2021It's been possible to do this all along. People knew it. The dangers had been explained backwards and forwards. They only waited until now to do it so they could keep profiting off these people for as long as possible. twitter.com/AlKapDC/status…
Fri Jan 08 23:44:02 +0000 2021RT @bombsfall: The twitter ban and the white house resignations etc over the past couple days just makes you all the more aware of how ever…
Sat Jan 09 19:29:41 +0000 2021RT @mcclure111: Does monopolist corporate control of speech venues restrict freedom? Yes!
Up until recent, conservatives were *benefiting*…
Sun Jan 10 06:20:22 +0000 2021
Sat Jan 09 19:15:07 +0000 2021RT @shaun_vids: i see a lot of people celebrating trump being banned, but i for one am very concerned about what this means for freedom of…
Impact§
Thu Jan 07 18:51:12 +0000 2021please enjoy the nauseatingly weaselly email you got today from your boss about how america is better than the things it regularly does and it's important both sides respect each other because divisiveness is the real terrorism
Thu Jan 07 03:13:02 +0000 2021RT @JennJayBee: @MEPFuller @lyman_brian Someone on reddit mentioned that there are bullet holes in the door and suggested that the door rem…
Fri Jan 08 19:35:59 +0000 2021RT @BernieSanders: Some people ask: Why would you impeach and convict a president who has only a few days left in office? The answer: Prece…
Thu Jan 07 04:34:41 +0000 2021RT @Patrick_Wyman: I can't stress this enough: From the top down, if the people responsible for today's events face no consequences for wha…
Thu Jan 07 05:57:46 +0000 2021"This isn't who we are!" is the "Not ALL men" of political rhetoric; it's who ENOUGH of us are that it's a problem. There are enough of them to overthrow the federal capitol. There are too many to hand-wave away.
Wed Jan 06 21:30:00 +0000 2021America is so much better than what we’re seeing today.
Thu Jan 07 01:49:20 +0000 2021RT @lightskintiger: twitter.com/joebiden/statu…
Thu Jan 07 04:20:01 +0000 2021RT @mguybowman: "This is not America"? Have you watched the news ever?
Sat Jan 09 21:13:51 +0000 2021RT @pramsey342: They might as well just say "Hail Hydra"
Sun Jan 10 21:52:08 +0000 2021RT @MahouPoint: Republicans calling for unity after being caught red-handed inciting a failed coup run by a seditious demagogue they held u…
Sun Jan 10 22:58:09 +0000 2021
Sun Jan 10 22:58:11 +0000 2021RT @attackerman: Notice it’s “tHeY wAnt tO caLl *ME* a tErroRisT” and not “for 20 years they put innocent people, my own neighbors, into th…
Unsorted§
Thu Jan 07 02:05:03 +0000 2021RT @itvnews: Watch @robertmooreitv's report from inside the Capitol building as the extraordinary events unfolded in Washington DC
https://…
Fri Jan 08 19:24:45 +0000 2021RT @phillmv: oh shit i wonder how much it costs to read the conspiracy websites
Fri Jan 08 02:37:49 +0000 2021RT @dynamicsymmetry: The main reasons offered by scholars tend to be aggrieved nationalism, backlash against the ineffective Weimar governm…
Fri Jan 08 03:30:38 +0000 2021RT @mattblaze: The violence at the Capitol yesterday will rightly be a source of outrage that we should remember. But we also must not forg…
Sat Jan 09 01:41:39 +0000 2021RT @petridishes: At This Time I’d Like To Resign From My Job Working On This Death Star
Sat Jan 09 19:14:47 +0000 2021RT @Atrios: don't think it's been stated clearly often enough that President Trump tried to have Vice President Pence killed