Ds should have been much stronger on their verbal, but especially on their visual, messaging re: affordability in the 2024 election.

They need to improve there, especially as Trump supplies damning visuals of ostentatious parties while the poorest Americans get poorer.

Another lesson, for both Rs & Ds, is this:

Visuals matter. They matter a lot.

Trump often ignored the table of groceries to rant about jailing his opponents. But voters got the affordability message from those powerful grocery table visuals nonetheless.

And while many people might no longer be able to afford eggs after SNAP (food stamp assistance to buy food) benefits are rescinded for the poorest.

There are lessons for both Rs & Ds here.

The lesson for Rs is to cut it out if they don’t want Ds to defeat them on affordability.

Saied is punishing everyone who strove for a democratic Tunisia. Men & women who, for all their flaws, were part of its democracy for the 10 years it existed (2011-21).

The death of the Arab world’s first democracy is a central story for the region. Don’t forget Tunisia ❤️‍🩹

But stop & think about the message that it would send to violent, uncompromisingly reactionary or even jihadist Islamists if Tunisia’s Rached Ghannounchi—who led history’s most peaceful & compromising “Islamist” party—was rewarded for that by dying as a political prisoner anyway.

Any day now, these men could perish in prison.

The symbolic importance of that is practically never reported on, neither in Tunisia’s now autocracy-compliant press, nor by international media—for which Tunisia has become just another inconsequential police state again.

Not sure who you’re responding to here… I don’t share the views in these tweets. Ofc I understand the NYC mayor’s remit is local

Zohran: Goes from complete unknown to NYC’s first Muslim mayor in 1 yr w/ great ground game. Dramatically expands Overton Window for pro-🇵🇸 speech in US politics.

Popular post (1.3k likes) w/ 🔻🪂 accounts: “Zohran’s win shows the futility of electoral politics. Join a Leninist reading group instead!”

Meanwhile, Mamdani is a Muslim New Yorker who has appealed directly to overcoming the War on Terrorism’s legacy of discrimination.

That population was heavily surveilled & was a chief target of civil liberties violations under Bush-Cheney, including through the Patriot Act.

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The regime also moved her to a remote prison in Bulla Regia this summer bc it’s trying to keep the many political prisoners it holds from across Tunisia’s political spectrum out of view.

See:

www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/u...

apnews.com/article/tuni...

impactpolicies.org/news/520/why...

After completing her initial 16 month sentence in May 2025, Moussi was sentenced to an additional two years in June on related charges after another ISIE complaint.

Like the first, it’s bogus.

ISIE claimed she defamed it bc she publicly accused ISIE (whose independence Saied eviscerated in spring 2022) of organising unfair & illegitimate elections.

She was correct. But ISIE & Saied’s regime—now one & the same—jailed her 16 months for that in 2023.

But that’s not all:

She was never elected, alas. She was the authoritarian Magafuli’s VP. He died, she automatically became president, and this was her first election. The opposition party says 700+ people were killed, she didn’t allow them to run, shut internet off completely on election day & claimed to “win” by 97%.

Those who want Tanzania to embrace autocracy w/ a woman’s hands clenching the rod may admire Samia Suluhu Hassan.

But those looking for a female head of state w/ genuine confidence—to face her first election without cheating, killing & erasing more freedoms—should look elsewhere.

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