TCOT prepares for war

#TCOT is a twitter hashtag used on twitter to organize "Top Conservatives on Twitter."

If you do a search for #tcot on twitter, you get a firehose of right-wing extremism and snark. It's not that useful to search #tcot by itself because there is way too much to possibly be able to consume - in the time it takes me to write this sentence there have been over 75 new messages posted.

But if you search a topic or a phrase along with "#tcot" you can get snapshot of what GOP talking points conservative activists are promoting.

Here's an example:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, the NAACP, and other organizations dedicated to protecting American democracy have pointed out the dramatic rise in violent rhetoric spread by conservative activists since Obama was elected. Below I'm highlighting some of the images that accompany and reinforce this violence to make the following point:

Are Larry Kissell and other Democrats who advocate pacifying right-wing hate going to be able to winner over these activists or their audience? Clearly not. If conservative activists are willing to promote violence to block progressive reform, they are certainly going to get their base out to vote with an unequivocal message against all those in Obama's party. No amount of pandering or straddling or hedging is going to change that.

How is the Left going to match that surge of volunteers when our standard bearers are caving in on key progressive values?

Here is my image essay of #tcot engaged in public debate: