Presidential election, 2016

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-30-2016, 02:01 PM)TeacherinExile Wrote: I have tended to agree with Bob Butler in the past that we were not close enough (yet) to the kind of eliminationist rhetoric that triggers a spiral of violence against "The Other."  I am now prepared to say--seven years after David Neiwert first published his prescient book--that we are now dancing on the edge of the abyss.  The hate speech--and let's call it what it is--is no longer limited to the extremist windbags of talk radio or cable TV.  As author and journalist Chris Hedges has said before, "America Is a Tinderbox," and Trump and his ilk seem hell bent on lighting the match. 

I don't like where the deplorable wing of the Republican party is going with their rhetoric one bit, but it isn't spilling into violence yet. Then again, Trump hasn't lost the "rigged" election yet, either.

The other factor is that spirals spiral most when both sides are into it. The logic seems to be that an act of violence should intimidate the other side into backing down... when in fact the act of violence will often tick off the other side into reacting with a greater act of violence. While the deplorables are spinning hate, neither the government nor opposing political activists seem to be talking up the possibility of responding to violence with violence.

There is an awful lot of talk. I'm not sure we are truly set to explode. We'll see soon enough.